Agrionia, a yearly festival in honor of Bacchus Agrionius, anciently held at Orchomenus, Bœotia, exclusively by women and priests. The women would make a pretended search for the god, and finally desist, saying he had escaped to the muses. Then all would assemble at a repast, and amuse themselves by guessing riddles; whence collections of riddles, charades, etc, have been called " Agrioniae." But the most remarkable part of the festival was the pursuit of a band of virgins by a priest with a drawn sword, who killed the one he caught as a sacrifice, in memory of the sacrifice of a boy by the daughters of Minyas in a Bacchic fury. In later times the killing was omitted.