Xanthika or Xandika was an ancient Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

ian annual festival, shortly before the vernal equinox, in the moth Xanthikos, containing a spring purification march of the army between the two halves of a sacrificed dog, which is associated with the assimilation of the new year's ephebe

Ephebos

Ephebos , also anglicised as ephebe or archaically ephebus , is a Greek word for an adolescent age group or a social status reserved for that age in Antiquity....

s into the army. According to a fragment of Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

 23.10 they make offerings to Xanthus

Xanthus

Xanthus may refer to:In Greek mythology:*Divine**Xanthus, the gods' name for Scamander, the great river of Troy and its patron god**Xanthus, one of the twelve sons of Pan who were allied with Dionysus*Human...

 as a hero, and perform a purification of the army with horses fully equipped. There was also a Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

n military festival of youths who sacrificed a dog to Enyalius

Enyalius

Enyalius or Enyalio in Greek mythology is generally a byname of Ares the god of war but in Mycenaean times is differentiated as a separate deity...

.