The Eleusis Challenge

Aeacus
Aeschylus
Agriculture
Anthesteria Festival
Artemis
Ascalaphus
Asklepios
Attis

Bee
Bootes

Chest (kiste)
Crete

Dead
Death
Deiknymena (object shown)
Demeter
Demigod
Demiphon**
Demophon
Dionysus
Drama
Dromena (ritual)

Eleusis
Entheogens
Epopteia (Visions)
Eubouleus

Festivals
Fire
Flowers, Fruits & Grains

Hades
Hearth
Hekate
Herakles
Hermes
Hestia
Horse

Iacchos
Initiation
Isis - Osiris

Key
Korybantes
Kykeon

Labyrinth
Legomena (Words spoken)
Lesser Mysteries
Liknon

Madness
Marriage
Mask
Milky Way
Mirror
Moon
Mysteries

Orpheus

Persephone
Pig
Plutos
Primary/Secondary Srcs
Profanation of Mysteries
Purification

Ram

Secrets
Sisyphus
Soul

Tantalus
Telesterion
Thesmophoria
Throne
Triptolemos

Underworld

Virgo

War Games
Women

Zagreus
Zeus

Aeacus

Now Aeacus was the most pious of men. Therefore, when Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, because in a war with Stymphalus, king of the Arcadians, being unable to conquer Arcadia, he slew the king under a pretense of friendship, and scattered his mangled limbs, oracles of the gods declared that Greece would be rid of its present calamities if Aeacus would offer prayers on its behalf. So Aeacus did offer prayers, and Greece was delivered from the death. Even after his death Aeacus is honored in the abode of Pluto, and keeps the keys of Hades.[1]

And so the envoys came with a request to Aeacus from each city. By sacrifice and prayer to Zeus, God of all the Greeks, he caused rain to fall upon the earth, and the Aeginetans made these likenesses of those who came to him. Within the enclosure are olive trees that have grown there from of old and there is an altar which is raised but a little from the ground. That this altar is also the tomb of Aeacus is told as a holy secret.[2]

Aeschylus

In the fifth century, Aeschylus improved the costumes used in the performances of tragedies at the festival of Dionysus. According to Athenaeus this influenced the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Aeschylus, too, besides inventing that comeliness and dignity of dress which Hierophants and Dadouchoi emulate, when they put on their vestments(Athenaeus 21e)

Athenaeus gives us a beautiful fragment from a non-extant play of Aeschylus, showing Love to be the essential factor behind Demeter's nurturing:
Again, the most august Aeschylus, in his Danaids, introduces Aphrodite herself saying: "The chaste heaven loves to violate the earth, and love lays hold on earth to join in wedlock. The rain from the streaming heaven falls down and impregnates the earth; and she brings forth her mortals the pasturage of sheep and Demeter's sustenance; and the ripe season for the trees is perfected by the watery union. Of all this I am the cause."(The Deipnosophists XIII, 600b)

Perseus was at the fine point of youth and exultant over his discovery of the discus which he was showing off to everyone, but Akrisios by a daemonic accident fell under the blow of the discus. The prophecy of the god was fulfilled for Akrisios, nor could his contrivances turn aside the destiny of his daughter and his daughter’s son. When Perseus returned to Argos...I have heard too that it happened he was thirst and pulled up a mykes (a mushroom) from the ground, and drank the water that rushed out, and that, liking it, he called the place Mycenae.[3] (In a footnote, Levi says: Akrisios was warned his daughter Danae=s son would be the death of him: he locked her in a tower but Zeus came to her in a shower of gold. Akrisios sent mother and child to sea in a chest. One of Simonides= longest fragments is from a wonderful poem about this, and the fragments of Aeschylus= satyr play the Diktyoulkoi are about the box being fished up.)

But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say Ait slipped out while they were speaking@ or Athey were not aware that the matter was a secret@ as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries.[4]

Aeschylus was accused before the Areopagus of having divulged the Mysteries of Demeter in certain of his tragedies, but was acquitted. A phrase of his, Ait came to my mouth@ became proverbial and he may have used it on this occasion.[5] (Note, this is from a footnote.)

For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together; then they are judged and depart to the other world with the guide whose task it is to conduct thither those who come from this world; and when they have there received their due and remained through the time appointed, another guide brings them back after many long periods of time. And the journey is not as Telephus says in the play of Aeschylus; for he says a simple path leads to the lower world, but I think the path is neither simple nor single, for if it were, there would be no need of guides, since no one could miss the way to any place if there were only one road. But really there seem to be many forks of the road and many windings; this I infer from the rites and ceremonies practiced here on earth. Now the orderly and wise soul follows its guide and understands its circumstances, bur the soul that is desirous of the body, as I said before, flits about it, and in the visible world for a long time.[6]

Since I am stressing the importance of the visual element in the Greek theater, Aeschylus may seem the obvious choice for special attention, since, as every handbook and introduction tells us, he was particularly lavish with his special effects. The word may prevaricate in sense between Awhat is seen@ on the one hand and Aoutward show@ on the other; and the word Aspectacle@ to some extent translates this range of meaning. One of my chief theses is that the use of xxx in the superficial sense has been overplayed with reference to Aeschylus and that his use of spectacle in the less blatant much more important sense has been neglected.[7]

Aeschylus was by far the most spectacular dramatist. Aeschylus is supposed to have astounded his spectators with exotic crowds and to have stunned them with huge and complex machines.[8]

The most influential of all the testimonia for the super-spectacular Aeschylus is the anonymous Life, which, while it does not seem to depend on Aristotle himself, does probably go back to a later Peripatetic source. Paragraph seven seems to imply that instead of enthralling his audience (like the best kind of dramatis) Aeschylus just horrified them out of their wits.[9]

The story (with suspiciously picturesque embroidery) of Aeschylus= trial before the Areopagus for betraying secrets of the Mysteries is definitely ascribed to the first book of Heracliedes Ponticus= work On Homer.[10]

The Eleusinians told the same story as Euripides= Suppliants. According to Plutarch, the difference between the two versions consisted in that in Euripides, Thesus had to fight the Thebans to effect the surrender of the corpses of the ASeven@, which in Aeschylus this was achieved by Aby persuasion and under a truce.@[11]

(Ghost of Clytemnestra) ATruly, you have lapped up many of my offerings - wineless libations, a sober appeasement; and I have sacrificed banquets in the solemn night upon a hearth of fire at an hour unshared by any god. I see all this trampled under foot. But he has escaped and is gone, like a fawn; lightly indeed, from the middle of snares, he has rushed away mocking at you. Hear me, since I plead for my life, awake to consciousness, goddesses of the underworld! For in a dream I, Clytemnestra, now invoke you.@[12]

AYet, if she will not, we, a dark, sun-burned race, with suppliant boughs will invoke the underworld Zeus, Zeus, the great host of the dead.@[13]

Hor. Carm. I. iii is the first mention of (Prometheus) adding fire (i.e., soul) to the clay. (To create man. Fire is soul.)[14]

Aeschylus Awas the first to make tragedy more grand by means of nobler emotions. He decked out the stage and stunned his audience with brilliant visual effects, with paintings and machines, with stage props such as altars and tombs, with trumpets, ghosts and Furies.@[15]

Aeschylus was accused, says the Scholiast to Aristotle, or revealing the mysteries in the Toxotides, the Priestess, Sisyphus Petrokylistes, Iphigenia and Oedipus: that is, in five different plays. (The Toxotides, or Archer Maidens, dealt with the sparagmos of the Dionysiac hero Actaeon; of the Priestess nothing more is known; Sisyphus Rolling the Stone is so called to distinguish it from Sisyphus the Runaway, which was a satyr-play about the deceiving of death. We cannot tell whether it was a satyr-play also or a tragedy. The Iphigenia and the Oedipus were tragedies dealing with the well-known sagas.[16]

It was proposed at the beginning of this book to show how Aeschylus became the creator of tragedy by three main achievements: he made tragedy Semnon, a thing of majesty: he was a pioneer in stage technique, making experiments too bold for the more classic writers who followed him; and lastly, he was a poet of great ideas, who found in the saga not merely the material for ingenious or exciting or moving stories but for great problems of the sort which can perhaps never be solved, and must be contemplated by emotion as much as by philosophy.[17]

We know that tragedy arose from the dithyramb, that is from one form of the simple communal dance upon a circular dancing-ground or threshing-floor.[18]

It is largely through this passionate interest in the problems of the world or of human life that (Aeschylus) is able to achieve what is here called the creation of tragedy. In each of the myths or legends that he treats he sees a conflict, and in each conflict he deepens the issues till it becomes one of the eternal problems of life.[19]

In Arcadia, the oldest center of her worship, Artemis was closely associated in cult with Demeter and Persephone. Herodotus says that Aeschylus actually called Artemis the daughter of Demeter, thus identifying her with Persephone, the corn-goddess.

This is the story that the Egyptians tell to explain why the island moves: that on this island that did not move before, Leto, one of the eight gods who first came to be, who was living at Buto where this oracle of hers is, taking charge of Apollo form Isis, hid him for safety in this island which is now said to float, when Typhon came hunting through the world, keen to find the son of Osiris. Apollo and Artemis were (they say) children of Dionysus and Isis, and Leto was made their nurse and preserver; in Egyptian, Apollo is Horus, Demeter Isis, Artemis Bubastis. It was from this legend and no other that Aeschylus son of Euphorion took a notion which is in no poet before him: that Artemis was the daughter of Demeter. For this reason the island was made to float. So they say.[20]

This devotion to Apollo, and aversion from Dionysus, finds early illustration in the plot of Aeschylus= lost play the Bassarids. In this play, we are told, Orpheus worshiped the sun, whom he identified with Apollo, and, living in Thrace, he used to ascend its mountain Pangaion each morning in order to greet him at his rising. This angered Dionysus, who sent the Bassarids, at troop of maenads, to tear him to pieces.[21]

Sitting in her place, touching the bathron with both feet, Apollo reveals the idea and implication of the oracle, its connection with the upper and lower worlds. What lay below was the sphere of the subterranean Dionysus, from which Apollo derived his revelations. It was called a tomb, but there was no actual tomb; rather, the steps were said to be the tomb of Dionysus, and it was hinted that perhaps he made his way to the underworld through the kettle. The report of an inscription saying AHere since his death lies Dionysus, son of Semele,@ is an invention, unless such an inscription was added at a late date. Even without it the connection between Apollo and Dionysus was known. It was stated by the tragic poets of Athens, by Aeschylus as well as by Euripides in whose lifetime the relief my have been cut. In the Lykourgos tetralogy of Aeschylus, (fragment 86) the cry Ivy-Apollo, Bakchios, the soothsayer rings out.[22]

Aeschylus said that when he was a boy he was asleep in the country looking after a vineyard, and Dionysus met him and told him to write tragedies. When day broke he wanted not to disobey, so he tried, and composed with the greatest ease.[23]

Kleon who was one of the Magnesians on the Hermos, used to say that human beings who have not encountered indescribable marvels in their own lives are skeptical about anything marvelous.[24]

For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together; then they are judged and depart to the other world with the guide whose task it is to conduct thither those who come from this world; and when they have there received their due and remained through the time appointed, another guide brings them back after many long periods of time. And the journey is not as Telephus says in the play of Aeschylus; for he says a simple path leads to the lower world, but I think the path is neither simple nor single, for if it were, there would be no need of guides, since no one could miss the way to any place if there were only one road. But really there seem to be many forks of the road and many windings; this I infer from the rites and ceremonies practiced here on earth. Now the orderly and wise soul follows its guide and understands its circumstances, bur the soul that is desirous of the body, as I said before, flits about it, and in the visible world for a long time.[25]

Aeschylus, a good authority on matters Eleusinian, regarded her as Persephone, and this view was accepted by the lexicographers. The name itself might mean either ‘the knowing one’ – perhasps, then, the goddess of mystic lore – or ‘the burning one’ with allusion to the torches used in her ritual.[26]

The Marathonian ritual does not disprove the original identity of Persephone and Daeira.
The second argument is the weightier. If we believe in this hostility of the cults as a really primitive fact we must assign Daeira, who is evidently a chthonian goddess to a different era of religious belief from that to which Demeter with Kore belongs, or at least regard the rival cults as of different local origin. At any rate here would appear traces of a ‘Gotterkampf’, perhaps the supplanting of an older by a younger or of an aboriginal by an alien worship. Now instances of the imprint of such religious rivalry on ritual in Greece are exceedingly rare, the only other that I can call to mind being the antagonism between the Hera and Dionysios cults at Athens. And we may well doubt whether it existed between Demeter and Daeira at Eleusis at all. Ex hypothesi the latter was an ancient form of the earth goddess; Demeter was generally recognized in Greece as one herself. We have traced already the pluralizing process which from an original Gaia throws off the figures Demeter, Persephone-Kore, Themis, Erinys, Aglauros, and between these no hostility is anywhere expressed or hinted in legend or cult. It is strange that it should have existed at Eleusis; still stranger, if it did exist, that Aeschylus should have nevertheless permitted himself to identify the hostile Daeira with the beloved Persephone.[27]

Agriculture

Writing about the Egyptians in his Isis and Osiris, Plutarch describes the feelings behind primitive farming and how they could easily lead to an analogy with death.
The season of the year also gives us a suspicion that this gloominess is brought about because of the disappearance from our sight of the crops and fruits that people in days of old did not regard as gods, but as necessary and important contributions of the gods toward the avoidance of a savage and a bestial life. At the time of year when they saw some of the fruit vanishing and disappearing completely from the tree, while they themselves were sowing others in a mean and poverty-stricken fashion still, scraping away the earth with their hands and again replacing it, committing the seed to the ground with uncertain expectation of their ever appearing again or coming to fruition they did many things like persons at a funeral in mourning for their dead.(Isis and Osiris 70)
Frazer describes how the anxieties of the ancient Greek farmer in regard to whether were released through a festival of supplication to Demeter. The festival called Proeroia sends the first fruits of the harvest to Athens to avoid famine. (Spirits of the Corn Vol. 1, p. 51)Hesiod in his Works and Days of the ninth century BC indicates how much the blessings of Demeter meant to the farmer of those ancient times.
Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's grain.(Hesiod Works and Days 31)But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work, high-born Perses, that Hunger may hate you, and venerable Demeter richly crowned may love you and fill your barn with food.(Ibid. 328-331)Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stock on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps.(Ibid. 465-469)

In the same ancient work, Hesiod gives instructions on how to consult the stars to determine when to plow and harvest.
When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set. Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea, and who inhabit rich country, the glens and dingles far from the tossing sea,---strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter's fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season.(Ibid. 383-393)Set your slaves to winnow Demeter's holy grain, when strong Orion first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy place.(Ibid. 597-599)But when the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set, then remember to plough in season: and so the completed year will fitly pass beneath the earth.(Ibid. 614-617)

The Pleiades are near the end of Taurus, and Orion covers the end of Taurus and the beginning of Gemini. Thus the sun passed through them in Hesiod's time during May. While the sun was passing their portion of the zodiac they would not be visible, but shortly thereafter they would be seen just before sunrise. In this way the Pleiades would indicate harvest and Orion threshing. They would be setting just before sunrise at the opposite time of the year in November, the time for plowing in the Aegean climate.Euripides' extant tragedy The Suppliants is set at Eleusis and begins with these supplications of Aethra:
O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and you servants of the goddess who attend her sanctuary, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus.... Now it chanced, that I had left my house and come to offer sacrifice on behalf of the earth's crop at this shrine, where first the fruitful corn showed its bristling shocks above the soil. And here at the holy altar of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that binds not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets.(The Suppliants 1-4, 30-35)
Finally he gives us the sentiment of kind gods.
Good Ceres is content with little, if that little be but pure.(Fasti IV 407-408)

First of all there is a pre-ploughing festival, Proerosia, which is announced at Eleusis on the 5th of Pyanopsion by the hierophant and the herald. The epheboi raise up the oxen for the great sacrifice; the women assemble in Piraeus. There is a special kind of pre-ploughing barley, perhaps a part of the seed corn, but we do not know what it was used for. There is also a first, symbolic, sacred ploughing. Shortly afterwards the women celebrate the Thesmophoria festival at which those decayed remains that are to be mixed with the seed corn are fetched up. At the sowing itself one should, as Hesiod advises, pray to the chthonic Zeus and to the pure Demeter, but at the same time a slave should cover the seed corn with his mattock so that the birds do not eat it. Hesiod=s further prescription >to sow, to plough and to reap naked= (Erga, 391 ff) may have some sacral significance, but this is not explained.[28]

The first millennium was the Age of Gold...the innocent earth learned neither spade nor plow; she gave her riches as fruit hangs from the tree: grapes dropping from the vine, cherry, strawberry ripened in silver shadows of the mountain, and in the shade of Jove=s miraculous tree, the falling acorn.[29]

After old Saturn fell to Death=s dark country, straitly Jove ruled the world with silver charm, less radiant than gold, less false than brass. And it was then that Jove split up the year in shifty Autumn, wild Winter, and short Spring, Summer that glared with heat: the winter wind gleamed white with ice that streamed on field and river. Then men built walls against both sun and wind - their elder shelters had been caves or boughs. Now grain was planted and the plough pierced earth, the driven ox whimpered beneath the yoke.[30]

After the Age of Bronze, Jove destroyed mankind by flood: Amermaids drifting with new-opened eyes gazed into the cities that were walked by men...and almost every being that breathed on earth drowned as it met the flood; those who survived died of starvation on the shores of mountains.@[31]

Ovid's version of the famine:
She did not know as yet where her child was; still she reproached all lands, calling them ungrateful and unworthy of the gift of corn; but Sicily above all other lands, where she had found traces of her loss. So there with angry hand she broke in pieces the plows that turn the glebe, and in her rage she gave to destruction farmers and cattle alike, and bade the plowed fields to betray their trust, and blighted the seed. The fertility of this land, famous throughout the world, lay false to its good name: the crops died in early blade, now too much heat, now too much rain destroying them, Stars and winds were baleful, and greedy birds ate up the seed as soon as it was sown; tares and thorns and stubborn grasses choked the wheat.(Metamorphoses V, 474-486)
The chorus of Euripides' Helen sings the tale and solves it with music.
Through wooded glen, o'er torrent's flood, and ocean's booming waves rushed the mountain goddess, mother of the gods, in frantic hate, once long ago, yearning for her daughter lost, whose name men dare not utter; loudly rattled the Bacchic castanets in shrill accord, what time those maidens, swift as whirlwinds, sped forth with the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures in quest of her that was ravished from the circling choir of virgins; here was Artemis with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, sheathed in mail, and spear in hand. But Zeus looked down from his throne in heaven, and turned the issue overwhither. Soon as the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, in seeking her daughter stolen so subtly as to baffle all pursuit, she crossed the snow-capped heights of Ida's nymphs; and in anguish cast her down amongst the rock and brushwood deep in snow; and, denying to man all increase to his tillage from those barren fields, she wasted the human race; nor would she let the leafy tendrils yield luxuriant fodder for the cattle wherefore many a beast lay dying; no sacrifice was offered to the gods and on the altars were no cake to burn; yea, and she made the dew-fed founts of crystal water to cease their flow, in her insatiate sorrow for her child. But when for god and tribes of men alike she made an end to festal cheer, Zeus spoke out, seeking to smooth the mother's moody soul, "Ye stately Graces, go banish from Demeter's angry heart the grief her wanderings bring upon her for her child, and go, ye Muses too, with tuneful choir." Thereon did Cypris, fairest of the blessed gods, first catch up the crashing cymbals, native to that land, and the drum with tight-stretched skin and then Demeter smiled, and in her hand did take the deep-toned flute, well pleased with its loud note.(Euripides Helen 1303-1361)

Anthesteria Festival

The swamp, first of all, is a clear indication of what Socrates actually is said to have been doing. The place is not is some remote exotic land, for it is but one in a series of similar parodies in this section of the Birds, and like the others, it can be located nowhere else but in Athens itself. It can be none other than the one swamp in Athens of which we have knowledge, the sacred Swamp near the base of the Acropolis, the so-called Swamp of Dionysus. It is precisely there that one could expect to summon up spirits, as, in fact, another comedian, the poet Eupolis, appears to have done in a play produced about this same time, the Demes, which involved the resurrection of the departed localities of parishes of an earlier Athens (cf. Emond=s reconstruction, fr. 90-135.) This Swamp was the Athenian entrance to Hades, for such noisome places suggested to the folk imagination the putrefaction that lay beyond the grave. The god Dionysus himself was shown in a later comedy of Aristophanes, the Frogs, rowing across this very place to get to the other world, where he is met by a chorus of initiates from the Eleusinian Mysteries. One might well expect to find them there, for this Swamp was also the scene for a secret annual event that apparently was part of the Eleusinian rituals. There was a temple in this Swamp of Dionysus that was opened just twenty-four hours each year, form the evening of the second day of the Anthesteria Festival until the evening of the third and final day, at which time the spirits of the city=s dead departed, who had returned to visit their families, were lovingly re-escorted back to their proper abode in the otherworld. These spirits had wandered abroad through the city for the three days of the festival, resurrected to celebrate a drunken revel with the living, who had summoned them at the start of the feast by drinking the intoxicating spirit of the new wine that had at last completed its subterranean fermentation. There was just one event that occurred in this temple in the Swamp of Dionysus during the Anthesteria. The so-called Queen of Athens, who was the wife of the king archon or inheritor of the sacra functions of kingship that went back to more ancient times before the secularization of the Athenian government, was prepared in this temple for her ritual union with the god Dionysus in an annual reenactment of the ritual sacred marriage that magically reassured the yearly refounding of the city and reaffirmation of its fertile accord with the sources of life stemming from the other world (pseudo-Demosthenes 59.117).
This sacred marriage had some relation to the so-called Lesser Eleusinian Mystery, a ceremony that was a preliminary to the Greater Mystery that would be performed in the autumn of the year at the neighboring village of Eleusis. Socrates= rite of necromancy, therefore, in this Swamp with a person like Peisander and at this particular date would seem somehow involved in the great scandal of the day, the profanation of the Mysteries.[32] (See The Dramatic Festivals at Athens, revised by J. Gould and D. Lewis. (Oxford, 1968.)

Artemis

This is how they say the human sacrifices to Artemis came to an end: Delphi had already sent a prophecy that a foreign king would come to their country with a foreign divinity, and stop the ritual of sacrifice to Triklarian Artemis. When Troy fell and the Greeks divided the spoils, Eurypylos son of Euaimon received a chest with a statue of Dionysus in it; they say it was made by Hephaitos and the gift of Zeus to Dardanos. There are two other legends about it, one that when Aeneas was running away he left this behind, the other that Kassandra put a curse on any Greek who found it. So Eurypylos opened the chest and saw the stature, and as soon as he saw it he went out of his mind: that is, he was usually raving mad, but now and then he came to himself. Being in this condition he did not make the voyage to Thessaly, but to the gulf of Kirra, and he went up to Delphi to ask about his illness. They say the oracle told him that when he found the people offering a foreign sacrifice, he should install the chest for worship and should live there. The wind carried Eurypylos= ships to the coast near Aroe, he landed there, and came on a boy and a virgin girl being taken to the altar of Triklarian Artemis. He could easily see this was the sacrifice, and the people of the district remembered this oracle, seeing a king they had never seen before and suspecting that he might have a god inside the chest. So Eurypylos got rid of his illness and the people got rid of their sacrifice, and the river got its modern name, Placation...
The title of the god inside the chest is the Overlord; his chief worshipers are nine men chosen freely by the people for their personal prestige, with the same number of women.[33]

Ascalaphus (the rock)

But when Zeus ordered Pluto to send up the Maid, Pluto gave her a seed of a pomegranate to eat, in order that she might not tarry long with her mother. Not foreseeing the consequence, she swallowed it; and because Ascalaphus, son of Acheron and Gorgyra bore witness against her, Demeter laid a heavy rock on him in Hades. But Persephone was compelled to remain a third of every year with Pluto and the rest of the time with the gods.[34]

ASKLEPIOS

(Ophiuchus) This is the figure standing close to the Scorpion, and holding a snake with both hands. It is said to be Asclepius, whom Zeus placed among the stars to oblige Apollo. For asclepius had used his healing art to raise the dead - most recently, Hippolytus, the son of Theseus. The gods were annoyed that the honors paid them might diminish because of the feat of Asclepius. It is said that Zeus grew angry and struck Asclepius’ house with lightning but later placed him among the stars because of Apollo. The constellation covers a large area, being above the brightest of all the constellations, the Scorpion, and is easily distinguished.
Pseudo-Eratosthenes, The Constellations, 6.

Ophiuchus, who is called Anguitenens (“serpent holder”) by our writes is located above Scorpio; in his hands he holds a serpent which winds around his body. Many say this is the king of the Getae who live in Thrace, Carnabon by name, who came to power at the time when grain was first introduced to mankind. Now Ceres, when she bestowed her gifts on men, ordered Triptolemus (who was said to have been the first to use the wheel so as not to be delayed in his course) whose nurse she had been, to mount the dragon chariot and to travel about distributing grain to the fields of all nations, so that they and their posterity might more easily be distinguished from the wild beasts by their diet.

