Sthenia
σθένια
Sthenia (σθένια), a festival with contests celebrated by the Argives in honour of Zeus surnamed Sthenius, who had an altar consisting of a large rock in the neighbourhood of Hermione (Hesych. sub voce Σθένια: compare Paus. 2.32.7; 34.6). Plutarch (de Mus. p. 1140 c) states that the πάλη or wrestling, which formed a part of the contests at this festival, was accompanied by the flute; and he also mentions a tradition according to which the festival had originally been held in honour of Danaus, and that it was afterwards consecrated to Zeus Sthenius.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.