r CARYATIS, in Grecian antiquity, a festival celebrated yearly at Caryae, a village of Laconia, in honour of Diana surmounted Caryatis. The chief ceremony was the performance by Lacedaemonian maidens of a lively kind of dance, said to have been first instituted by Castor and Pollux. When Xerxes invaded Greece, the Laconians did not appear before the enemy for fear of displeasing the goddess by omitting to celebrate her festival as usual; but the neighbouring swains assembled at the place and sung pastorals or bucolic; to which circumstance some have referred the origin of bucolic poetry.