When Triptolemus came to the aforementioned king of the Getae, he was first greeted as a guest, but later, as a most cruel enemy – not as a harmless bestower of benefits – such that he was captured by treachery, and he who was prepared to prolong the lives of others almost lost his own life. For Carnabon ordered one of the dragons to be killed, so that Triptolemus might not hope to find escape in his chariot when he discovered that a plot was in the making. But Ceres came and took the chariot away hitched another dragon to it, and gave it back to the boy. The king was greatly punished for his attempted misdeed. Hegesianax says that Ceres, as a reminder to mankind, placed Carnabon among the stars with a dragon in his hands that he appears to be strangling. Carnabon lived so wretchedly that he incurred a most welcome death…Some say this is Triopas, king of the Thessalians, who destroyed an ancient temple of Ceres when he was constructing a roof for his own house. For that reason, Ceres brought upon him a hunger which could never be satisfied with any food. Later, toward the end of his life, he suffered great ills when a serpent was set upon him by Ceres, and earning death, he was placed among the stars by wish of Ceres, And to this day the serpent, strangling him, appears to be inciting the punishment he deserved….
Many astronomers, however, think this is Asclepius…some say that Asclepius holds a snake for the following reason. When he was ordered to heal Glaucus and was imprisoned in a secret place, Asclepius sat considering what to do, staff in hand, and a snake crept up his staff. Asclepius, alarmed, killed the snake with many strokes of his staff as it attempted to flee. Later, another snake carrying an herb in its mouth and placed the herb on the head of the dead snake, whereupon both snakes fled. And so Asclepius used the same herb and brought Glaucus back to life. Thus the snake was placed under Asclepius' safekeeping and also among the stars.
Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy2.14 ff

Attis

No one has been able to discover the secret of who Attis was, but Hermesianax who composed the elegiac poems has written that he was the son of Kalaos the Phyrgian, and impotent from birth. When he grew up he went to live in Lydia (so Hermesianax=s legend goes), and celebrated the mysterious rites of the Mother for the Lydians, and came to be so honored by her that Zeus was angry and sent a wild boar into the Lydian farm-land. Attis himself was among the Lydians who were killed by the boar. The Gauls at Pessinous have some rite that follows this story, and refuse to touch swine (Note: Todd, does this relate to the Aphrodite/Demeter statue an the refusal to accept sacrifices of swine?) They do not however have the same beliefs about Attis, but they have a local legend about him, of how Zeus dropped his seed on the soil in his sleep, and in the course of time the soul sent up a daemonic creature with both female and male private parts, whom they call Agdistis. The gods were frightened of Agdistis and chopped off his male organs: and an almond tree grew out of them with the nuts already ripe. They say a daughter of the river Sangarios took some of the nuts and put them in a fold of her dress: at once the almonds disappeared and she was pregnant, and, when she abandoned the son she bore, a he-goat looked after him. This boy grew up more beautiful than the form of man is capable of being, and Agdistis fell in love with his son. When the boy was fully grown his family sent him away to Pessinous to marry the king=s daughter; the wedding song was being sung when Agdistis appeared and Attis went mad and chopped of his private parts, and the bride=s father did the same. Agdistis was obsessed by remorse for what he did to Attis, and got Zeus to grant that Attis= body should never corrupt or wither in the least degree. That is the best-known legend about Attis.[35]

Bee

The priestess of Demeter lived in the sacred House at Eleusis and acted the role of Demeter and Kore in the sacred pageant. Demosthenes told how a Hierophant was severely punished for performing the sacrifice due this priestess. The priestesses Panageis were all-holy and had the privilege of "touching the Hiera." They lived together and were called melissai (bees) because they had no communion with men. The Dadouchos, or torchbearer was from the family of the Kerykes and held office for life.... He alone could use the 'Fleece of Zeus' for the purification of those tainted with blood. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 232)

Bee and butterfly belong together as images of the Great Goddess of Regeneration. It was a very ancient belief that bees arose out of the dead carcass of a bull, and the association of bee and bull is made as early as the Neolithic in the image of the bee goddess incised on the head of a bull. In the third century AD the Greek traveler Porphyry talks of these latter goddesses of Greece in the same imagery:

The ancients gave the name of Melissae (bees) to the priestess of Demeter who were initiates of the chthonian goddess; the name Melitodes to Kore herself; the moon (Artemis) too, whose province it was to bring to the birth, they called Melissa, because the moon being a bull and its ascension the bull, bees are begotten of bulls. And souls that pass to the earth are bull begotten.[1]

These holy bee-maidens, with their gift of prophecy, were to be Apollo=s gift to Hermes, the god who alone could lead the souls of the dead out of life and sometimes back again. The etymology of the word >fate= in Greek offers a fascinating example of how the genius of the Minoan vision entered the Greek language, often invisibly, as well as informing its stories of goddesses and gods. The Greek word for >fate,= >death,= and >goddess of death,= is e ker (feminine); the word for >heart= and >breast= is to ker (neuter); which the word for >honeycomb= is to kerion (neuter.) The common root ker links the ideas of the honeycomb, goddess, death, fate and the human heart, a nexus of meanings that is illumined if we know that the goddess was once imagined as a bee.[2]

The latter intoxicant involves the symbolism of the bee, who like the herb gathering maenadic women in the wilds, goes from flower to flower, extracting their essence, which is a drug related to the venom of serpents, but is beneficial antithesis, instead of a poison. Such a ritual is apparently depicted on a gold signet ring from a tomb near Knossos, now in the Iraklion Museum: women with the heads of insects are seen dancing amidst flowers as they experience the mystical apotheosis of a deity.[3]

In Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphys, (De Antr. Nymph. 13) bees are the souls of the mystai at the end of their voyage through the planetary spheres.

BOOTES

Ceres mated with Iasion, the son of Electra; and many, including Homer, say that because of that union Iasion was struck by lightening. From that union, as the historian Petellides of Cnossus recounts, two sons were born, Philomelus and Plutus, who were said to be at odds with one another, because Plutus, who was wealthier, gave none of his wealth to his brother. Pressed by circumstances, Philomelus took all he had and bought two oxen, then invented the plough. And thus, by ploughing and cultivating the fields, he was able to feed himself. His mother, marveling at his invention, placed him among the stars as a ploughman, and called him Bootes.
Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy, 2.4ffChest (Kiste)

In view of the ascertained character of Dionysos Eleutherus, I should conjecture with some confidence that these baskets contained phalloi covered with seen or the like, and the temple was opened once a year for the performance of a phallic rite.[4]

In the same way we may be sure that the likeness of a corpse which, as it is exhibited to them, is carried around in a chest, is not a reminder of what happened to Osiris, as some assume: but it is to urge them, as they contemplate it, to use and to enjoy the present, since all very soon must be what it is now and this is their purpose in introducing it into the midst of merry-making.[5]

For the reason they call the first of the Muses at Hermopolis Isis as well as Justice: for she is wise, as I have said, and discloses the divine mysteries to those who truly and justly have the name of Abearers of the sacred vessels@ and Awearers of the sacred robes.@ These are they who within their own soul, as though within a casket, bear the sacred writings about the gods clear of all superstition and pedantry; and they cloak them with secrecy, thus giving intimations, some dark and shadowy, some clear and bright, of their concepts about the gods, intimations of the same sort as are clearly evidenced in the wearing of the sacred garb.[6]

(There is another tale current among the Egyptians that Apopis, brother of the Sun, made ware upon Zeus, and that because Osiris espoused Zeus= cause and helped him to overcome his enemy, Zeus adopted Osiris as his son and gave him the name of Dionysus(Plutarch, 365)...The story told of the shutting up of Osiris in the chest seems to mean nothing else than the vanishing and disappearance of water.[7]

On the nineteenth day they go down to the sea at nighttime; and the keepers of the robes and the priests bring forth the sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water which they have taken up, and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found. Then they knead some fertile soil with the water and mix in spices and incense of a very costly sort, and fashion therefrom a crescent shaped figure, which they close and adorn, thus indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water.[8]

contents of the mystic chests; for I must strip bare their holy things and utter the unspeakable. Are they not sesame cakes, pyramid and spherical cakes, cakes with many navels, also balls of salt and a serpent, the mystic sign of Dionysus Bassareus? Are they not also pomegranates, fig branches, fennel stalks, ivy leaves, round cakes and poppies? These are their holy things! In addition, there are the unutterable symbols of Ge Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, and a woman=s comb, which is a euphemistic expression used in the mysteries for a woman=s secret parts.[9]

Clement believes that the sacred symbols to be found in the kistai are various sorts of cakes, a serpent, pomegranates, leaves and stalks, poppies and a model of a woman=s genitals. (Exhortation to the Greeks, 2.22)[10]

The Greek writer Theophrastus alludes to the idea that corn-grinding tools were held to be sacred, so it may have been a mortal and pestle that were hidden in the basket, the means of preparing the kykeon, the barley drink.[11]

Althaea had also a son Meleager, by Oeneus, though they say that he was begotten by Ares. It is said that, when he was seven days old, the Fates came and declared the Meleager should die when the brand burning on the hearth was burnt out. On hearing that, Althea snatched up the brand and deposited it in a chest. Meleager grew up to be an invulnerable and gallant man, but came by his end in the following way. In sacrificing the first fruits of the annual crops of the country to all the gods Oeneus forgot Artemis alone. But she in her wrath sent a boar of extraordinary size and strength, which prevent the land from being sown and destroyed the cattle and the people that fell in with it.[12]

Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue her. But she fled. When he got near her with much ado (for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her, but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced. Him Athena brought up unknown to other gods, wishing to make him immoral; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest. But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis. Having been brought up by Athena herself in the precinct, Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis, and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea, and married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.[13]

And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis. Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son of Thias, King of Assyria, who had a daughter Smyrna. In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father=s bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call Smyrna (myrrh.) Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone.. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remained. However, Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.[14]

The Daughters of Phorcys was part of the trilogy containing the Net Draggers and Polydectes. In the first of these plays, fisher folk of Seriphus rescued Danae and her infant son Perseus, who had been placed in a chest and cast into the sea by her father Acrisius.[15]

Above the sanctuary of the Dioscuri is a sacred enclosure of Aglaurus. It was to Aglaurus and her sisters, Herse and Pandrosus, that they say Athena gave Erichthonius, whom she had hidden in a chest, forbidding them to pry curiously into what was entrusted to their charge. Pandrosus, they say, obeyed, but the other two (for they opened the chest) went mad when they say Erichthonius, and
threw themselves down the steepest part of the Acropolis.[16]

Now I come to the second space on the chest, and in going round it I had better begin from the left. There is a figure of a woman holding on her right arm a white child asleep, and on her left she has a black child like one who is asleep. Each has his feet turned different ways. The inscriptions declare, as one could infer without inscriptions, that the figures are Death and Sleep, with Night the nurse of both.[17]

They say that the oracle given him was to the effect that where he should come across a people offering a strange sacrifice, there he was to set down the chest and make his home. Now the ships of Eurypylos were carried down by the wind to the sea off Aroe. On landing he cam across a youth and a maiden who had been brought to the altar of Triclaria. So Eurypylos found it easy to understand about the sacrifice, while the people of the place remembered their oracle seeing a king whom they had never seen before, they also suspected that the chest had some god inside it.[18]

The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch. Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon AHorse.@[19]

The image which epitomizes the mysteries is the basket closed with a lid, the cista mystica: only the initiate knows what this kiste conceals; the snake which curls around the kiste or protrudes from under the lid points to unspeakable horror.[20]

There is an allusion in Theophrastus to the tools of working, of grinding corn, that early men >consigned to secrecy and encountered as something sacred,= evidently in Demeter mysteries. This indicates that mortar and pestle were hidden in the basket, the instruments, in fact, for preparing the kykeon.[21]

But Isis wandered everywhere to her wits= end; no one whom she approached did she fail to address, and even when she met some little children she asked them about the chest. As it happened, they had seen it, and they told her the mouth of the river through which the friends of Typhon had launched the coffin into the sea. Wherefore the Egyptians think that little children possess the power of prophecy, and they try to divine the future from the portents which they find in children=s words, especially when children are playing about in holy places and crying out whatever chances to come into their minds.[22]

At Patrai there was a cult of Dionysus Aisymnetes in which a sacred chest was carried out of the temple at night by his priest. The story attached to it was that after the sack of Troy the hero Eurypylos received as his share of the booty a chest containing an image of Dionysus. He was himself a Thessalian, but in obedience to an oracle heard at Delphi he let the winds take his ship and was brought over the sea to Patrai, where as a result the natives substituted the cult of Dionysus for that of Artemis, whom they had hitherto worships with barbarous rites of human sacrifice.[23]

What was carried about - whether in a cista mystica or in a liknon - could not, however, be kept entirely secret. It was not a heart but a phallus. This is evident from the Orphic books themselves. In a text about which we shall have more to say later, the object that the goddess Hipta took from Zeus and carried on her head in a liknon was called the AKradiaios Dionysus.@ Kradiaios can have two meanings, and this is the key to the secret. It can be derived either from Kradia (Aheart=) or from krade (Afig tree@): in the latter case, it means an object made from a fig branch or fig wood. According to one myth, Dionysus himself fashioned a phallus from fig wood for use in a mystic rite connected with his return from the underworld. The soft wood was suitable for the Dionysian utensil, which was referred to by the euphemism Aheart.@ According to the sources the object that was preserved by Pallas Athena was the sacrificed he-goat=s male organ, which was neither boiled nor roasted nor burned, but set aside and hidden. The action was symbolic and it is very likely that in place of the dried members, or along with it, a phallus of fig wood was used the following year in the ceremony serving to Aawaken@ Liknites, the god lying in the liknon.[24]

Crete

Ancient literature contains a single explicit mention of Crete in conjunction with the Eleusinian Mysteries. A learned historian of the first century, BC, Diodorus of Sicily, tells us that the Cretans laid claim to these Mysteries, as well as to the Orphic Mysteries and those of Samothrace. Claims of this kind were frequently raised in antiquity without justification. Diodorus does not name his authority. It was probably a historian from Crete. His proof of the Cretan origin of the Mysteries, cited in Diodorus (V 77 3) is of interest: elsewhere, these are the exact words, - such rites are communicated in secret, but in Crete, in Knossos, it has been the custom since time immemorial to speak of these ceremonies quite openly to all, and, if anyone wished to learn of them, to conceal none of the things which elsewhere were imparted to the initiate under the vow of silence.[25]

Not only was Demeter=s grief well known, but her love for, and union with, the Cretan hunter Iasios or Iasion in the furrow of the thrice-plowed field.[26]

Hesiod (Theogony, 969 ff.) tells us that it was on Crete that Demeter united with Iasion in a thrice-ploughed corn field and thereafter gave birth to Plutos, wealth in corn. Here, perhaps from ancient Neolithic tradition, we find the association between ploughing/sowing and procreation, and between harvest and birth.[27]

Demeter, bright goddess, was joined in sweet love with the hero Iasion in a thrice-ploughed fallow in the rich land of Crete, and bore Plutus, a kindly god who goes everywhere over land and the sea=s wide back, and he makes rich the man who finds him and into whose hands he comes, bestowing great wealth upon him.[28]

The story of Zeus= childhood is further elaborated in a post-Hesiodic, Cretan Theogony, which tells how a band of youthful warriors, the Kouretes, danced with swirling shields around the Zeus child to prevent his cries from being heard. Mirrored here are Cretan initiation rituals as found in the Ida mysteries: here Zeus was born every year in the glow of a great fire...it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the infamous Grave of Zeus on Crete, where the Kouretes bury Zeus, is a polar counterpart to the birth of Zeus, even though the local traditions cannot easily be linked.[29]

In Crete...The Goddess is sculpted with serpents entwined around her body or rising from her arms, or she is drawn holding the double ax in her hands. Sometimes she has doves or poppies on her head. On seals she is engraved raising in the shape of a bee, or standing upon her mountain with lions, or raising her arms as the wings of the bird goddess, or sitting beneath the tree of life offering the fruits to her priestesses. She is worshiped as the Great Mother of Life, Death and Regeneration, the Goddess of the Animals, and the Mistress of the Sea and the Fruits of the Earth.[30]

According to the Greek version, Rhea, mother of the gods, put Dionysus= pieces together and brought him back to life. Her role corresponded to the genealogy that made Dionysus the son not of Semele but of Persephone, here the daughter of Rhea rather than of Demeter. According to Diodorus Siculus, this genealogy originated with the Cretans. The motif of the search for the parts of Dionysus= body also occurs in variants of the Dionysian myth...Diodorus makes no mention of Rhea in his story of the dismembered Dionysus, whom he calls the son of Demeter - which was compatible with the mythology of the Orphics as well as the Cretan. He relates how Demeter gathered the parts of her son Dionysus= body, and he offers the explanation of the Aphysiologists@: when the vine has been heavily pruned after the wine harvest, the earth restores it in order that it may bear fruit again in due season.[31]

The Cretans declared that Zeus was a prince, who had been ripped up by a wild boar and buried in Crete – an assertion which is supposed to have earned for them their traditional reputation as liars.[32]


[1] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 118.
[2] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 120.
[3] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 186-187.
[4] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, p 684.

[5] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 357,18.
[6] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 352,3.
[7] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 366.
[8] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 366, 39.
[9] Clement of Alexandria. Exhortation to the Greeks. 2: 20-23.
[10] Marvin W. Meyer. The Ancient Mysteries: a Sourcebook. Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987, p. 19.
[11] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 378.
[12] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.8.2.
[13] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.14.6.
[14] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.14.4.
[15] Aeschylus. Fragment from The Daughters of Phorcys, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, pp. 469.
[16] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.18.2.
[17] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.18.1.
[18] Pausanias. Description of Greece 7.19.8.
[19] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.25.7.
[20] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 276.
[21] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 286.
[22] Plutarch. On Isis and Osiris. 14.
[23] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 163.
[24] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 260.
[25] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 24.
[26] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 30.
[27] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 108.
[28] Hesiod. Theogony. 969-970.
[29] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 127.
[30] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 107.
[31] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 249.
[32] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, p 157.
[1] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.12.6.
[2] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.29.8.
[3] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. II. 16.2.
[4] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics 1111a.
[5] Plato. Republic 563c.
[6] Plato. Phaedo. 107d - 108a.
[7] Oliver Taplin. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, p. 39.
[8] Oliver Taplin. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, p. 39.
[9] Oliver Taplin. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, p. 46.
[10] Anthony J. Podlecki. The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966, p. 2.
[11] Anthony J. Podlecki. The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966, p. 150.
[12] Aeschylus. Eumenides 105-115.
[13] Aeschylus. Suppliant Maidens 155-159.
[14] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 22.
[15] Vita Aeschyi 14.
[16] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 152.
[17] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 171.
[18] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 49.
[19] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 72.
[20] Herodotus. The Histories, ii, 156.1 - 156.6.
[21] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, p. 315.
[22] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 233.
[23] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.21.3.
[24] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. X. 4.4.
[25] Plato. Phaedo. 107d - 108a.
[26] Lewis Richard Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Volume III, Oxford, 1907, p. 139.
[27] Lewis Richard Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Volume III, Oxford, 1907, p. 140.
[28] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 265.
[29] Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book I (Horace Gregory, trans.) New York: Viking Press, 1958.

[30] Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book I (Horace Gregory, trans.) New York: Viking Press, 1958.
[31] Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book I (Horace Gregory, trans.) New York: Viking Press, 1958.
[32] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 156-157.
[33] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. VII. 19.3 - 20.1.
[34] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.5.3.
[35] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. VII. 17.5-6.

Fire (Light)

I will not deny that the Tantalos who married Klytaimnestra before Agamemnon, the son of Thycstes or Broteas (since both are spoken of), was buried here: but I know the grave of the legendary son of Zeus and Pluto is in Sipylos, because I saw it there, and it was worth seeing. Anyway, there was no necessity for him to run away from there, as Pelops had to when Ilos of Phrygia brought an army against him.
Enough of this inquiry. They say that what is done at the pit near by was instituted by a local man, Nikostratos. Even to this day they still drop burning lights into the pit to the Maiden daughter of Demeter.[1]

When the Greeks returned to their cities after the Battle of Plataea, they had to purify the sacred places which had been polluted by the Persians, and to do this they put out all the fires in the country and had them relit from the sacred heath at Delphi. (Plutarch. Aristides, 20, Numa 9.)[2]
Todd, is it possible that the fire of Eleusis held this type of function as well?

Lactantius (Epitome Institutionum Divanarum, 23) because he compares the Egyptian representations of the lament of Isis for her lost Osiris with the Mysteries of Demeter, declares explicitly that Persephone was sought at night with torches and found again at the end amid rejoicing and a blaze of light.[3]

When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immoral, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the moral element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia. But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids. Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears, and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast, but before that time his name was Ligyron.[4]

The ritual performed at the pit hard by (Todd, I think by the grave of Tantalus near Mount Sipylus) they say was instituted by Nicostratus, a native. Even at the present day they throw into the pit burning torches in honor of the Maid who is the daughter of Demeter.[5]

There is another marvel I know of, having seen it in Lydia; it is different from the horse of Phormis, but like it not innocent of the magic art. The Lydians surnamed Persian have sanctuaries in the city named Hierocaesareia and at Hypaepa. In each sanctuary is a chamber, and in the chamber are ashes upon an altar. But the color of these ashes is not the usual color of ashes.
Entering the chamber a magician piles dry wood upon the altar; he first places a tiara upon his head and them sings to some god or other an invocation in a foreign tongue unintelligible to Greeks reciting the invocation from a book. So it is without fire that the wood must catch, and bright flames dart from it.[6]

The luminous apparitions go back to the Chaldean Oracles, which promised that by pronouncing certain spells the operator should see Afire shaped like a boy,@ or Aan unshaped fire with a voice proceeding from it,@ or various other things.[7]

The passages about the divine fire recall the Arecipe for immortality@ in PGM iv.475ff, which is in many ways the closes analogue to the Chaldean Oracles.[8]

The god of Delphi, asked who was the most pious, did not name the rich man who brought his hecatombs, but a simple peasant who used to throw a handful of barley corns into the flames on his hearth.[9]

I approached the confines of death. I trod the threshold of Proserpine; and borne through the elements I returned. At midnight I saw the Sun shining in all his glory. I approached the gods below and the gods above, and I stood beside them, and I worshiped them.[10] (The initiation of Lucius within the Holy of Holies in the temple of Isis.)
(From a curse:) I consign to Demeter and Kore the man who has affirmed against me that I make deadly poisons for my husband. To Demeter let him go consumed with fire, and in the presence of all his relatives confess his slander; and may he find no favor with Demeter and Kore, nor with the gods in Demeter=s company. But for me may it be lawful and permitted to share a roof or have converse as I will. I consign also the man who has accused me in writing or ordered my accusation. May he not find favor with Demeter and Kore nor with the gods in Demeter=s company; but may he go before Demeter consumed with fire, and all his family with him.[11]

Through Dionysos this fire was transformed into the Apure light of high summer.@ In the person of the son of the god of heaven, it was received as the Alight of Zeus.@ Hesychios defines the Greek word iachron - an adjective know to us only from his lexicon - as Abathed in a soft Zeus light.@ Such light was placed, quite concretely, in the hand of a divine figure regarded as a double of Dionysos. This figure=s name, which comes from the same root as the two Minoan proper names cited above, probably took its definitive form Iakcos from the insistent cry with which is was repeated in the processions. There can be no question of a deification of the cry alone. For the Greeks, Iakcos had two characteristics: his name was called loudly in endless repetition, and he was a torchbearer. In the figure of Iakcos, Dionysos= connection with light and fire was preserved. AFire is a Dionysian weapon,@ says Lucian. The Bacchantes were capable of carrying fire in their hair. In the Antigone of Sophocles the chorus calls on Dionysos, Awho leads the round of the fire-spraying stars@ to cure the sick city of Thebes. It might have invoked a true star in the sky in such terms, but it invokes him as AIakcos, keeper of treasures@ - keeper of the annual Dionysian treasures, which he confers.[12]

...Demeter, that fire-bearing goddess...[13]

Flowers, Fruits and Grains
Barley

Sacrificial cakes at Eleusis made of barley grown in Rarian plain.[14]

Beans

A small shrine built along the road is called the shrine of the Bean man. I am not sure whether he was the first to grow beans, or they simple named a hero like that because the discovery of beans cannot be traced to Demeter. Those who know the Mystery at Eleusis and those who have read Orpheus will know what I am talking about.[15]

The taboo on the planting of beans by men seems to have survived later than that on grain, because of the close connection between beans and ghosts. In Rome beans were thrown to ghosts at the All Souls= festival, and if a plant grew from one of these, and a woman ate its beans, she would be impregnated by a ghost. Hence the Pythagoreans abstained from beans lest they might deny an ancestor his chance at reincarnation.[16]

To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only. There is a sacred story to explain why the bean in their eyes is an impure kind of pulse.[17]

Corn

The Kore myth accounts for the winter burial of a female corn-puppet, which was uncovered in the early spring and found to be sprouting; this pre-Hellenic custom survived in the countryside in Classical times, and is illustrated by vase-painting of men freeing Kore from a mound of earth with mattocks, or breaking open Mother Earth=s head with axes.[18]

Fig

Here is the memorial of Nikokles of Tarentum, who was the most famous of all harp-singers. There is also an altar of Zephyros and a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter; Athene and Poseidon are honored with them. In this place they say Phytalus took Demeter into his house, and the goddess gave him the fig tree as a reward. What I say is confirmed by the inscription on the grave of Phytalus: Here Phytalus, Hero and King, received Terrible Demeter, revelation of the first fruit of autumn: humanity named it the sacred fig. The honors of the race of Phytalus will not grown old.[19] (In his footnote, Pete Levi says: Nor is anything known about Nikokles. The original fig-tree seems to have been pointed out to visitors and to have had a roof over it, either here or at Eleusis.)

Fruits of Autumn

On the way to the coast of Mycalessus is a sanctuary of Mycalessian Demeter. They say that each night it is shut up and opened again by Herakles and that Herakles is one of what are called the Idaean Dactyls. Here is shown the following marvel. Before the feet of the image they place all the fruits of autumn, and these remain fresh throughout the year.[20]

The Eleusinian Mysteries added greatly to the prestige of Athens. Isocrates states how the Delphic oracle supported Athens' claims to the first-fruits of other cities.
For most of the Hellenic cities, in memory of our ancient services, send us each year the first-fruits of the harvest, and those who neglect to do so have often been admonished by the Pythian priestess to pay us our due portion of their crops and to observe in relation to our city the customs of their fathers.(Panegyricus 31)

Now among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian rites are much famed which were in the high highest repute among the Athenians, of which Varro offers no interpretation except with respect to corn, which Ceres discovered, and with respect to Proserpine, whom Ceres lost, Orcus having carried her away. And this Proserpine herself, he says, signifies the fecundity of seeds. But as this fecundity departed at a certain season, whilst the earth wore an aspect of sorrow through the consequent sterility, there arose an opinion that the daughter of Ceres, that is, fecundity itself, who was called Proserpine, from proserpere (to creep forth, to spring), had been carried away by Orcus, and detained among the inhabitants of the nether world; which circumstance was celebrated with public mourning. But since the same fecundity again returned, there arose joy because Proserpine had been given back by Orcus, and thus these rites were instituted. Then Varro adds, that many things are taught in the mysteries of Ceres which only refer to the discovery of fruits.
Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book VII, Chapter 20: Concerning the Rites of the Eleusinian Ceres.

Narkissos

The plant that Persephone gathered was also reputed to be a drug, for the flower that she picked was the narkissos, like kissos, another loan-word in Greek from a non-Indo-European language, but a plant that was thought in classical times to have been so named because of the >narcotic= stupor that it induced (Plutarch 2.67b; Dioscorides 4.161.)[21]

She was gathering flowers throughout the luxuriant meadow - roses, saffron, violets, iris, hyacinth, and a narcissus which was a trap planted for the blossoming maiden by Earth (Gaia) in accord with Zeus= plans, a favor to Hades the receiver of many guests; it was radiantly wonderful, inspiring awe in all who saw it, whether immortal god or mortal man; a hundred stems grew from its root; and the whole wide heaven above, the whole earth, and the salt surge of the sea smiled for joy at its fragrance.[22]

Pomegranate

Persephone's eating of the pomegranate may be seen as symbolic of sex and death. It is bright red and somewhat unusual in that the seeds are the edible fruit. Pausanias describes a pomegranate tree growing over a burial place.
On the tomb of Menoeceus there grows a pomegranate-tree: if you break the outer husk of the ripe fruit, you will find the inside like blood. This pomegranate-tree is living.(IX, 25:1)
Kerenyi describes a terra-cotta statuette from the end of the classical period showing a pomegranate cut in two revealing a maiden in a short dress, tucked up around the waist disclosing herself as befits an epiphany. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 144)Erich Neumann interprets the redness of the pomegranate as the woman's womb and the seeds as fertility. Having been raped by Hades Persephone is persuaded to taste the sweet morsel, symbolizing the consummation of her marriage and sojourn in the underworld part of the year. (The Great Mother p. 308)

(Attis=) tree origin is further attested by the story that he was born of a virgin, who conceived by putting in her bosom a ripe almond or pomegranate.[23]

The statue of Hera is seated on a throne; it is huge, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polycleitus. She is wearing a crown with Graces and Seasons worked upon it, and in one had she carries a pomegranate and in the other a scepter. About the pomegranate I must say nothing, for its story is somewhat of a holy mystery.[24]

Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteocles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneices stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and here fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom implying that Polyneices has been carried off by fate, and that Eteocles fully deserved his end. Dionysus is lying down in a cave, a bearded figure holding a golden cup, and clad in a tunic reaching to the feet. Around him are vines, apple-trees and pomegranate trees.[25]
A primitive taboo rested on red-colored food, which might be offered to the dead only; and the pomegranate was supposed to have sprung - like the eight-petalled scarlet anemone - from the blood of Adonis, or Tammuz. The seven pomegranate seeds represent, perhaps, the seven phases of the moon during which farmers wait for the green shoots to appear. But Persephone eating the pomegranate is originally Sheol, the Goddess of Hell, devouring Tammuz; while Ishtar (Sheol herself in a different guise) weeps to placate his ghost. Hera, as a former death goddess, also held a pomegranate.[26]
Poplar

Black poplars were sacred to the Death-goddess and white poplars, or aspens, either to Persephone as Goddess of Regeneration, or to Herakles because he harrowed Hell. Golden head-dresses of aspen leaves have been found in Mesopotamian burials of the fourth millennium BC The Orphic tablets do not name the tree by the pool of Memory; it is probably the white poplar into which Leuce was transformed, but possibly a nut-tree, the emblem of Wisdom. White-cypress wood, regarded as anti-corruptive, was used for household chests and coffins.[27]

Poppy

Aphrodite ... is made of gold and ivory, with the sacred hat on her head and a poppy in one hand and an apple in the other. Her sacrifices are the thighs of all sacred animals except for swine; they incinerate most of the meat with logs of juniper, but with the burning thighs they consecrate the leaves of lad=s love.[28] (In his footnote, Levi says Athe statue is interesting in many ways: the poppy and the Aapple@ (which could as easily be a pomegranate) raise a legitimate suspicion that Aphrodite in Sikyon has something to do with Demeter; Sikyon was once called Mekone and there was a story that at Mekone Demeter had invented the poppy (mekon.) But Demeter would not refuse a sacrifice of swine. The cave at Pitsa belonged to the nymphs and Dionysos, but there also seems to have been a connection with Demeter.)

