A public festival. It was celebrated amongst [the] Athenians for three days; during it the son of Sitalkes, the king of the Thracians, was registered in the citizenry.[1] They call the first [day] Dorpeia, when the members of phratries come together and are entertained in the evening; the second [they call] Anarrysis, on account of the sacrificing[2] - they used to sacrifice to Zeus Phratrios and to Athena; and the third [they call] Koureotis, from the enrolment of youths (kou/rous) and maidens into the phratries. This is the reason: the Athenians had a war on against the Boiotians over Kelainai, which was a place in their borderlands.[3] Xanthios, a Boiotian, challenged the Athenian king, Thymoites [to a fight]. When he did not accept, Melanthos, an expatriate Messenian from the stock of Periklymenos the son of Neleus, stood up to fight for the kingdom. While they were engaged in single combat, someone wearing a black goat-skin aegis appeared to Melanthos from behind Xanthios. So [Melanthos] said that it was not right to come two against one. [Xanthios] turned round. [Melanthos] smote him and killed him. And from this was generated both the festival Apatouria[4] and "of the Black Aegis" as an epithet of Dionysos.[5] But some say that because fathers go together alike through the enrolment of their sons, it is called the "same father" (o(mopato/ria) festival; in the same way we say that a spouse [is] of the same bed and a bed-mate, so also [we say] "the same father," Apatoria. And Aristophanes [writes]: "he wanted to eat sausages from the Apatouria."[6]