For the Greeks Demeter was still a poppy goddess, bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands.[29]

It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess, who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis, and it is certain that in the Cretan cult sphere, opium was prepared from poppies.
The making of opium from poppies requires a special procedure. A pharmacobotanist discovered that the poppies on the head of the goddess figurine found in Gazi reveal incisions which the artist colored more deeply than the rest of the flower to make them plainly visible. This is a most significant discovery, because opium is obtained through such incisions.[30]

In the history of religions, periods of Astrong medicine@ usually occur when the simpler methods no longer suffice.[31] (Todd, with the increase of the cult, would pharmaceuticals be used?)

A temple of no great size in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Metroum, keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Mother of the gods, but there stand in it statues of Roman emperors. The Metroum is within the Altis and so is a round building called the Philippeum. On the roof of the Philippeum is a bronze poppy which binds the beams together.[32]

Other pre-viticultural magical plants are also associated with Dionysus as his primordial avatar. Amongst these are to be counted the opium poppy whose role in Minoan religion is attested by the female >sleeping= idol from Isopta in the Iraklion Museum, who wears a diadem of the plant=s seed capsules, each painted with the slit that would be cut to extract the drug. Dionysus himself is seen wearing such a crown on a volute krater in the National Archeological Museum of Taranto: he is depicted as a youthful hunter amidst ecstatic maenads, one of whom holds the thrysos. In a similar manner, Dionysus imitated the role of honey and its ferment, mean, from the Minoan culture. The latter intoxicant involves the symbolism of the bee, who like the herb gathering maenadic women in the wilds, goes from flower to flower, extracting their essence, which is a drug related to the venom of serpents, but is beneficial antithesis, instead of a poison. Such a ritual is apparently depicted on a gold signet ring from a tomb near Knossos, now in the Iraklion Museum: women with the heads of insects are seen dancing amidst flowers as they experience the mystical apotheosis of a deity.[33]

The Goddess is seated beneath the Tree of Life, which, as in Mesopotamia and Egypt, signifies her nurturing power as food giver, emphasized by her left hand offering her breast. She
welcomes two priestesses with snake like headdresses similar to her own, holding out to them in her hand three poppy pods full of seeds, the fruit of transformation.[34]

Returning to the image of the >daughter,= or the young goddess, rising up from the earth, there is another seal that suggests that the myth of spring as the return of the goddess originated in Crete. Here, the goddess is coming up from the earth between two sprouting shoots of vegetation, clasping those same poppy pods that, as the seated goddess amid the full bloom of the tree, she also holds in her hands in Figure 11.[35]

The seed pod of the poppy is often held in the hands of the goddess or her priestess, as in Figure 11. The poppy was grown in great quantities in Crete and was undoubtedly used in the shrines and temples of the goddess to elicit visionary experience, later re-emerging in the cult of Demeter, which was taken from Crete to Eleusis.[36]

“A marble seat on wheels in the Vatican, decorated with poppies and ears of grain, Schwarz suggests, belonged with a free-standing statue of Triptolemos.”[37]

The flowers which, according to Ovid, Kore was picking were poppies. An image of a goddess with poppy-heads in her headdress was found at Gazi in Crete; another goddess on a mold from Palaiokastro holds poppies in her hand; and on the gold ring from the Acropolis treasure at Mycenae, a seated Demeter gives three poppy heads to a standing Kore. Poppy seeds were used as a condiment on bread, and poppies are naturally associated with Demeter, since they grow in cornfields; but Kore picks or accepts poppies because of the soporific qualities, and because of their scarlet color which promises resurrection after death. She is about to retire for her annual sleep.[38]

Or even from the branch of olive one might infer her fiery nature, and from the poppy her productiveness, and the multitude of souls who find an abode in her as in a city, for the poppy is an emblem of a city. She bears a bow, like Artemis, because of the sharpness of the pangs of labor.[39]

Wheat

According to the original myth, the grieving Demeter may have withered trees, grass, and flowers, - but not the grain, for before the disappearance of Persephone, there was no grain. The form of the myth preserved in the Hymn, which minimizes the agrarian element, has quite obscured the context of this crucial point. The most important literary and pictorial version, tell us plainly that seed and harvest were given to men only after Persephone=s descent into the Underworld. Accordingly, all who regard Persephone as a symbol of the grain start from a totally false assumption.[40]

Ludwig Deubner suspected that we are dealing not with any simple natural act, but with a miracle. Hippolytus tells us not only that an ear was displayed but that it was cut, that it had previously been harvested Ain silence@ and then was shown. Both context and grammar required us to understand Hippolytus= words in this sense. And we must indeed conclude that a mysterious act, a kind of magic, was performed. Deubner believes that a magic formula was uttered: AAnd behold in this season when no grain grows@ - for it is autumn - Aan ear of grain has grown.@...The ear of whet growing and maturing with a supernatural suddenness is just as much a part of the mysteries of Demeter as the vine growing in a few hours is part of the revels of Dionysus...The ear of wheat suddenly grown, silently harvested and displayed to the mystai is then really a revelation and pledge of the goddess, who first gave this fruit to mankind through the Eleusinians. More than that: it is an epiphany of Persephone herself, her mythical first recurrence in the shape of the grain, after her descent to the realm of the dead. We need not ask what thoughts and hopes the mystes associated with an epiphany of this sort, It transported him into the realm of miracles, in the presence of the great goddesses themselves, in the moment when they bestowed the ear of grain upon men.[41]

Look about you very carefully and throw out Demeter's holy grain upon the well-rolled threshing floor on the seventh of the mid-month.(Hesiod Works and Days 805-807)As the breezes sport with the chaff upon some goodly threshing floor, when men are winnowing - while yellow Demeter blows with the wind to sift the chaff from the grain, and the chaff-heaps grow whiter and whiter -(Homer Iliad V, 499-502)

Hades (the god. See Underworld.)

Socrates: And the name AHades@ is not in the least derived from the invisible (a)eide/s), but far more probably from knowing (ei)de/nai) all noble things, and for that reason he was called Hades by the lawgiver.[42]

Plato says that Hades is so named (Cratylus 403-404a) because he is a beneficent and gentle god towards those who have come to abide with him.[43]

A philosophical critic of all Mysteries, the severe Herakleitos declared: AHades is the same as Dionysos.@ The subterranean wine-god was the ravisher.[44]

The similarity between Ploutos, whose name means wealth, and Hades, Olympian god of the dead, whose Latinized name is Pluto, is also interesting, particularly since, in the older view, what was buried beneath the earth was the great treasure of regeneration. (Todd, note the corn doll) According to Ovid, Demeter=s lover was a hunter, which is also significant since the great hunter in Crete was Zagreus, Lord of the Underworld, who catches mortals Ain his net,@ and was later identified with Dionysos. Demeter=s daughter, Persephone, was also born in Crete, and the archaic legend of Zeus uniting with his daughter as a serpent took place in Crete as well, and the child of their union was Dionysus.[45]

To Pluto
O mighty daemon, whose decision dread,The future fate determines of the dead,With captive Proserpina, through grassy plains,Drawn in a four-yoked car with loosened reins,Rapt o'er the deep, impelled by love, you flewTill Eleusina's city rose to view:There, in a wondrous cave obscure and deep,The sacred maid secure from search you keep,The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates displayAn entrance to the kingdoms void of day.Of works unseen and seen thy power aloneTo be the great dispensing source is known.All-ruling, holy God, with glory bright,Thee sacred poets and their hymns delight,Propitious to thy mystics' works incline,Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )
Hearth

The boy initiated into the Mysteries from the hearth of Athens was from an aristocratic family in Athens and was elected annually; his initiation fees being paid by the state, he probably represented them symbolically. There were many statues of these boys and, later, also girls in the Sanctuary. (Ibid. p. 236-237) Dio Chrysostom calls one of these a Heracles.
In Thebes, for example, a certain Alcaeus has a statue which they say is a Heracles and was formerly so called; and among the Athenians there is an image of a boy who was an initiate in the mysteries at Eleusis and it bears no inscription; he, too, they say, is a Heracles.(Dio Chrysostom XXXI, 92)
Finally there were the mystes, or initiates, who were under the direction of a sponsor, who was probably the mystagogos who introduced the initiates or performed some of the preliminary rites. Andocides indicates that a father could introduce his son.
Calliades opposed his admission; but the Ceryces voted in favor of the law which they have, whereby a father can introduce his son, if he swears that it is his own son whom he is introducing.(On the Mysteries 127)
Althaea had also a son Meleager, by Oeneus, though they say that he was begotten by Ares. It is said that, when he was seven days old, the Fates came and declared the Meleager should die when the brand burning on the heart was burnt out. On hearing that, Althea snatched up the brand and deposited it in a chest. Meleager grew up to be an invulnerable and gallant man, but came by his end in the following way. In sacrificing the first fruits of the annual crops of the country to all the gods Oeneus forgot Artemis alone. But she in her wrath sent a boar of extraordinary size and strength, which prevent the land from being sown and destroyed the cattle and the people that fell in with it.[46]

But Meleager in a rage slew the sons of Thestius and gave the skin to Atalanta. However, from grief at the slaughter of their brothers Althaea kindled the brand, and Meleager immediately expired.[47]

In myth, Demeter places the son of the king of Eleusis into the fire on the hearth, so that the horrified mother is lead to believe that the child is being burned, whereas the goddess is actually bestowing immortality on the child. In ritual, one child, pais, is always initiated from the hearth, a role which was regarded as a great distinction. A badly damaged relief shows Demeter sitting enthroned while beside her two figures hold out torches toward a cowering child.[48]

Discussing the large Eleusinian relief: “Ridgeway proposed to identify the boy as the cult functionary known as the Initiate from the Hearth. This would suit the boy’s age, and of all proposals advanced so far, it is one of the most logical. But it is hard to think of a reason why, around the time of the eleusinian relief, an artist would wish to deify a hearth-initiate...Schwartz points out that the boy’s sandals are inappropriate; initiates evidently went barefoot. In addition, the boy has none of the attributes of an initiate, viz. The myrtle staff or piglet. And his virtual nakedness is a serious difficulty. To my knowledge there is no other representation of a naked initiate, adult or child, from antiquity, except for divine initiates such as the Dioscuri and Herakles, and these examples appear mainly in scenes from fourth century vase painting. [49]

Hekate

It is safe to say that it is extemely unlikely that we will ever find a piece of evidence at Eleusis that will imply that Hekate had a significant role in the cult of the Mysteries.[50]

Queen Persephone...is faithful to Hades, but has had no children by him and prefers the company of Hekate, goddess of witches , to his. Zeus himself honors Hekate so greatly that he never denies her the ancient power which she has always enjoyed: of bestowing on mortals, or withholding from them, any desired gift. She has three bodies and three heads - lion, dog, and mare.[51] (This from Hesiod: Theogony 411-52.)

But, again, the moon is Hekate, the symbol of her varying phases and of her power dependent of the phases. Wherefore her power appears in three forms, having as symbol of the new moon the figure in the white robe and golden sandals, and torches lighted: the basket, which she bears when she has mounted high, is the symbol of the cultivation of the crops, which she makes to grow up according to the increase of her light: and again the symbol of the full moon is the goddess of the brazen sandals.
Or even from the branch of olive one might infer her fiery nature, and from the poppy her productiveness, and the multitude of souls who find an abode in her as in a city, for the poppy is an emblem of a city. She bears a bow, like Artemis, because of the sharpness of the pangs of labor.[52]

Sleepwalking is referred to in the de morbo sacro (ch.1, VI, 354-7), and is said to be caused, in the opinion of the magical healers, by Hekate and the dead (ibid. 362.3); the ghosts take possession of the living body which the owner leaves unoccupied during sleep.[53]

Hekate is the goddess of pathways, Enodia, especially of cross-roads and of the offerings laid down there; the triple-form figure of Hekate arose from the three masks which were hung at the meeting of three pathways. The pathways of Hekate are pathways of the night; accompanied by barking dogs, she leads a ghostly retinue. Hekate is also goddess of the moon and of the moon-conjuring witches of Thessaly.[54]

Hekate was identified with the Luna in the sky, Diana on earth and Proserpine in the Underworld.[55]

Herakles (see Hearth)

“In an Eleusinian scene (with Triptolemos and Kore) a figure in similar dress, but with a sword instead of spears may be Theseus. We know few details about his connections with eleusis. According to one tradition he sat on the Rock before making his descent to Hades, he was responsible for the initiation of Herakles.”[56]

A twelfth labor was imposed on Hercules was to bring Cerberus from Hades. Now this Cerberus had three heads of dogs, the tail of a dragon, and on his back the heads of all sorts of snakes. Where Hercules was about to depart to fetch him, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, wishing to be initiated. However it was not then lawful for foreigners to be initiated: since he proposed to be initiated as the adoptive son of Payless. But not being able to see the mysteries because he had not been cleansed of the slaughter of the centaurs, he was cleansed by Eumolpus and then initiated. And having come to Taenarum in Laconia, where is the mouth of the descent to Hades, he descended through it. But when the souls saw him, they fled, save Meleager and the Gorgon Medusa. And Hercules drew his sword against the Gorgon, as if she were alive, but he learned from that she was an empty phantom. And being come near to the gates of Hades he found Theseus and Pirithous, him who wooed Persephone in wedlock and was therefore bound fast. And when they beheld Hercules, they stretched out their hands as if they should be raised from the dead by his might. And Theseus, indeed, he took by the hand and raised up, but when he would have brought up Pirithous, the earth quaked and let go. And he rolled away also the stone of Ascalaphus. And wishing to provide the souls with blood, he slaughtered one of the Kine of Hades. But Menoetes, son of Ceuthonymus, who tended the kind, challenged Hercules to wrestle, and being seized round the middle, had his ribs broken; howbeit, he was let off at the request of Persephone. When Hercules asked Pluto for Cerberus, Pluto ordered him to take the animal provided he mastered him without the use of the weapons which he carried. Hercules found him at the gates of Acheron, and, cased in his cuirass and covered by the lion=s skin, he flung his arms round the head of the brute, and though the dragon in its tail bit him, he never released his grip and pressure till it yielded. So he carried it off and ascended through Troezen. But Demeter turned Ascalaphus into a short-eared owl, and Hercules, after showing Cerberus to Eurystheus, carried him back to Hades.[57]

Hermes

Maia, the eldest, as the fruit of her intercourse with Zeus, gave birth to Hermes in a cave of Cyllene. He was laid in swaddling-bands on the winnowing fan, but he slipped out and made his way to Pieri and stole the kine which Apollo was herding.[58]

In the Mysteries of Eleusis, the hierophant is dressed up to represent the demiurge, and the torch-bearer the sun, the priest as the altar the moon, and the sacred herald, Hermes.[59]

The most uncanny of the boundaries which Hermes crosses is the boundary between the living and the dead. The locus classicus is the second nekyia in the Odyssey. Hermes, staff in hand, summons forth the souls of the slain suitors from the palace of Odysseus, and, gibbering like bats, they follow him to the meadow of Asphodelos where souls have eternal sojourn. The idea of the river of the underworld with Charon=s ferry was later combined with this, and so Attic lekythoi show Hermes leading souls to Charon. The way back is also known by Hermes alone: in the Hymn to Demeter it is Hermes who fetches Kore back from Hades, a scene also depicted on vase paintings.[60]

(At Samothrace) At the doors of the anaktoron two bronze statues of ithyphallic Hermes were to be seen. Originally these could have been just phallic boundary markers, but the mythical explanation was that Hermes had got into this state of arousal because he beheld Persephone. This seems to be an allusion to what took place in the anaktoron - something similar to Kore=s epiphany at Eleusis. Ram sacrifice, incidentally, is a specialty of Hermes.[61]

The Demiurge, whom the Egyptians call Cneph, is of human form, but with a skin of dark blue, holding a girdle and a scepter, and crowned with a royal wing on his head, because reason is hard to discover and wrapt up in secret, and not conspicuous, and because it is life-giving, and because it is a king, and because it has an intelligent motion: wherefore the characteristic wing is put upon his head.[62] (See Hermes)

Hestia

But he (Cronus) again bound and shut them up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea and since both Earth and Sky foretold him that he would be dethroned by his own son, he sued to swallow his offspring at birth. His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.[63]

The ruling principle of the power of earth is called Hestia, of whom a statue representing her as a virgin is usually set up on the hearth; but inasmuch as the power is productive, they symbolize her by the form of a woman with prominent breast. The name Rhea they gave to the power of rocky and mountainous land, and Demeter to that of level and productive land. Demeter in other respects is the same as Rhea, but differs in the fact that she gives birth to Kore by Zeus, that is, she produces the shoot (koros) from the seeds of plants. And on this account her statue is crowned with ears of corn, and poppies are set round her as a symbol of productiveness.[64]

The first victim of a Greek public sacrifice was always offered to Hestia of the Hearth. The goddess= white aniconic image, perhaps her most widespread emblem, which appears at Delphi as the omphalos, or navel-boss, may originally have represented the raised white mound of tightly-packed ash, enclosing live charcoal, which is the easiest means of preserving fire without smoke. Later, it became pictorially identified with the lime-whitened mound under which the harvest corn-doll was hidden, to be removed sprouting in the spring; and with the mound of sea-shells, or quartz, or white marble, underneath which dead kings were buried.[65]

It is Hestia=s glory that, alone of the great Olympians, she never takes part in wars or disputes.[66]

She is the Goddess of the Hearth and in every private house and city hall protects suppliants who flee to her for protection. Universal reverence is paid Hestia, not only as the mildest, most upright and most charitable of all the Olympians, but as having invented the art of building houses; and her fires is so sacred that, if ever a hearth goes cold, either by accident or in token of mourning, it is kindled afresh with the aid of a fire-wheel.[67]

Horse

As you go to the starting point for the chariot-race there is an altar with an inscription Ato the Bringer of Fate.@ This is plainly a surname of Zeus, who knows the affairs of men, all that the Fates give them, and all that is not destined for them . . . opposite the middle of it, there are in the open altars of Poseidon Horse-god and Hera Horse-goddess.[68]

The Thelpusians call the goddess Fury ... Now Oncius was, according to tradition, a son of Apollo, and held sway in Thelpusian territory around the place Oncium; the goddess has the surname Fury for the following reason:
When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Oncius; realizing that he was outwitted, Poseidon too changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter.[69]

The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch. . . Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon AHorse.@[70]

The second mountain, Mount Elaisu, is some thirty stades away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter, surnamed Black. The Phigalians accept the account of the people of Thelpusa about the mating of Poseidon and Demeter, but they assert that Demeter gave birth, not to a horse, but to the Mistress, as the Arcadiaans call her.[71]

Iacchos

THE ELEUSINIAN IACCHUS
Aristophanes, Frogs 316 ff (trans. O'Neill) (Greek comedy C5th to 4th B.C.) :"[The god Dionysos encounters a chorus of Eleusinian Initiates in the Underworld on their way to Elysium :]Chorus [of the shades of Eleusinian Initiates] (in the distance) : O lakkhos! O lakkhos! O Iakkhos!Xanthias : I have it, master: 'tis those blessed Mystics [the souls of those who were initiated into the Mysteries in life], of whom he told us, sporting hereabouts. They sing the Iakkhos which Diagoras made . . . Chorus : O Iakkhos! power excelling, here in stately temples dwelling. O Iakkhos! O lakkhos! Come to tread this verdant level, come to dance in mystic revel, come whilst round thy forehead hurtles many a wreath of fruitful myrtles, come with wild and saucy paces mingling in our joyous dance, pure and holy, which embraces all the charms of all the Kharites (Graces), when the mystic choirs advance. . . . Come, arise, from sleep awaking, come the fiery torches shaking, O Iakkhos! O Iakkhos! . . . Call we now the youthful god [Iakkhos], call him hither without delay, him who travels amongst his Chorus, dancing along on the Sacred Way. O, come with the joy of thy festival song, O, come to the goddess, O, mix with our throng untired, though the journey be never so long. O Lord of the frolic and dance, lakkhos, beside me advance! For fun, and for cheapness, our dress thou hast rent, through thee we may dance to the top of our bent, reviling, and jeering, and none will resent. O Lord of the frolic and dance, lakkhos, beside me advance! A sweet pretty girl I observed in the show, her robe had been torn in the scuffle, and lo, there peeped through the tatters a bosom of snow. O Lord of the frolic and dance, lakkhos, beside me advance!"

Herodotus, Histories 8. 65. 4 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.) :"Every year the Athenians observe this festival for Meter (the Mother) [Demeter] and Kore (the Maiden) [Persephone], and any Athenian or other Hellene who wishes is initiated. The voice which you hear is the ‘Iakkhos’ they cry at this festival."

Plato, Phaedo 107c ff (trans. Lamb) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :"Sokrates : But now, since the soul is seen to be immortal, it cannot escape from evil or be saved in any other way than by becoming as good and wise as possible. For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius (daimon) of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together [i.e. the daimon guide is Plato's equivalent of Hermes, Guide of the Dead]; then they are judged and depart to the other world with the guide whose task it is to conduct thither those who come from this world [probably Iakkhos]; and when they have there received their due and remained through the time appointed, another guide [probably Dionysos] brings them back after many long periods of time [i.e. they are reincarnated]."

Strabo, Geography 10. 3. 10 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :"Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysos, Apollon, Hekate, the Mousai, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bakkhic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name Iakkhos not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the Daimon of Demeter. And branch-bearing, choral dancing, and initiations are common elements in the worship of these gods."

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 2. 4 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :"[At Athens] Hard by [the gate] is a temple of Demeter, with images of the goddess herself and of her daughter [Persephone], and of Iakkhos holding a torch."
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 37. 4 :"Mnesitheus [historical], they say, that he was a skilful physician and dedicated statues, among which is a representation of Iakkhos [at Athens]."
Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 15. 1 (trans. Perrin) (Greek historian C1st to C2nd A.D.) :"At this stage of the struggle [just before the historical sea battle of the Persians and Greeks] they say that a great light flamed out from Eleusis, and an echoing cry filled the Thriasian plain down to the sea, as of multitudes of men together conducting the mystic Iakkhos in procession. Then out of the shouting throng a cloud seemed to lift itself slowly from the earth, pass out seawards, and settle down upon the triremes."
Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades 34. 3 :"Sacrifices, choral dances, and many of the sacred ceremonies [were] usually held on the road, when Iakkhos is conducted forth from Athens to Eleusis."

Virgil, Georgics 1. 165 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman bucolic C1st B.C.) :"The hardy farmers’ weapons [used for planting and sowing] . . . further, the common wicker ware of Celeus [king of Eleusis], arbute hurdles and the mystic fan of Iacchus [used in milling, i.e. separating husks from the grain]."

THE ORPHIC IACCHUS
Orphic Hymn 41 to Demeter (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) :"[Demeter] widely wandering once, oppressed with grief, in Eleusis’ valleys foundest relief, discovering Persephone thy daughter pure in dread Aides (Hades), dismal and obscure. A sacred youth while through the earth you stray, Dysaulos [Iakkhos], attending leader of the way; the holy marriage Zeus Khthonios [Haides] relating, while oppressed with grief you rove."

Orphic Hymn 42 to Misa : "To Misa, Fumigation from Storax. I call Thesmophoros [Iakkhos], Dionysos spermatic god, Eubouleos of various names, who bears the leafy rod: Misa, ineffable, pure, sacred queen, twofold Iakkhos, male and female seen. Illustrious, whether to rejoice is thine in incense offered in the fane divine; of if in Phrygia most thy soul delights, perform with thy mother sacred rites; or if the land of Kypros is they care, pleased with the well crowned Kythereia [Aphrodite] fair; or if exulting in the fertile plains with thy dark Mother [Demeter-Isis], where she reigns, with nurses pure attended, near the flood of sacred Aigyptos (Egypt), thy divine abode: wherever resident, benevolent attend, and in perfection these our labours end."
Orphic Hymn 57 to Chthonian Hermes : "To Hermes Khthonion [perhaps here equated with Iakkhos], Fumigation from Storax. Hermes, I call, whom fate decrees to dwell near to Kokytos, the famed stream of Haides, and in necessity’s (ananke’s) dread path, whose bourn to none that reach it ever permits return. O Bakkheios Hermes, progeny divine of Dionysos, parent of the vine, and of celestial Aphrodite, Paphian queen, dark-eyelashed Goddess, of a lovely mien: who constant wanderest through the sacred seats where Haides’ dread empress, Persephone, retreats; to wretched souls the leader of the way, when fate decrees, to regions void of day. Thine is the wand which causes sleep to fly, or lulls to slumberous rest the weary eye; for Persephone, through Tartaros dark and wide, gave thee for ever flowing souls to guide. Come, blessed power, the sacrifice attend, and grant thy mystics’ works a happy end."

THE PSEUDO-ORPHIC IACCHUS
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1. 28 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :"Thyone’s son [Dionysos] lovesick for Aura the desirable, boarslayer, daughter of Kybele, mother of the third Bakkhos late-born [Iakkhos]."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 31. 50 ff :"[Hera addresses Persephone :] Let not Athens sing hymns to a new Dionysos, let him not have equal honour with Eleusinian Dionysos [Iakkhos], let him not take over the rites of Iakkhos who was there before him."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48. 848 ff : "[The Titaness Aura, having been raped by the god Dionysos, gives birth to twins :] A babe came quickly into the light; for even as Artemis yet spoke the word that shot out the delivery, the womb of Aura was loosened, and twin children [Iakkhos & his brother] came forth of themselves; therefore from these twins (didymoi) the highpeaked mountain of Rheia was called Dindymon. Seeing how fair the children were, the goddess [Artemis] again spoke in a changed voice : `Wetnurse, lonely ranger, twinmother, bride of a forced bridal, give your untaught breast to your sons, virgin mother. Your boy calls daddy, asking for his father; tell your children the name of your secret lover. Artemis knows nothing of marriage, she has not nursed a son at her breast. These mountains were your bed, and the spotted skins of fawns are swaddling-clothes for your babies, instead of the usual robe.’She spoke, and swiftshoe plunged into the shady wood. Then Dionysos called Nikaia, his own Kybeleid Nymphe, and smiling pointed to Aura still unbraiding her childbed; proud of his late union with the lonely girl, he said : ‘. . . I beseech you, hasten to lift up my son, that my desperate Aura may not destroy him with daring hands--for I kno wshe will kill one of the two baby boys in her intolerable frenzy, but do you help Iakkhos : guard the better boy, that your Telete may be the servant of son and father both.’ . . . And in deep distress beside the rock where they had been born, the mother [Aura] in childbed held up the two boys and cried aloud--`From the sky came this marriage--I will throw my offspring into the sky! I was wooed by the breezes, and I saw no mortal bed. Breezes (Aurai) my namesakes came down to the marriage of Aura, then let the breezes take the offspring from my womb. Away with you, children accursed of a treacherous father, you are none of mine--what have I to do with the sorrows of women? Show yourselves now, lions, come freely to forage in the woods; have no fear, for Aura is your enemy no more. Hares with your rolling eyes, you are better than hounds. Jackals, let me be your favourite; I will watch the panther jumping fearless beside my bed. Bring your friend the bear without fear; for now that Aura has children her arrows in bronze armour have become womanish. I am ashamed to have the name of bride who once was virgin; lest I sometime offer my strong breast to babes, lest I press out the bastard milk with my hand, or be called tender mother in the woods where I slew wild beasts!’She took the babes and laid them in the den of a lioness for her dinner. But a panther with understanding mind licked their bodies with her ravening lips, and nursed the beautiful boys of Dionysos with intelligent breast; wondering serpents with poisonspitting mouth surrounded the birthplace, for Aura’s bridegroom had made even the ravening beasts gentle to guard his newborn children.Then Lelantos’s daughter sprang up with wandering foot in the wild temper of a shaggycrested lioness, tore one child from the wild beast’s jaws and hurled it like a flash into the stormy air : the newborn child fell from the air headlong into the whirling dust upon the ground, and she caught him up and gave him a tomb in her own maw--a family dinner indeed! The maiden Archeress [Artemis] was terrified at this heartless mother, and seized the other child of Aura [Iakkhos], then she hastened away through the wood; holding the boy, an unfamiliar burden in her nursing arm . . . She went about the forest seeking for traces of Lyaios in his beloved mountains, while she held Aura’s newborn babe, carrying in her arms another’s burden, until shamefast she delivered his boy to Dionysos her brother.The father gave charge of his son to Nikaia the Nymphe as a nurse. She took him, and fed the boy, pressing out the lifegiving juice of her childnursing breasts from her teat, until he grew up. While the boy was yet young, Bakkhos took into his car this Bakkhos his father’s namesake, and presented him to Attic Athena amid her mysteries, babbling ‘Euoi’. Goddess Pallas in her temple received him into her maiden bosom, which had welcome for a god; she gave the boy that pap which only Erekhtheus had sucked, and let the alien milk trickle of itself from her unripe breast. The goddess gave him in trust to the Bakkhante’s of Eleusis; the wives of Marathon wearing ivy tript around the boy Iakkhos, and lifted the Attic torch in the nightly dances of the deity lately born. They honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephoneia [Zagreus], and after Semele’s son; they established sacrifices for Dionysos lateborn and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iakkhos. In these three celebrations Athens held high revel; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iakkhos all together."

Initiation

The constant reference to torches in these tales adds authenticity to the torches used in the initiation rituals. Diodorus' account gives much useful information including the knowledge that the celebrations of Persephone are in gratitude for plentiful crops, those of Demeter in propitiation before the sowing.
After the Rape of Kore, the myth goes on to recount, Demeter, being unable to find her daughter, kindled torches in the craters of Mt. Aetna and visited many parts of the inhabited world, and upon the men who received her with the greatest favor she conferred benefactions, rewarding them with the gift of the fruit of the wheat. And since a more kindly welcome was extended the goddess by the Athenians than by any other people, they were the first after the Siceliotae to be given the fruit of the wheat; and in return for this gift the citizens of that city in assembly honored the goddess above all others with the establishment both of most notable sacrifices and of the mysteries of Eleusis, which, by reason of their very great antiquity and sanctity, have come to be famous among all mankind. From the Athenians many peoples received a portion of the gracious gift of the corn, and they in turn, sharing the gift of the seed with their neighbors, in this way caused all the inhabited world to abound with it. And the inhabitants of Sicily, since by reason of the intimate relationship of Demeter and Kore with them they were the first to share in the corn after its discovery, instituted to each one of the goddesses sacrifices and festive gatherings, which they name after them, and by the time chosen for these made acknowledgment of the gifts which had been conferred upon them. In the case of Kore, for instance, they established the celebration of her return at about the time when the fruit of the corn was found to come to maturity, and they celebrate this sacrifice and festive gathering with such strictness of observance and such zeal as we should reasonably expect those men to show who are returning thanks for having been selected before all mankind for the greatest possible gift; but in the case of Demeter they preferred that time for the sacrifice when the sowing of the corn is first begun, and for a period of ten days they hold a festive gathering which bears the name of this goddess and is most magnificent by reason of the brilliance of their preparation for it, while in the observance of it they imitate the ancient manner of life. And it is their custom during these days to indulge in coarse language as they associate one with another, the reason being that by such coarseness the goddess, grieved though she was of the Rape of Kore, burst into laughter.(Diodorus Siculus V, 4)
Callimachus indicates how these legends may have been incorporated into rites of initiation:
As the basket comes, greet it, you women, saying "Demeter, greatly hail! Lady of much bounty, of many measures of corn." As the basket comes, from the ground you shall see it, you uninitiated, and gaze not from the roof or from aloft - child nor wife nor maid that has shed her hair - neither then nor when we spit from parched mouths fasting. Hesperus from the clouds marks the time of its coming: Hesperus, who alone persuaded Demeter to drink, that time she pursued the unknown tracks of her stolen daughter.Lady, how were your feet able to carry you to the West, to the black men and where the golden apples are? You did not drink nor did you eat during that time nor did you wash. Thrice did you cross Achelous with his silver eddies and as often did you pass over each of the ever-flowing rivers, and thrice did you seat yourself on the ground beside the fountain Callichorus, parched and without drinking, and did not eat nor wash.Nay, nay, let us not speak of that which brought the tear to Deo! Better to tell how she gave to cities pleasing ordinances; better to tell how she was the first to cut straw and holy sheaves of corn-ears and put in oxen to tread them, that time Triptolemus was taught the good craft.(Callimachus To Demeter 1-24)

But Zeus desired that the other of his two sons might also attain to honor, and so he instructed him in the initiatory rite of the mysteries, which had existed on the island since ancient times but was at that time, so to speak, put in his hands; it is not lawful, however, or any but the initiated to hear about the mysteries. And Iasion is reputed to have been the first to initiate strangers into them and by this means to bring the initiatory rite to high esteem.... And Demeter, becoming enamored of Iasion, presented him with the fruit of the corn.... To Iasion and Demeter, according to the story the myths relate, was born Plutus or Wealth, but the reference is, as a matter of fact, to the wealth of the corn, which was presented to Iasion because of Demeter's association with him at the time of the wedding of Harmonia. Now the details of the initiatory rite are guarded among the matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the initiates alone; but the fame has traveled wide of how these gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils. The claim is also made that men who have taken part in the mysteries become both more pious and more just and better in every respect than they were before. And this is the reason, we are told, why the most famous both of the ancient heroes and of the demi-gods were eagerly desirous of taking part in the initiatory rite; and in fact Jason and the Dioscuri, and Heracles and Orpheus as well, after their initiation attained success in all the campaigns they undertook, because these gods appeared to them.(Diodorus Siculus V, 48, 49)

The source of the term Amysteria@ as also of Amystes@ and Amystikos@ - consists in a verb whose ritual significance is Ato initiate,@ developed from the verb mysein Ato close the eyes or mouth.@ The monuments - two replicas of a representation of the initiation of Herakles into the Mysteria - show us that what we should imagine here is not a silence (closing the mouth) in the presence of the arreton but a ceremony of closing the eyes. Herakles is seated with his head totally covered: the Mysteria begin for the mystes when, as sufferer of the event, he closes his eyes, fall back as it were into his own darkness, enters into the darkness. The Romans use the term Agoing into,@ Ain-itia@ (in the plural) not only for this initiating action, the act of closing the eyes, the myesis, which is exactly rendered as initiatio, but for the Mysteria themselves. A festival of entering into the darkness, regardless of what issue and ascent this initiation may lead do: that is what the Mysteria were, in the original sense of the word.[72]

The distinctive mark of initiation is the temporary seclusion of the initiands from everyday life to a marginal existence. The ritual consequently proceeds through the three stages of separation, interstitial status, and reintegration.[73]

(Attributed to Plutarch) At first there is wandering, and wearisome roaming, and fearful traveling through darkness with no end to be found. Then, just before the consummation, there is every sort of terror, shuddering and trembling and perspiring and being alarmed. But after this a marvelous light appears, and open places and meadows await, with voices and dances and the solemnities of sacred utterances and holy visions. In that place one walks about at will, not perfect and initiated and free, and wearing a crown, one celebrates religious rites, and joins with pure and pious people.
Such a person looks over the uninitiated and unpurified crowd of people living here, who are packed together and trample each other in deep mud and murk, but who hold onto their evil things on account of their fear of death, because they do not believe in the good things that are in the other world.[74]

A fragment of Aristotle, preserved in Synesius (Dio 10) concludes that initiates into the mysteries do not learn anything, but rather have an experience and are put into a certain state of mind.[75]

Just as persons who are being initiated into the Mysteries throng together at the outset amid tumult and shouting, and jostle against one another, but when the holy rites are being performed and disclosed, the people are immediately attentive in awe and silence, so, too, at the beginning of philosophy: about its portals also you will see great tumult and talking and boldness, as some boorishly and violently their way towards the repute it bestows; but he who has succeeded in getting inside, and has seen a great light, as though a shrine were opened, adopts another bearing of silence and amazement, and Ahumble and orderly attends upon@ reason as upon a god.[76]

In the rites of the classical mystery cults the initiatory symbolic shocks were experienced in graduated series by neophytes spiritually ready, who were carried thereby through expanding revelations to whatever sign or event, displayed within the ultimate sanctum, conferred the consuming epiphany. But life too confers initiations, and the most potent of these are of sex and death. Life too communicates revelatory shocks, but they are not pedagogically graded. These initiations are administered both to those prepared and to those who are unprepared, and while the latter either receive from them no instruction or, worse, are left damaged (insane, a bit exploded, defensively hardened, or inert), those ready receive initiations that may not only match but even surpass the revelations of the cults. For since life is itself the background from which the prophets of both your great and the little ceremonial systems derived their initial inspirations, life holds still in store the possibilities of the same enlightenment anew, and of more and greater besides.[77]

It is the essence of the mystery-cult, that by such stimulants to the emotions as Strabo describes, the worshiper felt the god enter into his own being and could, while the ecstasy lasted, call himself, the follower, by the name of the god he worshiped.[78]

All evidence leads to the conclusion that the effect was achieved by the immediate action upon the senses. The initiate was shown things, and convinced of his salvation by the evidence of his eyes.[79]

The inner area of the triangle is the common hearth of all, and is called the Plain of Truth, in which the accounts, the forms, and the patterns of all things that have come to pass and of all that shall come to pass rest undisturbed; and round about them lies Eternity, whence Time, like an ever-flowing stream, is conveyed to the worlds. Opportunity to see and to contemplate these things is vouchsafed to human souls once in ten thousand years if they have lived goodly lives; and the best of the initiatory rites here are but a dream of that highest rite and initiation; [80]

Isis - Osiris

Isis, a mother goddess of remarkable magical powers, is closely identified with the royal throne of the pharaoh. In hieroglyphic characters her name (Seat) is the throne, and her role in Egyptian myth guarantees an orderly succession on the throne of Egypt from one pharaoh to another.[81]

Isis was, variously, the milk-giving cow goddess; goddess of the serpents of the primeval waters; the star goddess Sirius, who brought about the inundation of the Nile; the fertile pig goddess; the bird goddess; goddess of the underworld who breath gave life to the dead; goddess of the Tree of Life, offering the food and water of immortality; goddess of the words of power; the tender, caring mother of Horus, her son; and goddess of the throne upon whose sovereign lap the king sat as her infant child in the image of all humanity.[82]

Five miles or so from Asklepios is a precinct with a sanctuary consecrated to Isis, the holiest sanctuary every built by Greece for the Egyptian goddess. The Tithoreans have a sacred tradition that no one should live here, and no one can go into the holy place except those chosen by Isis and summoned by visions in their sleep. The gods of the underworld do the same in the cities on the Maiander, sending visionary dreams when they wish a man to enter the holy places...They say an unsanctified man with no right to go down to the holy place once went inside out of curiosity and daring, as the fire was just beginning to burn. He saw the spirits of the dead thronging everywhere: he went home to Tithorea, told the story of what he had seen, and breathed his last. I have heard something similar from a Phoenician. The Egyptians celebrate a festival for Isis when they say she grieves for Osiris; at that time the Nile begins to rise; and many of the people say it is the tears of Isis that swell the river and water the ploughed land. Well, my friend said that at that time the Roman who was Governor of Egypt bribed a man and sent him into the holy place of Isis at Koptos. The man he sent in did return from the holy place, but I find that the same thing happened to him: he described what he had seen, and immediately died. Homer=s verse seems to be true, that it carries no blessing if the gods are seen plainly by the human race.[83]

Of the annual rites which Osiris= death and burial were celebrated we unfortunately know very little. The mourning lasted five days from the 8th to the 12th of the month Athyr. The ceremonies began with the Aearth-ploughing@, that is, with the opening of the field labors, when the waters of the Nile are sinking. The other rites included the search for the mangled body of Osiris, the rejoicing at its discovery, and its solemn burial. The burial took place on the 11th of November, and was accompanied by the recitation of lamentations from the liturgical books.[84]

The erection of the column would be, as Erman interprets it, a representation of the resurrection of Osiris, which , as we learn from Plutarch, appears to have been celebrated at his mysteries. Perhaps the ceremony Plutarch describes as taking place on the third day of the festival (the 19th day of the month Athyr) may also have referred to the resurrection. He says that on that day the priests carried the sacred ark down to the sea. Within the ark was a golden casket, into which drinking water was poured. A shout then went up that Osiris was found. Then some mold was mixed with water, and out of the paste thus formed a crescent-shaped image was fashioned, which was then dressed in robes and adorned.[85]

According to Diodorus (I - 14), whose authority appears to have been the Egyptian historian Manetho, the discovery of wheat and barley was attributed to Isis, and at her festivals stalks of these grains were carried in procession to commemorate the boon she had conferred on men. Further, at harvest-time, when the Egyptian reapers had cut the first stalks, they laid them down and beat their breasts, lamenting, and calling upon Isis. Amongst the epithets by which she is designated on the inscriptions are Acreatoress of the green crop.@ AThe green one, whose greenness is like the greenness of the earth,@ and Amistress of bread.@[86]

Herodotus (ii 49) found the similarity between the rites of Osiris and Dionysos so great, that he thought it impossible the latter could have arisen independently; they must, he though, have been recently borrowed, with slight alterations, by the Greeks from the Egyptians. Again, Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, 35), a very intelligent student of comparative religion, insists upon the detailed resemblance of the rites of Osiris to those of Dionysus.[87]

[1] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. II.22.4.
[2] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 113.
[3] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 26.
[4] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.13.6.
[5] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.22.3.
[6] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.27.6.
[7] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 298.
[8] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 301.
[9] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 274.
[10] Apuleius. Metamorphoses. 11.23.
[11] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 272-273.
[12] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, p. 79.
[13] Euripides. Suppliants 260.
[14] Pausanias. Description of Greece, 1.38.6.
[15] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.37.3.
[16] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 95.
[17] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.15.3.
[18] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 93.
[19] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.37.1-2.
[20] Pausanias. Description of Greece 9.19.5.
[21] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, p. 183.
[22] Hymn to Demeter 6 - 10.
[23] James Frazer. The Golden Bough, Volume 1, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint. P. 298.
[24] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.17.4.
[25] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.19.6.
[26] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 95.
[27] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 124.
[28] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. II.10.4.
[29] Theokritos. VII, 157.
[30] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, p. 24.
[31] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, p. 26.
[32] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.20.9.
[33] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 186-187.
[34] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 115.
[35] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 115.
[36] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 124.
[37] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p. 46.
[38] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 96.
[39] Porphyry. Concerning Cult Images, (fragment 8 = Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 3.11.22 - 44.)
[40] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 19.
[41] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, pps. 25-26.
[42] Plato. Cratylus. 404b.
[43] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 362, 29.
[44] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 40.
[45] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 366-367.
[46] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.8.2.
[47] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.67.
[48] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 288.
[49] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 49.
[50] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 117.

[51] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 122.
[52] Porphyry. Concerning Cult Images, (fragment 8 = Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 3.11.22 - 44.)
[53] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951. p. 84.
[54] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 171.
[55] Virgil. Aeneid, IV, 511.
[56] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p. 43.

[57] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 2.5.11. - 2.5.12.
[58] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.10.2.
[59] Porphyry. Concerning Cult Images, Chapter XII.
[60] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 158-159.
[61] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 284.
[62] Porphyry. Concerning Cult Images, fragment 10 = Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 3.11.45 - 13.2.
[63] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.1.5.
[64] Porphyry. Concerning Cult Images. Fr. 6=Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 3.11.7.
[65] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 13.
[66] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 74.
[67] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 75.
[68] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.15.5.
[69] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.25.4 - 5.
[70] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.25.7.
[71] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.42.1.
[72] Carl Kerenyi. The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 38-39.
[73] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 260.
[74] Stobaeus. Anthologion. 4.52.49.
[75] Marvin W. Meyer. The Ancient Mysteries: a Sourcebook. Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987, p. 12.
[76] Plutarch. Moralia. 1.
[77] Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. New York: Penguin Books, 1968, p. 67.
[78] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 45.
[79] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 289.
[80] Plutarch. On the Obsolescence of Oracles, 422.
[81] Marvin W. Meyer. The Ancient Mysteries: a Sourcebook. Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987, p. 157.
[82] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 225.
[83] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. X. 32. 9 - 11.
[84] James Frazer. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint. P. 303.
[85] James Frazer. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint. P. 305.
[86] James Frazer. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint. P. 310.
[87] James Frazer. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint. P. 319.

Key

On one side (of the table) are Asclepias and Health, one of his daughters; Ares too and Contest by his side; on the other are Pluto, Dionysus, Persephone and nymphs, one of them carrying a ball. As to the key (Pluto holds a key) they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom.[1]

a chorus of Sophocles says that a golden key is laid upon the tongue of mortals by the Eumolpid priests.[2]

Now Aeacus was the most pious of men. Therefore, when Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, because in a war with Stymphalus, king of the Arcadians, being unable to conquer Arcadia, he slew the king under a pretense of friendship, and scattered his mangled limbs, oracles of the gods declared that Greece would be rid of its present calamities if Aeacus would offer prayers on its behalf. So Aeacus did offer prayers, and Greece was delivered from the death. Even after his death Aeacus is honored in the abode of Pluto, and keeps the keys of Hades.[3]

Korybantes / Kabeiroi

I turn to what is remote from my theme, but has been brought into connection with it by historians owing to the identity of name, being known as Kuretic or concerned with the Kuretes as if it had to do with the former inhabitants of Aetolia and Acarnaia. In fact these Kuretes are different, and what is known about them suggests rather the Satyrs and Sileni and Bacchi and Tityri. For according to writer on Cretan and Phrygian lore, the Kuretes are similar daemons or attendants upon gods, and are mixed up with certain sacred rites, both mystic and other, concerned with the rearing of the child Zeus in Crete and the orgiastic worship of the Mother of the Gods in Phyrgia and around Mount Ida in the Troad. There is much confusion in these accounts. Some declare that the Korybantes and Kabiri and Idaen Daktyls and Telchines are the same as the Kuretes, others pronounce them related and distinguish certain small differences between them, but agree that in general terms, and to name their prevailing characteristics, all alike are enthusiastic and Bacchic types, who in the guise of acolytes, but dances in arms with tumult, noise, cymbals, tympana and weapons, also with the music of flutes an shouting, arouse the passions in the course of religious ceremonies. Thus the rites also become common property, both those of the Kuretes and those performed in Samothrace and in Lemnos and many others, because the attendant daemons were identified. (In a footnote on this comment by Strabo, Guthrie says that the orgiastic rites of the Thracian goddess Bendis (in Lemnos) also called the Great Goddess, a goddess of the fruits of the earth identified by the Greeks with Artemis, Persephone and Hekate.)[4]

Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from the grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother.
But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri, and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, once of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.[5]

Thaleia the muse became by Apollon mother of the Korybantes. Another account made their parents Zeus and Kalliope, and explained that the Korybantes were one with the mystic Kabeiroi. Others declared that Korybas, eponym of the Korybantes, was a son of Iasion by Kybele, the Asiatic mountain goddess. Others again – for the theme had many variations – spoke of the Korybantes as the first men, who had sprung from the ground in the shape of trees. It all comes to the same thing. The Korybantes were akin to the great mountain-goddess or earth mother who they served with wild enthusiastic rites. Their name, if I am not mistaken, is derived from korybe the Macedonian form of koryphe ‘a mountain peak’ and means ‘peak-men’ In roman times, if not earlier, the Korybantes were connected with Mount Olympos. According to Clement of Alexandra, they were three brothers, two of whom slew the third, wrapped his head in a crimson cloak, decked it with a wreath and buried it, bearing it on a bronze shield to the foot of Olympos. Bloodshed and burial were the essential features of their mysteries. …Further, these Korybantes – says Clement – were called Kabeiroi; and the story told of them was that the two fratricides took up the basket containing the member of Dionysos and brought it to Eturia, where they lived in exile teaching the Etruscans to worship the basket and its contents. Note that the dead Kabeiros is here termed Dionysos and that a portion of him is kept in a basket to serve as a nucleus of fresh life.[6]

In late times the Dionysiac connection was intensified. Korybantes and Kabeiroi came to the fore; and certain shrewd persons recorded their conviction that the original Kabeiroi had been two in number – Zeus the elder and Dionysos the younger. If the Zeus worshipped at Dion was thus Dionysiac in character, akin to the Phrygian Zeus Sabazios, we can understand why he has the snake as his attribute: the slain Korybas became a snake, and snakes were all important in the mysteries of Sabazios.[7]

Both districts had strange stories to tell of the way in which the divine child had been nurtured by doves or bees, a goat or a pig, while Kouretes and Korybantes clashed their weapons to drown his infant cries.[8]

Kykeon

Fasting and Drinking the Kykeon
The sixth day, Boedromion 20, seems to have been spent in resting, fasting, purification, and sacrificing. A large cake of barley and wheat from the Rharian plain was offered to the gods by the Eumolpids. Thus prepared the initiates were ready for the great revelation and wore new clothes for the ceremony. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 260-261)Plotinus mentions these practices as analogous to the beginning of the ascent back to God.
So, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before,(First Ennead VI, 7)
Callimachus mentions:
fasting on the sacred days of the Rarian Demeter. (Aetia 10)
Porphyry in his On Abstinence From Animal Food has more to say, and gives the spiritual reasons for such practices.
But most theologians say that the name of Persephone is derived from nourishing a ringdove; for the ringdove is sacred to this Goddess. Hence, also the priests of Maia dedicate to her a ringdove. And Maia is the same with Persephone, as being obstetric, and a nurse. For this Goddess is terrestrial, and so likewise is Demeter. To this Goddess, also a cock is consecrated; and on this account those that are initiated in her mysteries abstain from domestic birds. In the Eleusinian mysteries, likewise, the initiated are ordered to abstain from domestic birds, from fishes and beans, pomegranates and apples, which fruits are as equally defiling to the touch, as a woman recently delivered, and a dead body But whoever is acquainted with the nature of divinely-luminous appearances knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds, and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns, and to be established with the celestial Gods.(Porphyry On Abstinence From Animal Food IV, 16)
Ovid relates how the initiates pattern their practice after the actions of the divine Demeter thus achieving ritual in its most meaningful manifestation as imitation or participation in divine action.
As she was about to pass within the lowly dwelling, she plucked a smooth, a slumberous poppy that grew on the waste ground; and as she plucked, 'tis said she tasted it forgetfully, and so unwitting stayed her long hunger. Hence, because she broke her fast at nightfall, the initiates time their meal by the appearance of the stars.(Fasti IV ca. 530)
We remember from the Homeric Hymn how Demeter refused wine but broke her fast by drinking the kykeon made of barley meal, water, and tender mint; thus she observed the sacrament. So, too, the initiates after a fast of perhaps several days drank the same potent sacrament as the final preparation for the mystic initiation. Kerenyi on the significance of the kykeon cites the opinion of a pharmacologist: "It is well known that visionary states can be induced by hunger alone.... The content of the visions, as experiments on visionary states induced by chemicals, that is, drugs, have shown, is largely or perhaps entirely determined by expectations, spiritual preparation, initial psychic situation, and by the surroundings." (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 179) The third ingredient after roasted barley and water was the glekon or blekon, Mentha pulegium. This is a variety of pennyroyal, and the principal ingredient is poley oil (Oleum pulegii), prepared as an aromatic in southern Europe by distilling the wild. In large doses it may induce delirium, loss of consciousness, and spasms. The word blekon implies a carminative or antispasmodic that may have been a narcotic. Pindar uses the word in relation to the rivers of the underworld:
the slow rivers of dark night,
and to:
the sluggish gift of sleep
Once the Epheians were in rebellion and asked the philosopher Heraclitus for advice. He said not a word, took a cup of cold water, sprinkled barley into it, stirred it with a branch of Mentha pulegium, and drank it down. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 179-180)According to Dr. Hofmann, "The volatile oils contained in poley oil (Oleum pulegii) might very well, added to the alcoholic content of the kykeon, have produced hallucinations in persons whose sensibility was heightened by fasting." (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 180) With this heightened awareness, the initiates were ready for the spiritual visions which would briefly lift the veil from death and show them a spiritual reality into which they would be born after death.

This draught (kykeon) was drunk as a sacrament breaking the fast on the climactic day of celebrations. Nonnus gives a reason for Demeter's fast:
But Deo refused to drink, being tipsy with Persephone's trouble: parents of an only child ever tremble for their beloved children.(Dionysiaca VI, 30-32)
Ovid's version:
Meanwhile all in vain the affrighted mother seeks her daughter in every land, on every deep. Not Aurora rising with dewy tresses, not Hesperus sees her pausing in the search. She kindles two pine torches in the fires of Aetna, and wanders without rest through the frosty shades of night; again, when the genial day had dimmed the stars, she was still seeking her daughter from the setting to the rising of the sun. Faint with toil and athirst, she had moistened her lips in no fountain, when she chanced to see a hut thatched with straw, and knocked at its lowly door. Then out came an old woman and beheld the goddess, and when she asked for water gave her a sweet drink with parched barley floating upon it. While she drank, a coarse, saucy boy stood watching her, and mocked her and called her greedy. She was offended, and threw what she had not yet drunk, with the barley grain, full in his face.(Metamorphoses V, 438-452)
Pennyroyal apparently retained its quasi-mythical associations with the functions of birthing and nursing the newborn for many centuries, ass attested by Soranus’ recommendation of its strong, sweetish odor (somewhere between peppermint and camphor) in the delivery chamber.[9]

As to the composition of the drink, it is generally agreed that it can have had no alcoholic content, since the Hymn expressly states that Demeter did not partake of wine. Yet is has been suggested that there might have been an admixture of some other intoxicating ingredients. Joseph Campbell, for example, has speculated that the grains of wheat may have contained small quantities of ergot, a natural hallucinogen often occurring in cereal products (video: AFrom Darkness to Light.@) This hypothesis is rendered less plausible, however, by the extremely volatile character of ergot infections (as in St. Anthony=s fire) which would have been difficult if not impossible to control safely.[10]

Carl A. P. Ruck, Albert Hoffman, and I (R. Gordon Wasson) have advanced a theory that explains the Mystery of Eleusis, a major focus of the religious life of the ancient Greeks: it was well within the capacity of the hierophants of Eleusis to prepare a water solution of the Claviceps purpurea (ergot) growing on their wheat and barley or the water solution of the powdered ergot of Paspalum ditichum, a grass growing around the Mediterranean, both of which would give the worshipers an entheogenic experience with no danger of a deleterious effect.[11]

Labyrinth

The word >labyrinth= is not Greek in origin, though we know that the word labrys meant the double headed axe. So the labyrinth was both the AHouse of the Double Axe@ - that is, the temple of the goddess, where her mysteries were celebrated - and the place of rebirth. The goddess was probably the ALady of the Labyrinth,@ to whom a jar of honey, the divine nectar, was humbly offered.[12]

Another interpretation has the labyrinthine turnings representing the soul=s wandering before or after death, where the obstacles in the way of reaching the center symbolize the sacrifices that progressively make possible the way forward, until at the center the union creates transformation, and the way out again allows rebirth.[13]

The two boys whom the visitor to Trophonios was given to attend him on the night of his descent were called Hermai, and must have been the representatives of Hermes Psychopompos, who conducted souls to the underworld. The same thing is probably suggested by the curiously complicated arrangement of spikes and circular railings (obeloi and zonai), with gates through them, laid out on the marble floor surrounding the entrance to the adyton. It suggests a maze, one use of which was to keep unwanted and possibly mischievous spirits in their place; for as all magicians know, even a system of lines raced on the ground can do this, provided the proper formalities have been carried out.[14]

For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together; then they are judged and depart to the other world with the guide whose task it is to conduct thither those who come from this world; and when they have there received their due and remained through the time appointed, another guide brings them back after many long periods of time. And the journey is not as Telephus says in the play of Aeschylus; for he says a simple path leads to the lower world, but I think the path is neither simple nor single, for if it were, there would be no need of guides, since no one could miss the way to any place if there were only one road. But really there seem to be many forks of the road and many windings; this I infer from the rites and ceremonies practiced here on earth. Now the orderly and wise soul follows its guide and understands its circumstances, bur the soul that is desirous of the body, as I said before, flits about it, and in the visible world for a long time.[15]

(Attributed to Plutarch) At first there is wandering, and wearisome roaming, and fearful traveling through darkness with no end to be found. Then, just before the consummation, there is every sort of terror, shuddering and trembling and perspiring and being alarmed. But after this a marvelous light appears, and open places and meadows await, with voices and dances and the solemnities of sacred utterances and holy visions. In that place one walks about at will, not perfect and initiated and free, and wearing a crown, one celebrates religious rites, and joins with pure and pious people. Such a person looks over the uninitiated and unpurified crowd of people living here, who are packed together and trample each other in deep mud and murk, but who hold onto their evil things on account of their fear of death, because they do not believe in the good things that are in the other world.[16]

For the lesser mysteries, he says, are those of Persephone here below, and of these mysteries and the road that leads there, which is Abroad and wide@ and leads those who are perishing to Persephone, the poet also says: ABut beneath it is an awesome pathway, cavernous and clayey; but this is the best that leads to the pleasant grove of glorious Aphrodite.@[17]

There follows a purification ceremony for which the Homeric Hymn has Demeter herself set the example. Without speaking a word she sits down on a stool which is covered by a ram fleece, and she veils her head. Thus reliefs show Herakles at his initiation, veiled and sitting on a ram fleece, while either a winnowing fan is held over him or a torch is brought up close to him from beneath. In ancient interpretation this would be purification by air and by fire; for the blindfolded mystes these must be disquieting, threatening experiences. On the reliefs there follows the encounter with Demeter, Kore, and the kiste. This probably points to the festival proper: >As long as you have not reached the Anaktoron, you are not initiated.=[18]

In the sanctuary of Eleusis there was not enough room for such wanderings, but at most, during the archaic period, for round dances outside the temple. These ceased to be essential components of the Mysteries when, after the Persian invasion, the temple was surrounded with a protective wall that cut across the dance area. Regardless of whether there were labyrinthine dances at Eleusis or whether the picture of processions in the underworld is based on a still older and not purely Eleusinian tradition, the end of the dance was good. The labyrinth suggested by meanders and spirals was a place of processions and not of hopelessness, even though it was a place of death.[19]

Diodorus the Sicilian…he describes the labyrinth futher as having “banquet halls reached by steep ascents, flights of ninety steps leading down from the porticoes, porphyritic columns, figures of gods and hideous monsters and statues of kings. Some of the palaces are so made that the opening of a door makes a terrifying sound as of thunder. Most of the buildings are in total darkness. Outside the labyrinth there is another great heap of buildings, called the ‘Pteron’ under which are passages leading to other subterranean palaces.’[20]

Theseus and his party did “not appear to have been too eager to reach their destination, however, for the party found time to celebrate their escape with dance and song on the islands en route. It is said that on the island of Delos they performed a peculiar dance called the Geranos, or “Crane Dance” in which they went through the motions of threading the labyrinth, and that this dance was perpetuated by the natives of that island until fairly recent times.[21]

The Cretan poet Epimenides, who lived in the 6th century b.c., says that Theseus was aided in his escape from the dark Labyrinth by means of the light radiated by a crown of blazing gems and gold which Bacchus gave to Ariadne.
Aristotle, according to Plutarch, stated in a work which has not come down to us his belief that the Athenian youths were not put to death by Minos but were retained as slaves. Plutarch, moreover, deplores the abuse which Greek tradition had heaped upon the name of Minos, pointing out that Homer and Hesiod had referred to him in very honorable terms and laws, like another Moses, direct from God, and after administering them during his life on earth continued to do so in the underworld after his death.[22]

At Gortyna, on the south side of Crete, there was a remarkable series of winding passages, opening on the side of Mount Ida. Some authors of antiquity, such as the Roman poets Catullus and Claudian, held the opinion that this cavern, or one of the many other caves or quarries in Crete was the real Labyrinth, and this view has been largely entertained in recent times, right up to the beginning of the present century.[23]

A very interesting account of the Gortnya cavern is that contained in the journal of C.R. Cockerell. He and his party entered the labyrinth by an inconspicuous hold in the rock in a steep part of Mount Ida and found themselves in an intricately winding passage. They had taken the precaution to bring with them a great length of string wound upon two sticks, and it was fortunate that they did so, for “the windings bewildered us as once, and, my compass being broken, I was quite ignorant to where I was. The clearly intentional intricacy and apparently endless number of galleries impressed me with a sense of horror and fascination I cannot describe. At every ten steps on was arrested, and had to turn to right or left, sometimes to choose one of three or four roads. What if one should lose the clue?”[24]

Fig. 23 shows a silver coin of a rather later date, representing on its obverse a female head which is thought to be that of Demeter or Persephone, and on the reverse a meander-labyrinth containing a star at its center.[25]

The head on the coin shown in Fig. 31 may be intended for that of Minos or Zeus. On the reverse is a square labyrinth.
Labyrinthine designs are also found on certain Lydian, Phygian, and Ionian coins.
It will be noticed that when once the labyrinth pattern has been definitely conventionalized it remains very constant in principle, whether its general conformation be rectangular or circular. Starting from the exterior, the “path” runs inwards a short distance, turns so as to run parallel with the outer wall until nearly a full circuit has been completed, then doubles back on itself and runs round in the opposite direction, doubles upon itself again, and so on until it finally comes to a stop in a blind end, having traversed all of the space within the outer walls without covering any part twice and without forming any branches or loops.[26]

We cannot, however, ignore the suggestion that has been made that certain structures discovered in the ruins of Tiryns and Epidaurus, two cities in that part of ancient Greece known as the Argolid, are architectural labyrinths used for ritual purposes. The foundations of the tholos, or rotunda, of the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus, which was excavated by P. Kabbadias, Director of the Greek Archaeological Society do certainly suggest something of the kind.[27]

We must take notice of a reference in an ancient manuscript which tends to show that the symbol figured on the robes of Roman Emperors. “Let there be represented on it a labyrinth of gold and pearls, in which is the Minotaur, made of emerald, holding his finger to his mouth, thus signifying that, mjst as none may know the secret of the labyrinth, so none may reveal the monarch’s counsels.”[28]

The fishermen and peasants said that they were used for children’s games, a girl standing at the center whilst the boys raced for her along the winding paths; but Dr. Aspelin pointed out that they were in any case ancient remains, and thought the idea might have originated in the Bronze Age.[29]

All this appears highly speculative to the ordinary layman, but nobody who gives a little attention to the subject can avoid the conclusion that at any rate there must have existed in very early – possibly Neolithic – times an extremely widespread and important ceremonial, generally of a sacrificial type, in connection with the spring awakening. So deeply seated was this ancient tradition that traces of if have persisted, with various local modifications, right down to the present day.[30]
Legomena (the words that were spoken)

But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say Ait slipped out while they were speaking@ or Athey were not aware that the matter was a secret@ as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries.[31]

Aeschylus was accused before the Areopagus of having divulged the Mysteries of Demeter in certain of his tragedies, but was acquitted. A phrase of his, Ait came to my mouth@ became proverbial and he may have used it on this occasion.[32] (Note, this is from a footnote.)

Bacchus is summoned in the words:
Thou that leadest the dance of the fiery stars, watcher over the nocturnal cry, Zeus-born child, appear, Lord, with thine attendant Thyiads, who all night long in frenzied ecstasy dance thy dance, Iacchos our Master.[33]

Lactantius (Epitome Institutionum Divanarum, 23) because he compares the Egyptian representations of the lament of Isis for her lost Osiris with the Mysteries of Demeter, declares explicitly that Persephone was sought at night with torches and found again at the end amid rejoicing and a blaze of light.[34] Todd: how do you find someone who is lost? By calling out their name.

Ludwig Deubner believes that a magic formula was uttered: AAnd behold in this season when no grain grows@ - for it is autumn - Aan ear of grain has grown.@...The ear of whet growing and maturing with a supernatural suddenness is just as much a part of the mysteries of Demeter as the vine growing in a few hours is part of the revels of Dionysus...The ear of wheat suddenly grown, silently harvested and displayed to the mystai is then really a revelation and pledge of the goddess, who first gave this fruit to mankind through the Eleusinians.[35]

But the Phrygians, he says, also call him Athe green ear that is harvested,@ and the Athenians also, following the Phrygians, when they make the initiations of Eleusis and display to the beholders that great and wondrous and most perfect mystery which is to be beheld there is silence, a harvested ear. Now this ear is for the Athenians too the great and perfect Illuminator coming from the uncharacterized one; likewise, the hierophant himself, who is not indeed castrated, like Attis, but is made a eunuch with hemlock and is separated from all carnal generation, when he celebrates the great and unutterable mysteries by night at Eleusis under a brilliant light, calls out and proclaims these words: AA holy child is born to the Lady Brimo, Brimos@ - that is, to the Strong One, the Strong Lady, he says, means the spiritual birth, the heavenly higher (birth); and strong is the man who is born in this fashion. And the mystery aforesaid is called Eleusis[36]

The people of Pheneus have also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian, and they perform a ritual to the goddess, saying that the ceremonies at Eleusis are the same as those established among themselves. For Nause, they assert, came to them because of an oracle from Delphi, being a grandson of Eumolpus. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian has been set up Petroma, as it is called, consisting of two large stones fitted one to the other.
When every other year they celebrate what they call the Greater Rites, they open these stones. They take from out them writings that refer to the rites, read them in the hearing of the initiated, and return them on the same night.[37]

Come hither, Lord Dithyrambos, Bakchos . . . Bromios now in the spring=s holy period.
At the latest Dionysos could be invoked with such words in Theoxenios (March), the Amonth of hospitality to the gods,@ or in Bysios - in common Greek, APhysios,@ Athe month of growth.@ This was possible in the year of his awakening or in that of his dismemberment, whereas Apollo, according to his own myth, did not come to Delphi from the land of the Hyperboreans until midsummer.[38]

Even without it the connection between Apollo and Dionysos was known. It was stated by the tragic poets of Athens, by Aeschylus as well as by Euripides in whose lifetime the relief my have been cut. In the Lykourgos tetralogy of Aeschylus, (fragment 86) the cry Ivy-Apollo, Bakchios, the soothsayer rings out.[39]

In a footnote, Pete Levi (Pausanias II.20.3.) Says that the battle story may have some connection with Dionysos= war trumpets, which seem to have been kept at Theses and were really ritual trumpets for summoning the god from the underworld (Plutarch: On Isis and Osiris, 35.)

Legomena (Things Said)

The legomena were short liturgical statements, explanations, and perhaps invocations accompanying the dromena. Their importance is shown by a rhetorical exercise of Sopratos which tells of a young man who dreamed that he was initiated in the Mysteries and saw the dromena, but because he could not hear clearly the words of the Hierophant he could not be considered as initiated. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 272) This incident implies two things: first that knowledge of the sacred words is needed for initiation, and second that he would have been considered initiated if he had heard the words even though his entire experience was in a dream. A knowledge of Greek was necessary for initiation due to the importance of the legomena.The legomena may have provided instruction to guide one in the other world as in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Porphyrus gives us a description of initiation which includes legomena and seems to indicate also much of the content and feeling of the Epopteia.
Crowned with myrtle, along with the other initiates we enter the entrance hall of the temple, still blind, but the hierophant who is within will soon open our eyes. But first, for nothing is to be done in haste, let us wash in the holy water. We are led before the hierophant. From a book of stone, he reads to us things which we must not divulge, under penalty of death. Let us say only that they are in harmony with the place and circumstance. You would laugh, perhaps, if you heard them outside the temple, but here you have no desire to laugh as you listen to the words of the elder (for he is always old) and as you look at the exposed symbols. And you are far from laughing when, by her special language and signs, by vivid sparkling of light and clouds piled upon clouds, Demeter confirms everything that we have seen and heard from her holy priest. Then, finally, the light of a serene wonder fills the temple; we see the pure Elysian fields; we hear the chorus of the blessed ones. Now it is not merely through an external appearance or through a philosophical interpretation, but in fact and in reality that the hierophant becomes the creator and the revelator of all things; the sun is but his torchbearer, the moon, his helper of the altar, and Hermes, his mystical messenger. But the last word has been uttered: Knox Om Pax.The ritual has been consummated, and we are seers forever.(Schuré, Edouard The Great Initiates p. 406)

Lesser Mysteries (See Herakles)

Heracles and the Lesser Mysteries
According to legend the origin of the Lesser Mysteries was for Heracles who needed purification before he could journey to the underworld. Diodorus says:
Demeter instituted the Lesser Mysteries in honor of Heracles, that she might purify him of the guilt he had incurred in the slaughter of the Centaurs.(IV, 14)And assuming that it would be to his advantage for the accomplishment of this labor, he went to Athens and took part in the Eleusinian Mysteries, Musaeus, the son of Orpheus, being at that time in charge of the initiatory rite.(Diodorus Siculus IV, 25)
According to another version he was rebuffed by the Pythia at Delphi when he asked how he should purify himself, and seeking initiation at Eleusis was also refused at first. Kerenyi translates the fragments on a papyrus from an oration of the time of Hadrian, giving a speech of Herakles whom they did not wish to initiate into the Eleusinian Mysteries:
"I was initiated long ago (or: elsewhere). Lock up Eleusis, (Hierophant,) and put the fire out, Dadouchos. Deny me the holy night! I have already been initiated into more authentic mysteries.... (I have beheld) the fire, whence (...and) I have seen the Kore.(Kerenyi Eleusis p. 83-84)
Here is more evidence for a mystical vision in the flames. Plutarch tells how Theseus, who had his own adventure in the underworld, helped Heracles to these sacred rites.
Yet it is more credible, as others write, that there were, before, frequent interviews between them, and that it was by the means of Theseus that Hercules was initiated at Eleusis, and purified before initiation, upon account of several rash actions of his former life.(Theseus 30)
Apollodorus records how Eumolpus himself saw to Heracles' purification.
When Hercules was about to depart to fetch him, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, wishing to be initiated. However it was not then lawful for foreigners to be initiated: since he proposed to be initiated as the adoptive son of Pylius. But not being able to see the mysteries because he had not been cleansed of the slaughter of the centaurs, he was cleansed by Eumolpus and then initiated.(The Library II, v, 12)
Heracles answers questions in Euripides' Heracles Mad.
Heracles: ... After my return at length from the soulless den of Hades and the maiden queen of hell, I will not neglect to greet first of all the gods beneath my roof.Amphitryon: Why, did you in very deed go to the house of Hades, my son?Heracles: Aye, and brought to the light that three-headed monster.Amphitryon: Did you worst him fight, or receive him from the goddess?Heracles: In fair fight; for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated.Amphitryon: Is the monster really lodged in the house of Eurystheus?Heracles: The grove of Demeter and the city of Hermione are his prison.(602-614)
Perhaps the best pictorial representation of an initiation ceremony is the Lovatelli cinerary urn and the Terre Nova sarcophagus. The identification of the figure with the lion-skin as Heracles could indicate that it depicts the Lesser Mysteries.. The following interpretation is by J. N. Casavis: "In the first picture, he is seated upon the low sacred couch, right arm and breast bare, hoodwinked, and unshod. The seat is covered with the skin of a lion, His feet are resting on the lion's skin instead of making use of the ram's skin on which the other candidates for initiation were standing. In his left hand he holds a torch, emblematic of purification by fire. He is also represented on the right of this picture standing by the Hierophant. Demeter is seated on the symbolic Cista which is covered with the sheepskin. Iacchus, the secret god of the Mysteries, is standing on her right, In the urn, Herakles is also hoodwinked, right arm and breast bare. A sieve is shaken over his covered head, emblematic of purification, symbolic of the separation of evil from good, of fecundity and resurrection. At the right, Herakles, attired in the lion's skin is standing barefoot by the Hierophant holding a sacrificial pig by its hind legs,... The Hierophant is seen sprinkling the victim from a pitcher, with his right hand. On his left, he carries a flat earthen vessel on which three poppy heads appear. Demeter is seated on the Cista holding a torch on which a serpent, the symbol of the chthonian deities, is twined around it. The snake is licking the hand of Iacchus who is resting on a mystic rod. Demeter looks at Persephone holding a torch in her left hand." (The Greek Origin of Freemasonry, p. 80-81)It was essential to participate in the Lesser Mysteries before being allowed into initiation into the Greater Mysteries. Socrates is being ironic when he says:
I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the great mysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought that this was not allowable.(Plato Gorgias 497)
The scholiast of Aristophanes says:
The Greater Mysteries were Demeter's and the Lesser Persephone's.(Mylonas Eleusis p. 240)
A fragment of Douris, the Samian historian, states:
The goddess Demeter is coming to celebrate her daughter's Mysteries.(Ibid. p. 239-240)
Since the Lesser Mysteries were held annually in the early spring during Anthesterion, the month of flowers, it is natural that they are associated with the Daughter, as we saw before, the time when the crops are coming to maturity. The place of their performance was the Agra on the east bank of the river Ilissos in Athens.According to Mylonas, fasting, sacrifices, sprinkling of water or bathing in the waters of Ilissos, and singing hymns formed part of the ceremonies. Women carried the sacred vessel (kernos ) and danced in the Lesser as well as in the Greater Mysteries. (Ibid. p. 240-241)
Liknon

The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close behind the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus wake the God of the Mystic Basket.[40]

In Greek mythology we find frequent mention of the object to which they probably belonged: the liknon, a winnow-shaped basket, in which divine as well as mortal babies were kept. According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the infant Hermes lay in his swaddling clothes in the Kyllenian grotto. In his Hymn to Zeus, Kallimachos combines several Cretan traditions: the goddess Adrasteia lays the infant Zeus in a golden liknon, her goat suckles him, and in lieu of milk he is given honey. A third example is that of Dionysos. As Liknites - Ahe in the liknon@ - he was Aawakened@ by the Dionysian women in a cave on Mt. Parnassos, high over Delphi. The awakening took the form of a mysterious ceremony: only the designation of the god as Liknites shows that the liknon was his Acontainer.@ A larger Acontainer,@ the cave that housed the liknon, was said Ato gleam with a golden radiance at certain times - evidently the torchlight of the nocturnal rite of Dionysus.[41]

Plutarch speaks of a rite in which his female votaries, the Thyiades, awaken the Liknites, the child in the liknon, or winnowing basket which served him as a cradle.[42]

At Delphi the only temporarily defeated god could be Dionysos, since his tomb was shown in the innermost sanctuary, near the Agolden Apollo.@ Parts of him allegedly rested here, and his heart probably was thought to be in the caldron from which the oracle issued. Holy men, the Hosioi, performed a secret sacrifice in the temple, while the holy women, the Thyiades, were awakening Liknites in the cave.[43]

All that has come down to us is a clear characterization of the action (an awakening), the nature of the small container in which the one to be awakened lay (a winnow, liknon, hence the name Liknites), and the fact that it took place simultaneously with another sacred action. Plutarch was permitted to say just this much to his friend Klea, who was at that time both the leader of the Thyiades at Delphi and an initiate in the mysteries of Osiris. He tells her in order to draw her attention to the consonance between the two mysteries: in both cases a reawakening was preceded by a state of lying in the tomb. The simultaneous actions were performed secretly in the temple of Apollo by the Hosioi, the specially consecrated bearers of the Delphic traditions, and in the exact place, so it was said, where the remains of the dismembered Dionysos were kept.[44]

The Delphians believe that the remains of Dionysos rest with them, within the place of prophecy: and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the temple of Apollon, whenever the Thyiads wake the One in the Winnowing Fan.[45]

What was carried about - whether in a cista mystica or in a liknon - could not, however, be kept entirely secret. It was not a heart but a phallus. This is evident from the Orphic books themselves. In a text about which we shall have more to say later, the object that the goddess Hipta took from Zeus and carried on her head in a liknon was called the AKradiaios Dionysos.@ Kradiaios can have two meanings, and this is the key to the secret. It can be derived either from Kradia (Aheart=) or from krade (Afig tree@): in the latter case, it means an object made from a fig branch or fig wood. According to one myth, Dionysos himself fashioned a phallus from fig wood for use in a mystic rite connected with his return from the underworld. The soft wood was suitable for the Dionysian utensil, which was referred to by the euphemism Aheart.@ According to the sources the object that was preserved by Pallas Athena was the sacrificed he-goat=s male organ, which was neither boiled nor roasted nor burned, but set aside and hidden. The action was symbolic and it is very likely that in place of the dried members, or along with it, a phallus of fig wood was used the following year in the ceremony serving to Aawaken@ Liknites, the god lying in the liknon.[46]

Madness

but in reality the greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods...and it is worth while to adduce also the fact that those men of old who invented names thought that madness was neither shameful nor disgraceful; otherwise they would not have connected the very word mania with the noblest of arts, that which foretells the future, but calling it the manic art. No, they gave this name thinking that mania, when it comes by gift of the gods, is a noble thing, but nowadays people call prophecy the mantic art, tastelessly inserting a T in the word.[47]

To Akorybant@ meant to be in a state of divine madness in which hallucinations occurred. It was known to the medical writers of Greece as a pathological condition.[48]

Always, or practically always, ate is a state of mind - a temporary clouding or bewildering of the normal consciousness. It is, in fact, a partial and temporary insanity; and, like all insanity, it is ascribed, not to physiological or psychological causes, but to an external Adaemonic@ agency. In the Odyssey, it is true, excessive consumption of wine is said to cause ate; the implication, however, is probably not that ate can be produced Anaturally,@ but rather that wine has something supernatural of daemonic about it. Apart from this special case, the agents productive of ate, where they are specified, seem always to be supernatural beings, so we may class all instances of nonalcoholic ate in Homer under the head of what I propose to call Apsychic intervention.@[49]

They say Athena put Erichthonios into a chest and gave him to Aglauros and her sisters Herse and Pandrosos; she commanded them not to meddle with the thing she committed to their care. Pandrosos obeyed, but the other two opened the chest and saw Erichtonios and went raving mad; they threw themselves off the very steep side of the Acropolis.[50]

Marriage

As part of the incorporation rites, the bride eats a quince or an apple, demonstrating that her livelihood now comes from her husband. This is a way of marking her initiation into the new oikos. The fruit and nuts which the bride and groom are showered with act as agents of fertility and prosperity.[51]

Death before marriage signifies a marriage with the Underworld. The notion that unmarried girls have made a marriage with Hades invokes the paradigm of Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.[52]

The sacred marriage in which a god is paired with a goddess, is a feature not only of myth but of ancient belief and cult among the Greeks, and some of Zeus= unions are instances of the belief in the union of Heaven and Earth whereby the Earth is fertilized...The classical expression of this is found in the fragment of Aeschylus= play the Danaids:

The Pure Sky longs passionately to pierce the Earth, and passion seizes the Earth to win her marriage. Rain falling from the bridegroom sky makes pregnant the Earth. Then brings she forth for mortals pasture of flocks and corn, Demeter=s gift, and the fruitfulness of trees is brought to completion by the dew of their marriage. Of this am I part cause. (The speaker is Aphrodite.)[53]

This sacred marriage had some relation to the so-called Lesser Eleusinian Mystery, a ceremony that was a preliminary to the Greater Mystery that would be performed in the autumn of the year at the neighboring village of Eleusis. Socrates= rite of necromancy, therefore, in this Swamp with a person like Peisander and at this particular date would seem somehow involved in the great scandal of the day, the profanation of the Mysteries.[54] (See The Dramatic Festivals at Athens, revised by J. Gould and D. Lewis. (Oxford, 1968.)

Mask

(At sanctuary in Pheneus)
On the top is a sphere, with a mask inside of Demeter Cidaria. This mask is put on by the priest at the Greater Rites, who for some reason or other beats with rods the Folk Underground. The Pheneatians have a story that even before Naus arrived the wanderings of Demeter brought her to their city also. To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only. There is a sacred story to explain why the bean in their eyes is an impure kind of pulse.[55]

There is some evidence for god-masks being worn by men in the cult of the mystery gods Demeter and Dionysos. The priest in Pheneos in Arcadia dons the mask of Demeter Kidaria and beats the subterranean dwellers with a rod, and in a mysterious oath ceremony in Syracuse, the person swearing the oath is required to clothe himself in Demeter=s purple robe and take a blazing torch in his hand.[56]

MILKY WAY

Poetic fancy saw in the Milky Way a road, either the road of the gods, or the road beside which stood the palaces of the gods, or the road traveled by the souls of the dead, or the path of the sun.
Theony Condos. Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook. Phanes Press. Grand Rapids, 1997, p. 110.

Mirror

Next to the grove is a sanctuary of Demeter, she and her daughter are standing, but the image of Earth is seated. Before the sanctuary of Demeter is a spring. On the side of this towards the temple stands a wall of stones, while on the outer side has been made a descent to the spring. Here is an infallible oracle, not indeed for everything, but only in the case of sick folk. They tie a mirror to a fine cord and let it down, judging the distance so that it does not sink deep into the spring, but just far enough to touch the water with its rim. Then they pray to the goddess and burn incense, after which they look into the mirror, which shows them the patient either alive or dead.[57]

This is the story of Anytus told by the Arcadians. That Artemis was the daughter, not of Leto, but of Demeter, which is the Egyptian account, the Greeks learned from Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion. The story of the Curetes, who are represented under the images, and that of the Corybantes ( a different race from the Curetes), carved in relief upon the base, I know, but pass them by. The Arcadians bring into the sanctuary the fruit of all cultivated trees except the pomegranate. On the right as you go out of the temple there is a mirror fitted into the wall. If anyone looks into this mirror, he will see himself very dimly indeed or not at all, but the actual images of the gods and the throne can be seen quite clearly.[58]

The nude boy raises both hands, as though saying delightedly, AHere I am!@ Beside him two armed Kouretes are seen. One is performing a knife dance; the other, drawing his knife, is about to take part. The child will be stabbed while looking at himself in the mirror. Nonnos provides the text to the pictures. The mirror, which catches the soul along with the image, gives promise that the murdered god will not pass away entirely.[59]

Moon

The lunar month begins on the first day of the new Moon. In 1997, the new moon falls on September 1st, the full moon is on September 16th (Mysteries start on 15th Boedromion), the nine days of the Mysteries would end on 23rd Boedromion (the last quarter) and on the 22nd of September, is the first day of Autumn.

The Egyptians have a legend that the end of Osiris= life came on the seventeenth of the month, on which day it is quite evident to the eye that the period of the full moon is over.[60]

Moreover, at the time of the new moon in the month of Phamenoth they celebrate a festival to which they give the name of AOsiris= coming to the Moon,@ and this marks the beginning of the spring. Thus, they make the power of Osiris to be fixed in the Moon, and say that Isis, since she is generation, is associated with him. For this reason, they also call the Moon the mother of the world, and they think that she has a nature both male and female, as she is receptive and made pregnant by the Sun, but she herself in turn emits and disseminates into the air generative principles. For, as they believe, the destructive activity of Typhon does not always prevail, but oftentimes is overpowered by such generation and put in bonds, and then at a later time is again released and contends against Horus, who is the terrestrial universe; and this is never completely exempt either from dissolution or from generation.[61]

Finally, having established his worship throughout the world, Dionysus ascended to Heaven, and now sits at the right hand of Zeus as one of the Twelve Great Ones. The self-effacing goddess Hestia resigned her seat at the high table in his favor; glad of any excuse to escape the jealous wrangling of her family, and knowing that she could always count on a quiet welcome in any Greek city which it might please her to visit. Dionysus then descended, by way of Lerna, to Tartarus where he bribed Persephone with a gift of myrtle to release his dead mother, Semele. She ascended with him into Artemis= temple at Troezen; but, lest other ghosts should be jealous and aggrieved, he changed her name and introduced her to his fellow Olympians at Thyone. Zeus placed an apartment at her disposal, and Hera preserved an angry but resigned silence.[62]

Semele was, in fact, another name for Persephone...Core, of course, did not ascend to heaven; she wandered about on earth with Demeter until the time came for her to return to the Underworld. But soon after the award of Olympic status to Dionysus the Assumption of his virgin-mother became dogmatic and, once a goddess, she was differentiated from Core, who continued heroine like to ascend and descend.[63]

Hekate was identified with the Luna in the sky, Diana on earth and Proserpine in the Underworld.[64]

Mysteries

The early enthusiasts of Christianity often denounced the mysteries, but Mylonas notes that none of the Fathers appears to have been initiated into the Mysteries nor does any claim that he is repeating what was told by initiates converted to Christianity. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 287)Many of their assertions make strange innuendoes. Take the statement made by Asterios (c. 390 CE), the bishop of Amaseia in Asia Minor in his Engomion to the Saintly Martyrs.
The Eleusinian Mysteries, are they not the main part of your religion and the demos of Athens, yea the whole of Greece gathers to celebrate that vanity? I not there (in the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis) the katabasion and the solemn meeting of the Hierophant and the priestess, each with the other alone; are not the torches then extinguished and the vast crowd believes that its salvation depends on what those two act in the darkness?(Ibid. p. 311-312)
The next is by Epiphanios who was a bishop of Eleutheroupolis of Palestine and Konstantia of Kypros and lived 367-403 CE. It is important to note that he is describing the imitation mysteries of Alexandria.
In Alexandria there is the so-called Korion, and it is a very large temple, that is the temenos of Kore. (The worshippers) having passed the night in vigilance with songs and flute playing, singing to the idol... After the call of the roosters they descend with torches in hand to an underground chamber and from it they bring up on a litter a wooden xoanon, seated, nude, bearing on its forehead some seal of a cross, covered with gold ... and they carry this xoanon around seven times, making a circle around the most central temple with flutes and drums and hymns, and having sang and danced they take it down again to the underground place ... and they say that at this hour, today the Kore, that is the Virgin, gave birth to the Aion. (Ibid. p. 302)
These mysteries were celebrated in a place called Eleusis in Alexandria, and it seems very likely that Clement of Alexandria's descriptions of the Eleusinian mysteries were influenced by these very different rites than the ones they initially tried to copy. Consider Clement's etymology:
Demeter and Persephone have come to be the subject of a mystic drama, and Eleusis celebrates with torches the rape of the daughter and the sorrowful wandering of the mother.Now it seems to me that the terms "orgy" and "mystery" must be derived, the former from the wrath (orge) of Demeter against Zeus, and the latter from the pollution (mysos) that took place in connection with Dionysus.(Exhortation to the Greeks II, 12)
Or consider his history:
It tells how Demeter, wandering through Eleusis, which is a part of Attica, in search of her daughter the Maiden, becomes exhausted and sits down at a well in deep distress. This display of grief is forbidden, up to the present day, to those who are initiated, lest the worshippers should seem to imitate the goddess in her sorrow. At that time Eleusis was inhabited by aborigines, whose names were Baubo, Dysaules, Triptolemus, and also Eumolpus and Eubouleus. Triptolemus was a herdsman, Eumolpus a shepherd, and Eubouleus a swineherd. These were progenitors of the Eumolpidae and of the Heralds, who form the priestly clan at Athens. But to continue; for I will not forbear to tell the rest of the story. Baubo, having received Demeter as a guest, offers her a draught of wine and meal. She declines to take it, being unwilling to drink on account of her mourning. Baubo is deeply hurt, thinking she has been slighted, and thereupon uncovers her secret parts and exhibits them to the goddess. Demeter is pleased at the sight, and now at last receives the draught, - delighted with the spectacle! These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians! These are also the subjects of Orpheus' poems. I will quote you the very lines of Orpheus, in order that you may have the originator of the mysteries as witness of their shamelessness:
This said, she drew aside her robes and showedA sight of shame; child Iacchus was there,And laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts.Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled,And drank the draught from out the glancing cup.(Ibid. II, 16-18)
The self-righteous Clement is able to speak the "unspeakable" and describe the "unutterable."
The mysteries, then, are mere custom and vain opinion, and it is a deceit of the serpent that men worship when, with spurious piety, they turn towards these sacred initiations that are really profanities, and solemn rites that are without sanctity. Consider, too, the contents of the mystic chests; for I must strip bare their holy things and utter the unspeakable. Are they not sesame cakes, pyramid and spherical cakes, cakes with many navels, also balls of salt and a serpent, the mystic sign of Dionysus Basareus? Are they not also pomegranates, fig branches, fennel stalks, ivy leaves, round cakes and poppies? These are their holy things! In addition, there are the unutterable symbols of Ge Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, and a woman's comb, which is euphemistic expression used in the mysteries for a woman's secret parts.(Ibid. II, 19)
Epictetus, in his "Against those who readily come to the profession of sophists," criticizes those who imitate the superficialities of the Eleusinian Mysteries but miss the spiritual significance.
But no man sails from a port without having sacrificed to the Gods and invoked their help; nor do men sow without having called on Demeter; and shall a man who has undertaken so great a work undertake it safely without the Gods? and shall they who undertake this work come to it with success? What else are you doing, man, than divulging the mysteries? You say, "There is a temple at Eleusis, and one here also. There is an Hierophant at Eleusis, and I also will make an Hierophant: there is a herald, and I will establish a herald; there is a torch-bearer at Eleusis, and I also will establish a torch-bearer; there are torches at Eleusis, and I will have torches here. The words are the same; how do the things done here differ from those done there?" Most impious man, is there no difference? these things are done both in due place and in due time; and when accompanied with sacrifice and prayers, when a man is first purified, and when he is disposed in his mind to the thought that he is going to approach sacred rites and ancient rites. In this way the mysteries are useful, in this way we come to the notion that all these things were established by the ancients for the instruction and correction of life. But you publish and divulge them out of time, out of place, without sacrifices, without purity; you have not the garments which the hierophant ought to have, nor the hair, nor the head-dress, nor the voice nor the age; nor have you purified yourself as he has: but you have committed to memory the words only, and you say: "Sacred are the words by themselves."You ought to approach these matters in another way; the thing is great, it is mystical, not common thing, nor is it given to every man.(Epictetus Discourses III, 21)
Tertullian criticizes the secrecy and elaborate preparation, which he seems to exaggerate, but these could just as easily be seen as virtues protecting and increasing the sanctity of the rites.
Now, in the case of those Eleusinian mysteries, which are the very heresy of Athenian superstition, it is their secrecy that is their disgrace. Accordingly, they previously beset all access to their body with tormenting conditions; and they require a long initiation before they enroll (their members), even instruction during five years for their perfect disciples, in order that they may mold their opinions by this suspension of full knowledge, and apparently raise the dignity of their mysteries in proportion to the craving for them which they have previously created. Then follow the duty of silence. Carefully is that guarded, which is so long in finding. All the divinity, however, lies in their secret recesses: there are revealed at last all the aspirations of the fully initiated, the entire mystery of the sealed tongue, the symbol of virility. But this allegorical representation, under the pretext of nature's reverend name, obscures a real sacrilege by help of an arbitrary symbol and by empty images obviates the reproach of falsehood!(Tertullian Against the Valentinians I)
Nonnos of the fifth century CE has Demeter consulting the astrologer Asterion in his Sixth Dionysiaca.
He learned the details of the day when her only child was new born, and the exact time and veritable course of the season which gave her birth: then he bent the turning fingers of his hands and measured the moving circle of the ever-recurring number counting from hand to hand in double exchange He called to a servant, and Asterion lifted a round revolving sphere, the shape of the sky, the image of the universe, and laid it upon the lid of a chest. Here the ancient got to work. He turned it upon its pivot, and directed his gaze round the circle of the Zodiac, scanning in this place and that planets and fixed stars. He rolled the pole about with a push, and the counterfeit sky went rapidly round and round in mobile course with a perpetual movement, carrying the artificial stars about the axle set through the middle. Observing the sphere with a glance all round, the deity found that the Moon at the full was crossing the curved line of her conjunction, and the Sun was half through his course opposite the Moon moving at his central point under the earth; a pointed cone of darkness creeping from the earth into the air opposite to the Sun hid the whole Moon. Then when he heard the rivals for wedded love, he looked especially for Ares, and espied the wife-robber over the sunset house along with the evening star of the Cyprian. He found the portion called the Portion of the Parents under the Virgin's starry corn-ear; and round the Ear ran the light-bearing star of Cronides, father of rain.When he had noticed everything and reckoned the circuit of the stars, he put away the ever-revolving sphere in its roomy box, the sphere with its curious surface; and in answer to the goddess he mouthed a triple oracle of prophetic sound:
Fond mother Demeter, when the rays of the Moon are stolen under a shady cone and her light is gone, guard against a robber-bridegroom for Persephoneia, a secret ravisher of your unsmirched girl, if the threads of the Fates can be persuaded. You will see before marriage a false and secret bedfellow come unforeseen, a half-monster cunning-minded: since I perceive by the western point Ares the wife-stealer walking with the Paphian, and I notice the Dragon rising beside them both. But I proclaim you most happy: for you will be known for glorious fruits in the four quarters of the universe, because you shall bestow fruit on the barren soil; since the Virgin Astraia holds out her hand full of corn for the destined lot of your girl's parents.
(Nonnus Dionysiaca VI, 58-102)

The spherical device for measuring the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets round the zodiac is certainly a product of later times, but the interpretation of the horoscope is cosmic and the same in all ages. The eclipse of the moon caused by the earth blocking the sun's light is portentous for the mother, the feminine principle and domestic life. Its darkness when it should be full is symbolic of Persephone's prominent and sudden venture to the underworld and the shadowing over the mother. The "sunset house" is the twelfth portion of the sky over the western horizon and is called the seventh house, indicating marriage and partnership. Naturally Asterion found Mars there, the planet of sex, boldness, heat, force, and strong action. Its conjunction with Venus, the planet of love and harmony, can mean a rash, intense, adventurous, harmonious marriage. Jupiter, the benevolent and expansive planet, in Virgo in the "Portion of the Parents" (fourth house) means great benefit to the parents through the products of the earth. Apparently Jupiter was very close to the star symbolizing the ear of corn, indicating Demeter's gift of the grain.
The Greater Mysteries:Announcement and Meeting at Athens
The Greater Mysteries began on the fifteenth day of the month of Boedromion which corresponds to our September and beginning of October; this would be around the autumnal equinox. Initiates came to the Greater Mysteries from the Greek and, later, the Roman world and included women, children, and slaves. Special messengers from the Eumolpids and Kerykes proclaimed a holy truce and went to the cities asking for the tithes of first fruits and official delegations to the Goddess. The truce for the Greater Mysteries lasted 55 days. The expenses of these messengers were paid for from the treasury of the sanctuary at Eleusis. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 243-244) Aeschines by pointing out the exception assumes the validity of this peace;
And when your heralds carried the proclamation of the sacred truce of the Mysteries, the Phocians alone in all Hellas refused to recognize the truce.(Aeschines On the Embassy 133)
On the 14th of Boedromion after preliminary sacrifices the sacred objects (Hiera ) of Demeter were taken from the sanctuary at Eleusis and brought to Athens in sacred cists (kistai ) in a procession headed by the priests and priestesses. Athenian Ephebes met the procession near the Rhetoi lakes at the shrine of Echo and escorted them into Athens. The procession would stop for a rest at the Sacred Fig Tree near the city. Pausanias describes this place and recounts how Demeter was welcomed there.
There is also an altar of Zephyr, and a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter: along with them are worshipped Athena and Poseidon. They say that in this place Phytalus received Demeter in his house, and that for so doing the goddess gave him the figtree. This story is attested by the inscription on the grave of Phytalus: - Here the lordly hero Phytalus once received the august Demeter, when she first revealed the autumnal fruit which the race of mortals names the sacred fig; since when the race of Phytalus hath received honors that wax not old.(Pausanias I, 37:1-2)
There the procession was met by the people of Athens headed by their priest and escorted to the sanctuary of the Goddess in Athens, known as the Eleusinion where the sacred objects were deposited.Aristotle informs us about the supervision of these rites in The Athenian Constitution.
The King in the first place superintends the Mysteries, in conjunction with the Superintendents of Mysteries. The latter are elected in the assembly by open vote, two from the general body of Athenians, one from the Eumolpidae, and one from the Ceryces. (57:1)
This King known as the Archon Basileus called the people to an assembly at the Painted Stoa in the famous Agora of Athens and officially invited people to participate in the Mysteries and be initiated into them (Mylonas Eleusis p. 247) Xenophon indicates the main asset of a good herald:
And Cleocritus, the herald of the initiated, a man with a very fine voice, obtained silence and said:(Hellenica II, iv, 20)All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our choirs depart,Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart.I charge them once, I charge them twice, charge them thrice, that they draw not nighTo the sacred dance of the Mystic choir.(Aristophanes The Frogs 346-347, 361-362)
Thus sings the chorus in Aristophanes' The Frogs implying the need for the initiates to want to turn away from evil and purify themselves. Suetonius relates how Nero's guilt turned him away of his own accord from these sacred rites.
When he was in Greece, he durst not attend the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, at the initiation of which, impious and wicked persons are warned by the voice of the herald from approaching the rites.(Suetonius Nero XXXIV)
Cleansing and Sacrifices at Athens
On the second day, Boedromion 16, the heralds ordered all participants to cleanse themselves in the sea. The shout, "To the sea!" filled the city. Initiates carried a small pig, which was also washed in the sea. Some apparently rode to the sea in carriages. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 249) The ocean was a well-known purifying agent as expressed by this phrase from The Persians of Aeschylus:
Ocean's unpolluted tide(577)
Also in Euripides, Iphigenia uses it as an excuse to King Thoas in order to plan her escape with Orestes.
Iphigenia: My purpose is to cleanse them first by purification.Thoas: In fresh spring water or salt sea-spray?Iphigenia: The sea washes away from man all that is ill.Thoas: True, they would then be holier victims for the goddess.(Iphigenia Among the Tauri 1191-1194)
Pigs were supposed to absorb the evil from humans. In Aristophanes' The Peace, this sacrifice and subsequent initiation are used as repartee by Trygaeus when he learns he is to die.
Trygaeus: And is it so? And must I die indeed?Hermes: You must indeed.Trygaeus: O then, I prithee, lend me half a crown. I'll buy a pig, and get initiated first.(372-374)
In Plato's Republic, Socrates is worried about the moral implications of teaching the young and shallow the iniquitous deeds that Cronos inflicted on his father and suffered from his son. He feels that perhaps by revealing them only in a mystery with even greater sacrifices than for Demeter, fewer might possess the knowledge.
But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.(II, 378)
We know very little about the third day; it was probably the day of major sacrifices on behalf of the city. The fourth day, Boedromion 18, was called Epidauria or Asklepieia because the god of healing had been late in coming from Epidauros, arriving after the proclamation, purification in the sea, and the sacrifices. These rites were repeated so that the god could be correctly initiated into Demeter's Mysteries. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 251) Pausanias confirms this.
For instance, the Athenians professedly assign to Aesculapius a share in the mysteries, and give to the day on which they do so the name of Epidauria; and they date their worship of Aesculapius as a god from the time when this practice was instituted.(II, 26:8)
Thus this day was to prepare those who had arrived late, while the initiates rested. Aristotle concurs that the regular initiates stayed home.
He (Archon) also superintends sacred processions, both that in honor of Asclepius, when the initiated keep house, and that of the great Dionysia.(The Athenian Constitution 56:4)
The atmosphere in Athens on this day is described by Philostratus in his recounting of Apollonius of Tyana's attempt at late initiation. This sequence is an example of how a man of exceptional spiritual power may be persecuted by small-minded officials.
Arriving at Pireaus about the season of the Mysteries, when Athens is more crowded than any place in Greece, he lost no time in going up to the city from his ship. As he went he met many of the learned making their way down to Piraeus. Some were basking naked---the autumn is fine and sunny at Athens---others were deep in discussions upon a text, some practicing recitations, some disputing. None of them passed him by, but all guessing that this was Apollonius, turned back with him and hailed him with enthusiasm. A party of ten youths fell in with him, who stretched out their hands towards the Acropolis and swore 'by yonder Athena, they were just setting out for Piraeus to take ship for Ionia and find him there.' He welcomed them, and said he congratulated them on their desire for learning.It was the day of the Epidauria; and at the Epidauria the Athenian usage, after the Preface and the sacrifice, is to initiate aspirants for a second sacrifice. This tradition represents Asclepius' experience, because he came from Epidaurus, late in the Mysteries, and they initiated him. Heedless of the initiation service, the multitude hung round Apollonius, more concerned with this than to secure admission to the Elect. He said he would be with them anon, and encouraged them to attend the service for the meanwhile, as he himself intended to be initiated. But the hierophant refused him access to the holy things, saying that he would never admit a charlatan, nor open Eleusis to a man of impure theology. Apollonius was equal to himself on this occasion, and said, 'You have not yet mentioned the greatest charge that might be brought against me, which is that I know more than you about this rite, although I came to you as to a man better skilled than myself.' The bystanders applauded this vigorous and characteristic rebuke; and the hierophant, seeing that the excommunication was unpopular, changed his tune and said, 'You shall be admitted, for you seem to be a person of doctrine.' Apollonius answered, 'I will be admitted at another time; the ceremony will be performed by So-and-so'---prophetically naming the next occupant of the hierophancy, who succeeded to his sacred office four years later.(Philostratus In Honor of Apollonius of Tyana IV, 17-18)
The Procession to Eleusis and Dancing
Boedromion 19 was the fifth day known as Iacchos or pompe and culminated the festivities at Athens. Clothed in impressive pomp and crowned with myrtle the initiates were accompanied by the Ephebes in the procession back to Eleusis, many carrying the mystic bacchos made of myrtle branches tied with wool. Some carried a staff with a sack of supplies with clothes and bedding they would use at Eleusis; pack animals or carriages were also used, for the journey was fourteen miles from Athens to Eleusis. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 252)Much can be learned of the celebrations from the chorus's imitation of them in Aristophanes' comedy, The Frogs.
Chorus: O Iacchus! O Iacchus! O Iacchus! Xanthias: I have it, master: 'tis those blessed Mystics,...Chorus: O Iacchus! power excelling, here in stately temples dwelling. O Iacchus! O Iacchus!Come to tread this verdant level,Come to dance in mystic revel,Come whilst round thy forehead hurtlesMany a wreath of fruitful myrtles,Come with wild and saucy pacesMingling in our joyous dance,Pure and holy, which embraces all the charms of all the Graces,When the mystic choirs advance.Xanthias: Holy and sacred queen, Demeter' s daughter,O, what a jolly whiff of pork breathed o'er me! Dionysus: Hist! and perchance you'll get some tripe yourself.Chorus: Come, arise, from sleep waking, come the fiery torches shaking,O Iacchus! 0 Iacchus!Morning Star that shinest nightly.Lo, the mead is blazing brightly,Age forgets its years and sadness,Aged knees curvet for gladness,Lift thy flashing torches o'er us,Marshall all thy blameless train,Lead, O lead the way before us; lead the lovely youthful ChorusTo thy marshy flowery plain.All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our choirs depart,Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart;Who ne'er has the noble revelry learned, or danced the dance of the Muses high;Or shared in the Bacchic rites which old bull-eating Cratinus's words supply;Who vulgar coarse buffoonery loves, though all untimely the jests they make;Or lives not easy and kind with all, or kindling faction forbears to slake,But fan the fire, from a base desire some pitiful gain for himself to reap;Or takes, in office, his gifts and bribes, while the city is tossed on the stormy deep;Who foe or fleet to the foe betrays; or, a vile Thorycion, ships awayForbidden stores from Aegina's shores, to Epidaurus across the BayTransmitting oar-pads and sails and tar, that curst collector of five per cents;The knave who tries to procure supplies for the enemy's armaments;The cyclian singer who dares befoul the Lady Hecate's wayside shrine;The public speaker who once lampooned in our Bacchic feasts would, with heart malign,Keep nibbling away the Comedian's pay; - to these I utter my warning cry,I charge them once, I charge them twice, I charge them thrice, that they draw not nighTo the sacred dance of the Mystic choir. But you, my comrades, awake the song,The night-long revels of joy and mirth which ever of right to our feast belong.Advance, true hearts, advance!On to the gladsome powers,On to the sward, with flowersEmbosomed bright!March on with jest, and jeer, and dance,Full well ye've supped tonight.March, chanting loud your lays,Your hearts and voices raising,The Savior goddess praisingWho vows she'll stillOur city save to endless days,Whate'er Thorycion's will.Break off the measure, and change the time; and now with chanting and hymns adornDemeter, goddess mighty and high, the harvest-queen, the giver of corn.O Lady, over our rites presiding,Preserve and succor thy coral throng,And grant us all, in thy help confiding,To dance and revel the whole day long;And much in earnest, and much in jest,Worthy thy feast, may we speak therein.And when we have bantered and laughed our best,The victor's wreath be it ours to win.Call we now the youthful god, call him hither without delay,Him who travels amongst his chorus, dancing along on the Sacred Way.O, come with the joy of thy festival song,O, come to the goddess, O, mix with our throngUntired, though the journey be never so long.O Lord of the frolic and dance, :Iacchus, beside me advance!For fun, and for cheapness, our dress thou hast rent,Through thee we may dance to the top of our bent,Reviling, and jeering, and none will resent.O Lord of the frolic and dance,Iacchus, beside me advance!A sweet pretty girl I observed in the show,Her robe had been torn in the scuffle, and lo,There peeped through the tatters a bosom of snow.O Lord of the frolic and dance,Iacchus, beside me advance!...Chorus: Now wheel your sacred dance through the glade with flowers bedight,All ye who are partakers of the holy festal rite;And I will with the women and the holy maidens goWhere they keep the nightly vigil, an auspicious light to show.Now haste we to the roses,And the meadows full of posies,Now haste we to the meadowIn our own old way,In choral dances blending,In dances never ending,Which only for the holyThe Destinies array.O, happy mystic chorus,The blessed sunshine o'er usOn us alone is smiling,In its soft sweet light:On us who strove foreverWith holy, pure endeavorAlike by friend and strangerTo guide our steps aright. (Aristophanes The Frogs 317-318, 323-413, 440-459)
The procession was headed by a wooden statue of Iacchos, bearing a torch and crowned with a wreathe of myrtle; with this replication of the young god was his special priest known as Iacchagogos. Winding around the foothills of Parnes on the Sacred Way, they eventually came to the Rhiti described by Pausanias.

What are called the Rhiti only resemble rivers in that they flow, for their water is salt. One might suppose that they flow under ground from the Chalcidian Euripus, falling into a lower sea. The Rhiti are said to be sacred to the Maid and Demeter; and the priests alone are allowed to catch the fish in them. The Rhiti were of old, as I am apprised, the boundary between the Eleusinians and the rest of the Athenians.(I, 38:1)
After the initiates crossed the bridge by the lakes of Rhiti, there was a special ceremony known as krokosis, from the legendary Krokos, the first dweller of the territory, whose descendants had the privilege of tying a woolen kroke or ribbon of saffron color, around the right hand and the left leg of each of the mystai. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 256) Somewhere in here the famous Phryne once made an exhibition of her beautiful body, recounted by Athenaeus.
At the great assembly of the Eleusinia and at the festival of Poseidon, in full sight of the whole Greek world, she removed only her cloak and let down her long hair before stepping into the water. (The Deipnosophists XIII, 591a)
Another unusual woman and her claim to fame is mentioned by Athenaeus.
Nor did the son of Mene, Musaeus, master of the Graces, cause Antiope to go without her meed of honor. And she, beside Eleusis's strand, expounded to the initiates the loud, sacred voice of mystic oracles, as she duly escorted the priest through the Rarian plain to honor Demeter. And she is known even in Hades.(Ibid. 597d)
After the pause, the procession continued by torchlight across the Eleusinian Kephisos. On this bridge men with heads covered hurled insults against important citizens participating who went by in silence. According to Mylonas, purpose of these gephyrismoi, as they were called, seems to have been apotropaic---to pile insults on exalted persons so that they would be humbled and not be visited with the jealous reactions of evil spirits. This abuse seems to have been done in a spirit of merriment, and the procession with torches lit reached the end of the Sacred Way in a joyful mood where Iacchos was then received at the court in a playful way. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 256-257) Singing and dancing went well into the night as seen in Euripides' Ion.
Chorus: Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,... I blush for that god of song, if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus' fair springs, a sleepless rotary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus, the moon, and Nereus' fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o'er the sea and the eternal rivers' tides, join the dance in honor of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; (1048-1049, 1079-1086)
Then the crowd finally dispersed to seek shelter in hostels near the Sanctuary of with friends. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 257)

Even after almost 2,000 years of annual celebration, the Eleusinian Mysteries seemed to have maintained their purity and potency, for Zosimos' account of Emperor Valentinian's attempt to end them in 364 CE brought a refusal from the proconsul of Greece, Praetextatus who declared that this ban would make the life of the Greeks unlivable because they hold the whole human race together, indicating that they still stood as the foundation of Greek religion and the unity of Hellenic peoples. This Hierophant ordered that the sacred Mysteries be celebrated according to the ancient tradition in disobedience of the Emperor's edict.

The resentment felt upon it was heightened by the time it happened in, for the garrison was brought in on the twentieth of the month of Boedromion just at the time of the great festival, when they carry forth Iacchus with solemn pomp from the city to Eleusis; so that the solemnity being disturbed, many began to call to mind instances, both ancient and modern, of divine interventions and intimations. For in old time, upon the occasions of their happiest successes, the presence of the shapes and voices of the mystic ceremonies had been vouchsafed to them, striking terror and amazement into their enemies; but now, at the very season of their celebration, the gods themselves stood witnesses of the saddest oppressions of Greece, the most holy time being profaned, and their greatest jubilee made the unlucky date of their most extreme calamity....While a candidate for initiation was washing a young pig in the haven of Cantharus, a shark seized him, bit off all his lower parts up to the belly and devoured them, by which the god gave them manifestly to understand, that having lost the lower town and seacoast, they should keep only the upper city. (Phocion 28)
In art Persephone sometimes appears rising out of the earth as the personification of the young grain sprouting in the spring. A coin of Lampsacus of the fourth century CE is a good example and is described by Percy Gardner in Types of Greek Coins. Nilsson in his Greek Folk Religion explains the Corn Maiden emerging from the ground surrounded by three satyrs dancing who strike the ground with their hammers as a common practice of smashing the clods of earth after plowing which is done before the grain sprouts. (p. 53-54)

"Beautiful indeed is the mystery given us by the blessed gods:death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing."Inscription found at Eleusis"Blessed is he who has seen these thingsbefore he goes beneath the earth;for he understands the end of mortal life,and the beginning (of a new life) given of God."Pindar Fragment 102"For among the many excellent and indeed divine institutionswhich your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life,none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries.For by their means we have been brought outof our barbarous and savage mode of lifeand educated and refined to a state of civilization;and as the rites are called "initiations,"so in very truth we have learned from them the beginnings of life,and have gained the power not only to live happily,but also to die with a better hope."Cicero Laws II, xiv, 36"Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a grain of wheatfalls into the earth and dies, it remains alone;but if it dies, it bears much fruit."Jesus in Gospel According to John 12:24

In 1860, when Lenormant undertook his excavations at Eleusis, he made careful inquiries concerning this Agia Demetra – a saint unknown to the calendar. An Albanian papas or priest, who was said to be 114 years old and was certainly a centenarian, told him the tale here summarized:
St. Dhimitra was a charitable old woman, who lived at Athens. She had a daughter of wondrous beauty: none so fair had been seen since mistress Aphrodite. One day as the girl was combing her hair, which was golden in color and reached to the ground, a Turkish aga from the neighborhood of Souli saw her and fell in love with her. He was a wicked man and a magician. When she rejected his advances he resolved to carry her off to his harem. So one Christmas night, while Dhimitra was at church, the aga burst open the house foor, seized the maiden, and despite her cries of distress rode off with her on his horse. The horse was a marvelous creature: it was black with fiery nostrils and could in a single bound spring from east to west. In a few moments it carried the ravisher and his victim into the mountains of Epeiros. Dhimitra on her return from church was broken hearted at the loss of her daughter. She asked the neighbors, who, dreading Turkish vengeance, dared not to tell what they knew. She question the Tree that grew in front of the house, but the Tree could give no information. She enquired of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, but all in vain. At last the Stork that nested on the roof of her house said: We have long been living side by side. You are as old as I am, and have always been kind to me. Once you helped me to drive off a bird of prey, which wanted to steal my little ones. So I will tell you what happened. A Turk on a black horse has carried off your daughter towards the west. “Come, I will help you look for her.” They set out together over the snowy mountains. But those whom they met by the way either mocked at them or gave no answer to their questions. Dhimitra wept and wailed, and men – since they do not care for sorrow – closed their doors against her. On reaching Lepsina (Eleusis) she fell, overcome with fatigue; indeed she would have died had not Marigo, wife of Nicolas the khodja-bachi or headman of the village, seen her by the roadside and taken her in. In return for the hospitality of Nicholas and Marigo, Dhimitra blessed their fields and made them fruitful. Nicolas’ son, the smartest pallikar in the district, pursued the quest on condition that he might wed the stolen girl. Accompanied by the faithful Stork, he walked for many days, and one night in the heart of the mountains found forty dragons watching a great cauldron, which was boiling on a fire. He lifted the cauldron with one hand, lighted a torch at the fire, and replaced the pot. The dragons, astonished at his strength, took him with them to help in getting possession of a maiden kept by a magician in a very high tower. Nicolas’ son drove nails into the tower, climbed up withdrawing the nails after him lest the dragons should follow, and squeezed through a narrow window at the top. He then told the dragons to do the same. This gave him time to kill them one by one as they entered and to throw their bodies down on the other side of the tower where there was a large courtyard and magnificent garden and castle. He afterwards went down into the tower and found Dhimitra’s daughter. While he was making love to her, the aga fell upon him, and they wrestled together. The aga transformed himself into a lion, a serpent, a bird of prey, a flame, and in these various disguises struggled for three days, till at last he slew and quartered the young pallikar. He then forced the daughter of Dhimitra to yield to his desires, though he had hitherto respected her virginity. But in the night the stork flew off, fetched a magic herb, and rubbed it on the lips of the dead youth: whereupon he came to life again and attached the aga with greater fury than before. He invoked the aid of the Panaghia, vowing that, if successful, he would become a monk in the monastery of Phaneromeni (in Salamis.) He thus prevailed and overthrew his adversary. The stork pecked out the aga’s eyes and also a white hair from his black topknot – the hair upon which the magician’s life depended. The pallikar brought the girl back to Lepsina just at the beginning of spring, when the flowers first appear: he then became a monk in accordance with his vow. St. Dhimitra with her daughter quitted the place and no one knows where they have gone; but ever since, thanks to her benediction, the fields of Lepsina have been fertile.[65]

For, if they profess to know how to bring down the moon, darken the sun, induce storms and fine weather, and rains and droughts, and to make the sea and land unproductive, and so forth, whether they arrogate this power as being derived from mysteries or any other knowledge or consideration, they appear to me to practice impiety, and either to fancy that there are no gods, or if there are, that they have no ability to ward of any of the greatest evils.[66]

The character of the Mysteries, featuring a myth presented within the cult, is highly unusual for a Greek cult, and this too would be consistent with a hypothesis the extraordinary innovation occurred, which required extraordinatry cult personnel with very special functions.[67]

Blessed is he who goes beneath the earth having seen these things. He knows the end of life, and he knows its god-given beginning.[68]

The mysteries of Deo commemorate the amorous embraces of Zeus with his mother Demeter, and the wrath of Deo - I do not know what to call her for the future, mother or wife - on account of which she is said to have received the name Brimo; also the supplications of Zeus, the drink of bile, the tearing out the heart of the victims, and unspeakable obscenities. The same rites are performed in honor of Attis and Kybele and the Korybantes by the Phrygians, who have spread it abroad how that Zeus tore of the testicles of a ram, and then brought and flung them into the midst of Deo=s lap, thus paying a sham penalty for his violent embrace by pretending that he had mutilated himself. If I go on further to quote the symbols of initiation into this mystery they will, I know, move you to laugher, even though you are in no laughing humor when your rites are being exposed. AI ate from the drum; I drank from the cymbal; I carried the sacred dish; I stole into the bridal chamber.@ Are not these symbols an outrage? Are not the mysteries a mockery? But what if I were to add the rest of the story? Demeter becomes pregnant; the Maiden (Kore) grows up; and this Zeus who begat her has further intercourse, this time with Persephone herself, his own daughter, after his union with her mother Deo. Totally forgetful of his former pollution Zeus becomes the ravisher as well as the father of the maiden, meeting her under the form of a serpent, his true nature being thus revealed. At any rate, in the Sabazian mysteries the sign given to those who are initiated is Athe god over the breast,@ this is a serpent drawn over the breast of the votaries, a proof of the licentiousness of Zeus. Persephone also bears a child, which has the form of a bull. To be sure, we are told by a certain mythological poet that
the bull begets a snake, the snake a bull; On hills the herdsman bears his mystic goad-
the herdsman=s goad being, I think, a name for the wand which the Bacchantes wreathe. Would you have me also tell you the story of Persephone gathering flowers, of her basket, and how she was seized by Aidoneus, of the chasm that opened in the earth, and of the swine of Eubouleus that were swallowed up along with the two deities, which is the reason given for the custom of casting swine into the sacred caverns at the festival of the Thesmophoria? This is the tale which the women celebrate at their various feasts in the city, Thesmophoria, Scirophoira, Arretophoria, where in different ways they work up into tragedy the rape of Persephone.[69]

Yet how can we wonder if Tuscans, who are barbarians, are thus consecrated to base passions, when Athenians and the rest of Greece - I blush even to speak of it - possess that shameful tale about Deo? It tells how Deo, wandering through Eleusis, which is a part of Attica, in search of her daughter the Maiden, becomes exhausted and sits down at a well in deep distress. This display of grief is forbidden, up to the present day, to those who are initiated, lest the worshipers should seem to imitate the goddess in her sorrow. At that time Eleusis was inhabited by aborigines, whose names were Baubo, Dysaules, Triptolemos, and also Eumopos and Eubouleus. Triptolemos was a herdsman, Eumolopos a shepherd, and Eubouleus a swineherd. These were progenitors of the Eumolpidai and of the heralds (Kerykes), who form the priestly class at Athens. But to continue; for I will not forbear to tell the rest of the story. Baubo, having received Deo as a guest, offers her a draught of wine and meal (kykeon). She declines to take it, being unwilling to drink on account of her mourning. Baubo is deeply hurt, thinking she has been slighted, and thereupon uncovers her secret parts and exhibits them to the goddess. Deo is pleased at the sight, and now at last receives the draught - delighted with the spectacle! These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians! These are also the subjects of Orpheus= poems. I will quote you the very lines of Orpheus, in order that you may have the originator of the mysteries as witness to their shamelessness:
This said, she drew aside her robes, and showed a sight of shame; child Iacchos was there, and laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts. Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled, and drank the drought from out the glancing cup.
And the formula of the Eleusinian mysteries is as follows: AI fasted; I drank the draught; I took form the chest; having done my task, I placed in the basket, and from the basket into the chest.@ Beautiful sights indeed, and fit for a goddess! Yes, such rites are meet for the night and torch fires, and for the Agreat-hearted@ - I should rather say empty-headed - people of the Erechtheidai, with the rest of the Greeks as well, Awhom after death there await such things as they little expect.@ Against whom does Heraclitus of Ephesus utter this prophecy? Against Anight-roamers, magicians, Bacchantes, Lenaean revelers, and devotees of the mysteries.@ These are the people whom he threatens with the penalties that follow death; for these he prophesies the fire. AFor in unholy fashion are thy initiated into the mysteries customary among men.@

Heraclitus said:
The real constitution of things is accustomed to hide itself. (Diels 211)
When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athens, Pandion became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis, and Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. (Apollodorus III, xiv, 7)

Such, then are the myths which the Cretans recount of the gods who they claim were born in their land. They also assert that the honors accorded to the gods and their sacrifices and the initiatory rites observed in connection with the mysteries were handed down from Crete to the rest of men, and to support this they advance the following most weighty argument, as they conceive it: the initiatory rite which is celebrated by the Athenians in Eleusis, the most famous, one may venture, of them all, and that of Samothrace, and the one practiced in Thrace among the Cicones, whence Orpheus came who introduced them---these are all handed down in the form of a mystery, whereas at Knossos in Crete it has been the custom from ancient times that these initiatory rites should be handed down to all openly, and what is handed down among other people as not to be divulged, this the Cretans conceal from no one who may wish to inform himself upon such matters. Indeed, the majority of the gods, the Cretans say, had their beginning in Crete and set out from there to visit many regions of the inhabited world, conferring benefactions upon the races of men and distributing among each of them the advantage which resulted from the discoveries they had made. Demeter, for example, crossed over into Attica and then removed from there to Sicily and afterwards to Egypt; and in these lands her choicest gift was that of the corn and instructions in the sowing of it, whereupon she received great honors at the hands of these whom she had benefited. (Diodorus Siculus V, 77)

The mysteries, then, are mere custom and vain opinion, and it is a deceit of the serpent that men worship when, with spurious piety, they turn towards these sacred initiations that are really profanities, and solemn rites that are without sanctity. Consider, too, the contents of the mystic chests; for I must strip bare their holy things and utter the unspeakable. Are they not sesame cakes, pyramid and spherical cakes, cakes with many navels, also balls of salt and a serpent, the mystic sign of Dionysos Bassareus? Ar they not also pomegranates, fig branches, fennel stalks, ivy leaves, round cakes and poppies? These are their holy things! In addition, there are the unutterable symbols of Ge Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, and a woman=s comb, which is a euphemistic expression used in the mysteries for a woman=s secret parts. What manifest shamelessness! Formerly night, which drew a veil over the pleasures of temperate men, was a time for silence. But now, when night is for those who are being initiated a temptation to licentiousness, talk abounds, and the torch-fires convict unbridled passions. Quench the fire, thou priest. Shrink from the flaming brands, torchbearer. The light convicts your Iacchos. Suffer night to hide the mysteries. Let the orgies be honored by darkness. The fire is not acting a part; to convict and to punish is its duty.[70]

But the Phrygians, he says, also call him Athe green ear that is harvested,@ and the Athenians also, following the Phrygians, when they make the initiations of Eleusis and display to the beholders that great and wondrous and most perfect mystery which is to be beheld there is silence, a harvested ear. Now this ear is for the Athenians too the great and perfect Illuminator coming from the uncharacterized one; likewise, the hierophant himself, who is not indeed castrated, like Attis, but is made a eunuch with hemlock and is separated from all carnal generation, when he celebrates the great and unutterable mysteries by night at Eleusis under a brilliant light, calls out and proclaims these words: AA holy child is born to the Lady Brimo, Brimos@ - that is, to the Strong One, the Strong Lady, he says, means the spiritual birth, the heavenly higher (birth); and strong is the man who is born in this fashion. And the mystery aforesaid is called Eleusis and Anactoreum; Eleusis, he says, because we have come, we who are spiritual, flowing down from above, from Adamas - for eleusethai he says, means Ato come@ - and Anactoreum because of our ascent on high (ano). This, he says, is what the devotees of the Eleusinian cult call the great mysteries; for it is the custom that those who have been initiated into the lesser should again be initiated into the great ones; for Agreater dooms gain greater destinies.@ For the lesser mysteries, he says, are those of Persephone here below, and of these mysteries and the road that leads there, which is Abroad and wide@ and leads those who are perishing to Persephone, the poet also says: ABut beneath it is an awesome pathway, cavernous and clayey; but this is the best that leads to the pleasant grove of glorious Aphrodite.@ This means, he says, the lesser mysteries of birth in the flesh; and when men have been initiated into these they must wait a little before they are initiated into the great, heavenly ones. For those who are allotted those dooms, he says, receive greater destinies. For this, he says, is the Agate of heaven,@ and this is the Ahouse of God,@ where the good God dwells alone, where no unclean person, he says, shall enter no psychic (unspiritual), no carnal man, but it is reserved for the spiritual alone.@[71]

The Lesser Mysteries, which took place towards the end of winter in the month of flowers, the Anthesterion, were a condition for entry into the Greater Mysteries, which took place in the autumn. The first stage of the initiation at the Lesser Mysteries was the sacrifice of a young pig, the animal sacred to Demeter, which was symbolically to take the place of the initiate=s own death. This, as in the Thesmophoria, follows the Orphic variant of the myth, mentioned by Lucian, which associated the death of the pig with the rape of Persephone.[72]

Plutarch=s famous record of his impressions of a mystery festival: First labyrinthine turnings and arduous gropings, various unsuccessful and perilous passages in the darkness. Then before the rite itself; all manner of terrors, shuddering and trembling, silence and terrified amazement. After this a wonderful light bursts forth, friendly landscapes and meadows receive us, voices and dances and the splendor of sacred songs are disclosed to us.[73] (Todd, could the pillars of the Telesterion have formed the basis for a labyrinth?)

The Christian usage of the word mysterion emphasizes a particular meaning; namely that of a divine action or essence which is by its very nature Aineffable.@ Here we may mention the use of the words mysterion, mysteria in the Gospels, particularly in Luke 8:10, Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:11, where we find almost identical formulations: ATo you (i.e, the disciples) is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven (or Aof God.@) And the passage in Luke continues: ABut to the rest (the mystery) is given in parables, that seeing they may not see and hearing not understand. Now the parable is this: AThe seed is the word of God.@[74]

But if there is any point on which all witnesses agree, it is that the climax of the Eleusinian Mysteries was not a ritual, or anything which the mystes did or physically experienced, but a vision. The supreme rite is called epopteia. All the beatitudes refer to it and to it alone. AHappy is he who has seen it!@ says the Homeric Hymn, directly relating the vision to the assurance of a favored lot in the other world. As all witnesses agree, everything was a preparation for this vision.[75]

Aristotle (fragment 15) says expressly that the mystai were not meant to learn anything, but to suffer an experience and to be moved.[76]

Iamblichus (Myst. 3.2) regards the state between sleeping and waking as particularly favorable to the reception of divine visions.[77]
Dionysus: Now, by the Gods, besides these there should be whoever learned Kinesias= pyrrhic dance.
Herakles: Next a breathe of pipes will surround you, you=ll see a shining light, just like up here, then myrtle groves, and happy choirs of men and women mixed who loudly clap their hands.
Dionysus: And who are these?

Herakles: These are the Mystic celebrants.[78]

Chorus: Awake, for it has come tossing torches in hand,
Iacchos, Oh Iacchos,
the light-bringing star of our nocturnal rite.
Now the meadow brightly burns.
Old men=s knees start to sway.
They shake away their pains
and the long cycles of ancient years.
Through your holy rite.
Beaming with your torch,
lead forth to the flowering stretch of marsh
the youth that makes your choruses, o blessed on![79]

Chorus: Let him be mute and stand aside from our sacred dances
who has no experience of mystical language, or has not cleansed his mind.
Who never has seen and never has danced in the rites of the noble Muses.
Nor ever has been inducted into the Bacchic mysteries of beef-eating Cratinus
Or who takes delight in foolish words when doing this is ill-timed,
Whoever does not eliminate hateful factionalism, and is disagreeable to the citizens,
but kindles and fans civil strife, in his thirst for private advantage:
Whoever takes bribes when guiding the state through the midst of a storm
Or betrays our forts or our ships, smuggles contraband from Aegina
As Thorycion did, that wretched collector of taxes
Sending pads and sails and pitch to Epidauros
Or persuades anyone to send supplies to the enemies ships,
Or defiles Hekate=s shrine, while singing dithyrambs,
Or any politician who bites off the pay of the poets
For being ridiculed in the ancestral rites of Dionysus.
All these I warn, and twice I warn, and thrice I warn again,
stand aside from our mystical dances; but as for you: arouse the song
and the night-long dances, that belong to our festival here.[80]


Chorus: Demeter, mistress of our holy rites,
be present now
and preserve your song and dance.
And grant that I may sport and dance the livelong day in safety.[81]

Old Woman: When I was at the Mysteries of Eleusis in a carriage, someone made eyes at me; he was so jealous that he beat me the whole of that day.[82]

(The scene changes to the interior of the Thesmophorion.
Mnesilochus: Look, Thratta, at the cloud of smoke that arises from all these lighted torches. Ah! Beautiful Thesmophorae! Grant me your favors, protect me, both within the temple and on my way back! Come, Thratta, put down the basket and take out the cake, which I wish to offer to the two goddesses. Mighty divinity, oh Demeter, and thou, Persephone, grant that I may be able to offer you many sacrifices; above all things, grant that I may not be recognized.[83]

But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say Ait slipped out while they were speaking@ or Athey were not aware that the matter was a secret@ as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries.[84]
Electra: O Pelasgia, I take up the dirge, doing bloody outrage on my cheeks with white nail, and beating on my head; these are the portion of Persephone, fair young goddess of the nether world. Let the Cyclopian land break forth into wailing for the sorrows of our house, laying the steel upon the head to crop it close. This is the piteous, piteous strain that goes up for those who are about to die, once the battle-leaders of Hellas.[85]

On this lake they enact by night the story of the god=s sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries. I could say more about this, for I know the truth, but let me preserve a discrete silence. Let me preserve a discrete silence, too, concerning that rite of Demeter which the Greeks call Thesmophoria, excepts as much of it as I am not forbidden to mention.
The daughters of Danaus were those who brought this rite out of Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; afterwards, when the people of the Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, it was lost, except so far as it was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in its home.[86]

When Demeter came to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and being moved to kindness towards our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two gifts, the greatest in the world -- the fruits of the earth which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity - our city was not only so beloved of the gods but also so devoted to mankind that, having been endowed with these great blessings, she did not begrudge them to the rest of the world, but shared with all men what she had received. The mystic rite we continue even now, each year, to reveal to the initiates; and as for the fruits of the earth, our city has, in a word, instructed the world in their uses, their cultivation, and the benefits derived from them.[87]

Practicing the holy rites of Coty...One, holding in his hands the pipe, the labor of the lathe, blows forth his fingered tune, even the sound that wakes to frenzy. Another, with brass-bound cymbals, raises a clang...the twang shrills; and unseen, unknown, bull-voices mimes in answer bellow fearfully, while the timbrel=s echo, like that of subterranean thunder, rolls along inspiring a mighty terror.[88]

Lo, the house is frenzied with the god, the roof revels, Bacchant-like.[89]
Where in the west, is the bowl wrought by Hephaestus, the bowl of thy sire, speeding wherein he crosseth the mighty, swelling stream the girdleth earth, fleeing the gloom of holy night of sable steeds.[90]

ABut I too have a seal, as a guard, upon my lips.@[91]
ATake ye stand in a ring about yon altar and a gleaming fire, and with your band grouped in a circle offer up your prayers.@[92]

The graves of the children of Aras are, in my opinion, on the Arantine Hill and not in any other part of the land. On the top of them are far-seen gravestones, and before the celebration of the mysteries of Demeter the people look at these tombs and call Aras and his children to the libations.[93]

Celeae is some five stades distant from the city, and here they celebrate the mysteries in honor of Demeter, not every year but every fourth year. The initiating priest is not appointed for life, but at each celebration they elect a fresh one, who takes, if he cares to do so, a wife. In this respect their custom differs from that at Eleusis, but the actual celebration is modeled in the Eleusinian rites; The Phliasians themselves admit that they copy the Aperformance@ at Eleusis.[94]

But the mysteries of the Great Goddesses were raised to greater honor many years later than Caucon by Lycus, the son of Pandion, an oak-wood, where he purified the celebrants, being called Lycus= wood. That there is a wood in this land so called is stated by Rhianus the Cretan:
By rugged Elaeum above Lycus= Wood.
That this Lycus was the son of Pandion is made clear by the lines on the statue of Methapus, who made certain improvements in the mysteries. Methapus was an Athenian by birth, an expert in the mysteries and founder of all kinds of rites. It was he who established the mysteries of the Cabiri at Thebes, and dedicated in the hut of the Lycomidae a statue with an inscription that amongst other things helps to confirm my account.
This inscriptions shows that Caucon who came to Messene was a descendant of Phlyus, and proves my other statements with regard to Lycus, and that the mysteries were originally at Andania. And it seems natural to me that Messene should have established the mysteries where she and Polycaon lived, not anywhere else.[95]

To Epaminondas in his difficulty it is said that an ancient man, closely resembling a priest of Demeter, appeared in the night and said: AMy gift to thee is that thou shalt conquer whomsoever thou dost assail; and when thou dost pass from men, Theban, I will cause thy name to be unforgotten and give thee glory. But do thou restore the Messenians their fatherland and cities, for now the wrath of the Dioscuri against them hath ceased.@
This he said to Epaminondas, and revealed this to Epiteles the son of Aeschines, who had been chosen by the Argives to be their general and to refound Messene. He was bidden by the dream, wherever he found yew and myrtle growing on Ithome, to dig between them and recover the old woman, for, shut in her brazen chamber, she was overcome and well-nigh fainting. When day dawned, Epiteles went to the appointed place, and as he dug, came upon a brazen urn.
He took it at once to Epaminondas, told him the dream and bade him remove the lid and see what was within. Epaminonodas, after sacrifice and prayer to the vision that had appeared, opened the urn and having opened it found some tin foil, very thin, rolled like a book. On it were inscribed the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and this was the pledge deposited by Aristomenes. They say that the man who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in their sleep was Caucon, who came from Athens to Messene, the daughter of Triopas at Andania.[96]

When the mysteries were recovered, all who were of the priestly family set them down in books.[97]

The people of Pheneus have also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian, and they perform a ritual to the goddess, saying that the ceremonies at Eleusis are the same as those established among themselves. For Nause, they assert, came to them because of an oracle from Delphi, being a grandson of Eumolpus. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian has been set up Petroma, as it is called, consisting of two large stones fitted one to the other.
When every other year they celebrate what they call the Greater Rites, they open these stones. They take from out them writings that refer to the rites, read them in the hearing of the initiated, and return them on the same night.[98]

There is also in the painting a jar, and an old man, with a boy and two women. One of these, who is young, is under the rock; the other is beside the old man and of a like age to his. The others are carrying water, but you will guess that the old woman=s water-jar is broken. All that remains of the water in the sherd she is pouring out again into the jar. We inferred that these people too were of those who had held of no account the rites at Eleusis. For the Greeks of an earlier period looked upon the Eleusinian mysteries as being as much higher than all other religious acts as gods are higher than heroes.[99].

They are acting just like the celebrants of the Corybantic rites, when they perform the enthronement of the person whom they are about to initiate. There, as you know, if you have been through it, they have dancing and merrymaking; [100].

And I fancy that those men who established the mysteries were not unenlightened, but in reality had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes uninitiated and unsanctified to the other world will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. For as they say in the mysteries, Athe thyrus-bearers are many, but the mystics few@ and these mystics are, I believe, those who have been true philosophers.@[101]

Philosopher as like one initiated (long section.)[102]

But now I must investigate how it comes about that so many names have been used of one and the same thing, and the theological element contained in their history. Now this is common both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to perform their sacred rites in connection with the relaxation of a festival, these rites being performed sometimes with religious frenzy, sometimes without it; sometimes with music, sometimes not; and sometimes in secret, sometimes openly. And it is in accordance with the dictates of nature that this should be so, for, in the first place, the relaxation draws the mind away from human occupations and turns the real mind towards that which is divine; and secondly, the religious frenzy seems to afford a kind of divine inspiration and to be very like that of the soothsayer; and thirdly, the secrecy with which the sacred rites are concealed induces reverence for the divine, since it imitates the nature of the divine, which is to avoid being perceived by our human senses; and, fourthly, music, which includes dancing as well as rhythm and melody, at the same time, by the delight it affords and by its artistic beauty, brings us in touch with the divine, and for this for the following reason; for although it has been well said that human beings then act most like the gods when they are doing food to others, yet one might better say, when they are happy; and such happiness consists of rejoicing, celebrating festivals, pursuing philosophy and engaging in music; for, if music is perverted when musicians turn their art to sensual delights at symposiums and in orchestric and scenic performances and the like, we would not lay the blame upon music itself, but should rather examine the nature of our system of education, since this is based on music.
And on this account Plato, and even before his time the Pythagoreans, called philosophy music; and they say that the universe is constituted in accordance with harmony, assuming that every form of music is the work of the gods...Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysus, Apollo, Hekate, the Muses, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bacchic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name AIacchus@ not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the genius of Demeter. And branch-bearing, choral dancing, and initiations are common elements in the worship of these gods.[103]

On the road between the Tralleians and Nysa is a village of the Nysaens, not far from the city Acharaca, where is the Plutonium, with a costly sacred precinct and a shrine of Pluto and Core, and also the Charonium, a cave that lies above the sacred precinct, by nature wonderful; for they say that those who are diseased and give heed to the cures prescribed by these gods resort thither and live in the village near the cave among experienced priests, who on their behalf sleep in the cave and through dreams prescribe the cures. These are also the men who invoke the healing power of the gods. And they often bring the sick into the cave and leave them there, to remain in quiet, like animals in their lurking-holes, without food for many days. And sometimes the sick give heed also to their own dreams, but still they use those other men, as priests, to initiate them into the mysteries and counsel them. To all others the place is forbidden and deadly.[104]

Otto made so bold as to assume in his study that true miracles were performed in the Mystery Night of Eleusis. This contention was tantamount to a challenge. He called upon his readers to considered the scattered allusions of the experiences - the pathe - of the initiate at Eleusis from a new standpoint and to experiment with the idea, which Otto took very seriously, that those who participated in the Mysteries may have experienced what they believed to be an authentic divine epiphany. Otto may be said to have been a precursor in the Dutch scholar K.H.E. de Jong, who had already interpreted the classical passage in Plato=s Phaedrus (250c) as indirect evidence that spirits were made to appear at Eleusis.[105]

The proud Athenian, Isocrates, summaries the value of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
When Demeter came to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and, being moved to kindness towards our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two gifts, the greatest in the world - the fruits of the earth, which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity, - our city was not only so beloved of the gods but also so devoted to mankind that, having been endowed with these great blessings, she did not begrudge them to the rest of the world, but shared with all men what she had received. The mystic rite we continue even now, each year, to reveal to the initiates; and as for the fruits of the earth, our city has, in a word, instructed the world, in their uses, their cultivation, and the benefits derived from them.(Panegyricus 28-29)
The Romans attempted to suppress certain rituals of the Greeks, but Cicero points out to us how these most sacred mysteries were allowed to remain, having given so much to mankind.
M: Then what will become of our Iacchus and Eumolpidae and their impressive mysteries, if we abolish nocturnal rites? For we are composing laws not for the Roman people in particular, but for all virtuous and stable nations.A: I take it for granted that you make an exception of those rites into which we ourselves have been initiated.M: I will do so indeed. For among the many excellent and indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life, none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by their means we have been brought out of our barbarous and savage mode of life and educated and refined to a state of civilization; and as the rites are called "initiations," so in very truth we have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a better hope.(Cicero Laws II, xiv, 36)
In Apuleius' Metamorphoses, Psyche calls upon the mother goddess for aid and describes many of the events from myth and ritual.
Psyche cast herself before the goddess, wetting the holy feet with tears and sweeping the ground with her tresses. Amid a thicket of supplications she asked for the favor of Ceres:
'By your right hand of Plenty, I implore you. By your joyous Ceremonies of Harvest; by your Mystery enclosed in Osier-baskets; by the winged Gig of your familiar Dragons; by the Furrows of the Sicilian Glebe, the Rape of the Chariot, the Earth that yields not up its own, the Descent into the Night of the Nuptials of Proserpine, and the Ascent into the light of the Maiden's Restoration; by all the other Symbols which the Sanctuary of Eleusis in Attica preserves in Silences - stand by your suppliant Psyche in the hour of her deep need. Permit me, at least for a few days, to shelter myself among the layers of wheat until the passage of time mitigates the raging rancor of the mighty goddess, or until an interval of rest refreshes the body that daily stress has now exhausted.'
(Apuleius Metamorphoses VI, 2)
However, in his De Natura Deorum, Cicero refers to the mysteries as being more scientific than religious.
I say nothing of the holy and awe-inspiring sanctuary of Eleusis, "where tribes from earth's remotest confines seek Initiation," and I pass over Samothrace and those "occult mysteries which throngs of worshippers at dead of night in forest covert deep do celebrate" Lemnos, since such mysteries when interpreted and rationalized prove to have more to do with natural science than with theology.(Cicero De Natura Deorum I, 52)
The ancient Greeks very likely understood the correspondence between the cycles of plant life and human reincarnation, as analogous natural and spiritual laws. Plotinus discusses the spiritual understanding of the earth and plant life.
If the earth transmits the generative soul to growing things - or retains it while allowing a vestige of it to constitute the vegetal principle in them - at once the earth is ensouled, as our flesh is, and any generative power possessed by the plant world is of its bestowing: this phase of the soul is immanent in the body of the growing thing, and transmits to it that better element by which it differs from the broken off part no longer a thing of growth but a mere lump of material.But does the entire body of the earth similarly receive anything from the soul?Yes: for we must recognize that earthly material broken of from the main body differs from the same remaining continuously attached; thus stones increase as long as they are embedded, and from the moment they are separated, stop at the size attained.We must conclude, then, that every part and member of the earth carries its vestige of this principle of growth, an under-phase of that entire principle which belongs not to this or that member but to the earth as a whole: next in order is the nature (the soul-phase), concerned with sensation, this not interfused (like the vegetal principle) but in contact from above: then the higher soul and the Intellectual Principle, constituting together the being known as Hestia (Earth-Mind) and Demeter (Earth-Soul) - a nomenclature indicating the human intuition of these truths, asserted in the attribution of a divine name and nature.(Fourth Ennead IV, 27)
Thus Demeter relates to the soul rather than the mind. Plutarch also discusses the soul and mind in relation to the goddesses, and how purification and purgation follow death.
The result of soul and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice. In the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind to man for the purpose of his generation even as it furnishes light to the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces man from three factors to two and another reduces him from two to one; and the former takes place in the earth that belongs to Demeter (wherefore "to make an end" is called "to render one's life to her" and Athenians used in olden times to call the dead "Demetrians"), the latter in the moon that belongs to Persephone, and associated with the former is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial. While the goddess here dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Persephone gently and by slow degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore been called "single-born" because the best part of man is "born single" when separated off by her. Each of the two separations naturally occurs in this fashion: All soul, whether without mind or with it, when it has issued from the body is destined to wander in the region between earth and moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls pay penalties for their offenses; but the good soul must in the gentlest part of the air, which they call "the meads of Hades," pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow away the pollution contracted from the body as from an evil odor. Then, as if brought home from banishment abroad, they savor joy most like that of initiates, which attended by glad expectation is mingled with confusion and excitement. For many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside down as if sinking again into the deep. Those that have got up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called wreathes of steadfastness, because in life they had made the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and tolerably tractable to reason; secondly, in appearance resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours, resembling the ether about the moon, they get from it both tension and strength as edged instruments get a temper, for what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and Heraclitus was right in saying: "Souls employ the sense of smell in Hades."(Plutarch The Face of the Moon 28)
Orpheus in his hymns, sang to fumigate the bad odors with incense and purify the soul.
To the Terrestrial Hermes
O Bacchic Hermes, progeny divineOf Dionysus, parent of the vine,And of celestial Venus, Paphian queen,Dark-eyelash'd Goddess of a lovely mien:Who constant wand'rest thro' the sacred seatsWhere Hell's dread empress, Proserpine, retreats;To wretched souls the leader of the way,When Fate decrees, to regions void of day.Thine is the wand which causes sleep to fly,Or lulls to slumb'rous rest the weary eye;For Proserpine, thro' Tart'rus dark and wide,Gave the for ever flowing souls to guide,Come, blessed pow'r, the sacrifice attend,And grant thy mystics' works a happy end.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )
Taylor quotes Proclus who also makes the distinction between terrestrial and celestial gods.
Hence, there is a terrestrial Ceres, Vesta, and Isis, as likewise a terrestrial Jupiter and a terrestrial Hermes, established about the one divinity of the earth, just as a multitude of celestial Gods proceeds about the one divinity of the heavens. For there are progressions of all the celestial Gods into the Earth: and Earth contains all things, in an earthly manner, which Heaven comprehends celestially. Hence we speak of a terrestrial Bacchus and a terrestrial Apollo, who bestows the all-various streams of water with which the earth abounds, and openings prophetic of futurity.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus p. xxxiii)
Pindar explains how the pure light of the soul remains after death, and how even during life when the body sleeps it may give knowledge of the future. His metaphor for having realized this transcendent reality is clearly a reference to the mystic grain.
... having, by happy fortune, culled the fruit of the rite that releases from toil. And, while the body of all men is subject to over-mastering death, an image of life remains alive, for it alone comes from the gods. But it sleeps, while the limbs are active; yet, to them that sleep in many a dream it gives presage of a decision of things delightful or doleful.(Pindar Fragment 96)
Pausanias tells how Pindar received a communication in a dream from the Goddess of the underworld, and then after passing on, sent a song to a living person through a dream.
When his fame was spread abroad from one end of Greece to the other, the Pythian priestess set him on a still higher pinnacle of renown by bidding the Delphians give to Pindar an equal share of all the first-fruits they offered to Apollo. It is said, too, that in his old age there was vouchsafed to him a vision in a dream. As he slept Proserpine stood by him and said that of all the deities she alone had not been hymned by him, but that, nevertheless, he should make a song on her also when he was come to her. Before ten days were out Pindar had paid the debt of nature. But there was in Thebes an old woman, a relation of Pindar's, who had practiced singing, most of his songs. To her Pindar appeared in a dream and sang to her a hymn on Proserpine; and she, as soon as she was awake, wrote down all the song she had heard him singing in her dream. In this song, amongst the epithets applied to Hades is that of 'golden-reined,' obviously in reference to the rape of Proserpine.(Pausanias IX, 23:3-4)
The dreamer is able to visit the underworld or the "other side" to communicate with the dead, yet when wake and alive is usually not aware of the soul realm. Heraclitus expresses this by calling such a person "the sleeper."
A man in the night kindles a light for himself when his vision is extinguished; living, he is in contact with the dead, when asleep, and with the sleeper, when awake.(H. Diels 236)
Realizing that in dreams the awakened soul may visit the inner realms, Orpheus sings:
To the Divinity of Dreams
Thee I invoke, blest pow'r of dreams divine,Angel of future fates, swift wings are thine.Great source of oracles to human kind,When stealing soft, and whisp'ring to the mind,Thro' sleep's sweet silence, and the gloom of night,Thy pow'r awakes th'intellectual sight;To silent souls the will of heaven relates,And silently reveals their future fates.Forever friendly to the upright mind,Sacred and pure, to holy rites inclin'd;For these with pleasing hope thy dreams inspire:Bliss to anticipate, which all desire.Thy visions manifest of fate disclose,What methods best may mitigate our woes;Reveal what rites the Gods immortal please,And what the means their anger to appease;For ever tranquil is the good man's end,Whose life thy dreams admonish and defend,But from the wicked turned averse to bless,Thy form unseen, the angel of distress;No means to check approaching ill they find,Pensive with fears, and to the future blind.Come blessed pow'r, the signatures revealWhich heav'n's decrees mysteriously conceal,Signs only present to the worthy mind,Nor omens ill disclose of monstrous kind.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )
Seneca indicates that the Eleusinian Mysteries continually helped the ancient Greeks to grow spiritually.
There are holy things that are not communicated all at once: Eleusis always keeps something back to show those who come again.(Quaestiones Naturalis VII, 30:6)
Yet the silence in which these mysteries were wrapped is difficult to penetrate. In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus the Chorus exclaims:
Haply by the shores loved of Apollo, haply by that torch-lit strand where the Great Goddess cherish dread rites for mortals, on whose lips the ministrant Eumolpidae have laid the precious seal of silence;(Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 1048-1053)
Later Oedipus himself speaks of the required silence, and tells how to hand them down from generation to generation.
But for your mysteries which speech may not profane, you shall mark them for yourself, when you come to that place alone; and when you are coming to the end of life, disclose them to your heir alone; let him teach his heir; and so thenceforth.(Ibid. 1526-1534)
Oedipus at Colonus was produced in 405 BC, one year after Sophocles' death. Thus in this play Sophocles is able to express his deepest thoughts about death, as Oedipus faces the situation. Oedipus goes off to his death, calling upon Persephone.
This way - hither, this way! - for this way does Guiding Hermes lead me, and the goddess of the dead.(Ibid. 2556-1558)
Here again the terrestrial Hermes leads the man to the gods. A messenger describes the ritual symbolic of initiation performed by Oedipus before his death.
And then he called his daughters, and bade them fetch water from some fount, that he should wash, and make a drink-offering. And they went to the hill which was in view, Demeter's hill who guards the tender plants, and in short space brought that which their father had enjoined; then they ministered to him with washing, and dressed him, as use ordains.(Ibid. 1595-1602)
Theseus consoles the daughters of Oedipus and asks them not to mourn the death of a blessed one.
Weep no more maidens; for where the kindness of the Dark Powers is an abiding grace to the quick and to the dead, there is no room for mourning; divine anger would follow.(Ibid. 1750-1753)
Sophocles gives the reason why in a fragment.
Thrice happy are those of mortals, who having seen those rites depart for Hades; for to them alone is it granted to have true life there; to the rest all there is evil.(Sophocles Fragment 719)
An inscription found at Eleusis agrees.
Beautiful indeed is the Mystery given us by the blessed gods: death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing.(S. Angus tr. The Mystery Religions and Christianity p. 140)
Scholiast On Aristophanes reveals that not only was death not feared, but that initiation could help the soul that has passed on to realize its divine nature.
It was the common belief in Athens that whoever had been taught the Mysteries would, when he died, be deemed worthy of divine glory. Hence all were eager for initiation.(Scholiast on Aristophanes The Frogs 158)
Thus as Pindar expresses it, initiation could be the beginning of divine life.
Blessed is he who has seen these things before he goes beneath the earth; for he understands the end of mortal life, and the beginning (of a new life) given of god.(Fragment 102)
Jesus explains the immortality of the soul and the sovereignty of God in the symbols the Greeks understand due to the mysteries.
Some of those going up so that they might worship at the feast were Greeks; therefore these approached Philip, the one from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him saying, "Lord, we wish to see Jesus." Philip goes and tells Andrew; Andrew and Philip go and tell Jesus.And Jesus answers them saying, "The hour has come so that the human son may be glorified. Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falling into the earth dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."(Gospel of John 12:20-24)
Thus Jesus explained that death is a rebirth. Paul explains the resurrection by the symbol of a seed dying in the earth in order to grow into celestial life.
But some one will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed is its own body. or not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another of the moon, and another glory of the star; for star differs from star in glory.So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable, It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body . If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being;" the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the sovereignty of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.(I Corinthians 15:35-50)
The individual's soul, which is the seed of God, becomes one with God as the seed becomes a tree. Jesus gives the parable.
And he said, "Thus is the sovereignty of God: as a person might throw seed on the earth, and might sleep and rise night and day, and the seed sprouts and lengthens, though one does not know how. By itself the earth bears fruit, first grass, then an ear, then full grain in the ear. And when the fruit is ripe, immediately one sends the sickle, for the harvest has arrived."And he said, "How shall we describe the sovereignty of God, or by what parable may we compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which when it is sown on the earth, is smaller than all the seeds of the earth, and when in is sown, comes up and becomes greater than all the vegetables, and produces great branches so that the birds of heaven can dwell under its shade."And by many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear; and he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.And he said to them on that day as evening came, "Let us go over to the other side." And leaving the crowd they take him along as he was in the boat, and other boats were with him. And a great whirlwind occurs, and the waves broke into the boat, so that now the boat was being filled. And he was in the stern sleeping on a pillow.And they awake him and say to him, "Teacher, don't you even care that we are perishing?"And waking up he reprimanded the wind and said to the sea, "Be quiet! Shut up!" And the wind ceased, and it became very calm. And he said to them, "Why are you such cowards? How come you have no faith?"(Gospel of Mark 4:26-40)
As they cross to the other side, symbolically through the veil of death, the disciples become afraid and cry out to Jesus in fear of dying. But Jesus has shown the way through stormy death and proven the truth by his own resurrection, Once the soul is purified of its other bodies, it is able to pass back and forth between earthly life and the heavenly realm, which is on the other side or within the inner realms of consciousness.
Orpheus

A Hymn to Proserpine by Orpheus:
Daughter of Jove, Persephone divine,Come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline:Only-begotten, Pluto's honored wife,O venerable Goddess, source of life:'Tis thine in earth's profundities to dwellPast by the wide and dismal gates of hell.Jove's holy offspring, of a beauteous mien,Avenging Goddess, subterranean queen.The Furies' source, fair-hair'd, whose frame proceedsfrom Jove's ineffable and secret seeds.Mother of Bacchus, sonorous, divine,And many-form'd, the parent of the vine.Associate of the Seasons, essence bright,All-ruling virgin, bearing heav'nly light.With fruits abounding, of a bounteous mind,Horn'd, and alone desir'd by those of mortal kind.O vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight,Sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight:Whose holy form in budding fruits we view,Earth's vig'rous offspring of a various hue:Espous'd in autumn, life and death aloneTo wretched mortals from thy pow'r is known:For thine the task, according to thy will,Life to produce, and all that lives to kill.Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increaseOf various fruits from earth, with lovely peace:Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my lifeWith blest abundance, free from noisy strife;Last in extreme old age the prey of Death,Dismiss me willing to the realms beneath,To thy fair palace and the blissful plainsWhere happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )The subject requires that I should narrate the rape of the Virgin.(Ovid Fasti IV, 417-418)
Now Calliope bore to Oeagrus or, nominally, to Apollo, a son Linus, whom Hercules slew; and another son Orpheus, who practiced minstrelsy and by his songs moved stones and trees. And when his wife Eurydice died, bitten by a snake, he went down to Hades, being fain to bring here up and he persuaded Pluto to send her up. The god promised to do so, if on the way Orpheus would not turn round until he should be come to his own house. But he disobeyed and turning round beheld his wife; so she turned back. Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads, he is buried in Pieria.[106]

In my opinion Orpheus excelled his predecessors in the beauty of his verse, and reached a high degree of power because he was believed to have discovered mysteries, purifications from sins, cures of diseases, and means of averting divine wrath. . .Some say that Orpheus came to his end by being struck by a thunderbolt, hurled at him by the god because he revealed sayings in the mysteries to men who had not heard them before.[107]

It is impossible to conclude how significant an influence Orphism had on Eleusis for there is no solid evidence for it or against it. Pausanias says this of the renowned mystic:
In my opinion Orpheus was a man who surpassed his predecessors in the beauty of his poetry, and attained great power because he was believed to have discovered mystic rites, purifications for wicked deeds, remedies for diseases, and modes of averting the wrath of the gods.... But some say that Orpheus was struck dead by the god with a thunderbolt on account of certain revelations which he had made to men at the mysteries.(IX, 30:4-5)
The varieties of mystical experience hymned by Orpheus often are related to Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus (translated Ceres, Proserpine, and Bacchus respectively) and refer to mystic rites or Telete, which means the celebration of the Mysteries from teleo, to make perfect. (Mylonas Eleusis p. 320) Although not necessarily used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, these hymns give one the feeling of a comparable mysticism We have already given "To Proserpine," "To Pluto," and "To Ceres," and all of the following refer directly to Bacchus, Demeter (Ceres), or Persephone (Proserpine); the first is complete, the rest selections. These were sung by devoted mystics to their gods.
To Amphietus Bacchus
Terrestrial Dionysus, hear my pray'r,Rise vigilant with Nymphs of lovely hair:Great Amphietus Bacchus, annual God,Who laid asleep in Proserpine's abode,Her sacred seat, didst lull to drowsy restThe rites triennial and the sacred feast;Which rous'd again by thee, in graceful ring,Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing;When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow'rs,Thou mov'st in concert with the circling hours,Come blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine,And on this sacred Telete propitious shine;Accept the pious incense and the pray'r,And make prolific holy fruits thy care.
To Bacchus
Of Jove and Proserpine occultly bornIn beds ineffable; all-bless'd pow'r,Whom with triennial off'rings men adore.Immortal daemon, hear my suppliant voice,Give me in blameless plenty to rejoice;And listen gracious to my mystic pray'r,Surrounded with thy choir of nurses fair,
To the Nereids
Give plenteous wealth, and bless our mystic rites;For you at first disclosed the rites divine,Of holy Bacchus and of Proserpine,
To the Nymphs
With Bacchus and with Ceres hear my pray'r,And to mankind abundant favor bear;Propitious listen to your suppliant's voice,Come, and benignant in these rites rejoice;Give plenteous seasons and sufficient wealth,And pour in lasting streams, continued health.
To Semele
Whom Proserpine permits to view the light,And visit mortals from the realms of night.Constant attending on the sacred rites,And feast triennial, which thy soul delights;When thy son's wondrous birth mankind relateAnd secrets pure and holy celebrate.Now I invoke thee, great Cadmean queen,To bless thy mystics, lenient and serene.
To Adonis
Descended from the secret bed divineOf Pluto's queen, the fair-hair'd Proserpine.'Tis thine to sink in Tartarus profound,And shine again thro' heav'ns illustrious roundCome, timely pow'r, with providential care,And to thy mystics earth's productions bear.
To the Curetes
Fam'd deities the guards of Proserpine,Preserving rites mysterious and divine:
To the Seasons
Invested with a veil of shining dew,A flow'ry veil delightful to the view:Attending Proserpine, when back from nightThe Fates and Graces lead her up to light;When in a band harmonious they advance,And joyful round her form the solemn dance.With Ceres triumphing, and Jove divine,Propitious come, and on our incense shine;Give earth a store of blameless fruits to bear,And make these novel mystics' life your care.
To Nereus
Great daemon, source of all, whose pow'r can makeThe sacred basis of blest Ceres shake,...Send to thy mystics necessary wealth,With gentle peace, and ever tranquil health.
To Love
Of all that Ceres' fertile realms contains,By which th'all parent Goddess life sustains,Or dismal Tartarus is doom'd to keep,Widely extended, or the sounding deep;For thee all Nature's various realms obey,Who rul'st alone, with universal sway.Come, blessed pow'r, regard these mystic fires,And far avert unlawful mad desires.
To Corybas
By thee transmuted, Ceres' body pureBecame a dragon's savage and obscure.Avert thy anger, hear me when I pray,And, by fix'd fate, drive fancy's fears away.
More selections refer to mystic rites. (Ibid.) To Orpheus the whole cosmos is alive and divine.
To the Sun
Propitious on these mystic labors shine,And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.
To the Moon
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays,And pleas'd accept thy suppliants' mystic praise.
To the Stars
These sacred rites regard with conscious rays,And end our works devoted to your praise.
To Latona
Hear me, O queen, and fav'rbly attend,And to this Telete divine afford a pleasing end.
To the Daemon
O holy blessed father, hear my pray'r,Disperse the seed of life-consuming care,With fav'ring mind the sacred rites attend,And grant to life a glorious blessed end.
To the Muse
Commanding queens, who lead to sacred lightThe intellect refin'd from Error's night;And to mankind each holy rite disclose,For mystic knowledge from your nature flows....Come, venerable, various pow'rs divine,With fav'ring aspect on your mystics shine;Bring glorious, ardent, lovely, fam'd desire,And warm my bosom with your sacred fire .
To Aurora
For all the culture of our life is thine.Come, blessed pow'r and to these rites incline:Thy holy light increase, and unconfin'dDiffuse its radiance on thy mystics' mind
To Themis
Honor'd by all, of form divinely bright,Majestic virgin, wand'ring in the night.Mankind from thee first learnt perfective rites,And Bacchus' nightly choirs thy soul delights;For the God's honors to disclose is thine,And holy mysteries and rites divine.Be present Goddess, to my pray'r inclin'd,And bless thy Telete with fav'ring mind.
To Death
Hear me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'dExtends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind.On thee the portion of our time depends,Whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends.Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid foldsBy which the soul attracting body holds:
To Mnemosyne or the Goddess of Memory
The consort I invoke of Jove divine,Source of the holy, sweetly speaking Nine;Free from th'oblivion of the fallen mind,By whom the soul with intellect is join'd.Reason's increase and thought to thee belong,All-powerful, pleasant, vigilant and strong.'Tis thine to waken from lethargic restAll thoughts deposited within the breast;And naught neglecting, vig'rous to exciteThe mental eye from dark oblivion's nightCome, blessed pow'r, thy mystics' mem'ry wakeTo holy rites, and Lethe's fetters break.
To Heaven
Propitious on a novel mystic shine,And crown his wishes with a life divine.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )

[1] Pausanias. Description of Greece 5.20.3.
[2] Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus, 1052.
[3] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 3.12.6.
[4] Strabo, quoted in W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 43.
[5] Pausanias. Description of Greece 9.25.5 - 6.
[6] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 106-7.
[7] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 112-13.
[8] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, p. 150.
[9] The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs and Roots in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, eds. C.A. Raraone & D. Obink, Oxford, 1991, pp. 139-174.

[10] The Ecole Institute. The Eleusinian Mysteries. (WWW), p.5.
[11] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, p. 33.
[12] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 135.
[13] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 136-137.
[14] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 230-231.
[15] Plato. Phaedo. 107d - 108a.
[16] Stobaeus. Anthologion. 4.52.49.
[17] Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. 8: 39-45.
[18] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 286.
[19] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, p. 93.
[20] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 10.

[21] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 19.

[22] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, pps. 20-1.

[23] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 23.

[24] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 27.

[25] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 44.

[26] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 45.

[27] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 51.

[28] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 53.

[29] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 149.

[30] W. H. Matthews. Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970, p. 161.

[31] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics 1111a.
[32] Plato. Republic 563c.
[33] Pausanias. Description of Greece 10.4.2; 32.5.
[34] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 26.
[35] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, pps. 25-26.
[36] Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. 8: 39-45.
[37] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.15.1 - 2.
[38] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 217.
[39] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 233.
[40] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 365, 35.
[41] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, pps. 44-45.
[42] Plutarch. On Isis and Osiris. 35.
[43] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXV, 1976, p. 49.
[44] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pps. 222-223.
[45] Plutarch. On Isis and Osiris. 365 A.
[46] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 260.
[47] Plato. Phaedrus 244 a-c.
[48] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 154.
[49] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 5.
[50] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.18.2.
[51] Jana Shopkorn. >Til Death Do Us Part: Marriage and Funeral Rites in Classical Athens. WWW
[52] Jana Shopkorn. >Til Death Do Us Part: Marriage and Funeral Rites in Classical Athens. WWW
[53] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 54.
[54] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 156-157.
[55] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.15.3.
[56] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 186.
[57] Pausanias. Description of Greece 7.21.12.
[58] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.37.6 - 7.
[59] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 265.
[60] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 367, 41.
[61] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 368.
[62] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 106.
[63] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 110-111.
[64] Virgil. Aeneid, IV, 511.
[65] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, p. 174.

[66] Hippocrates. On the Sacred Disease

[67] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p. 30.

[68] Pindar. Fragment 137.
[69] Clement of Alexandria. Exhortation to the Greeks. 2: 15-18.
[70] Clement of Alexandria. Exhortation to the Greeks. 2: 20-23.
[71] Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. 8: 39-45.
[72] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 377.
[73] Stobaeus. Anthologia, IV, 107.
[74] Paul Schmitt. The Ancient Mysteries in the Society of their Time, Their Transformation and Most Recent Echoes.. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 96.
[75] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 23.
[76] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 25.
[77] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 128.
[78] Aristophanes. Frogs 153 - 160.
[79] Aristophanes. Frogs 345-355.
[80] Aristophanes. Frogs 354-371.
[81] Aristophanes. Frogs 386-390.
[82] Aristophanes. Plutus 1013.
[83] Aristophanes. Thesmophoriazusae 280 - 289.
[84] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics 1111a.
[85] Euripides. Orestes 960 - 970.
[86] Herodotus. Histories 2.171.1 - 2.171.3.
[87] Isocrates. Panegyricus 4.28 - 4.29.
[88] Aeschylus. Fragment from The Edonians, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, pp. 399-400.
[89] Aeschylus. Fragment from The Edonians, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, p. 400.
[90] Aeschylus. Fragment from The Daughters of Helios, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, p. 403.
[91] Aeschylus. Fragment of an uncertain play, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, p. 486.
[92] Aeschylus. Fragment of an uncertain play, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, p. 497.
[93] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.12.5.
[94] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.14.1.
[95] Pausanias. Description of Greece 4.1.6 - 7.
[96] Pausanias. Description of Greece 4.26.6 - 8.
[97] Pausanias. Description of Greece 4.27.4.
[98] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.15.1 - 2.
[99] Pausanias. Description of Greece 10.31.11.
[100] Plato. Euthydemus 277 e.
[101] Plato. Phaedo 69 b-c.
[102] Plato. Phaedrus 250 b - 253 c.
[103] Strabo. Geography 10.3.9-10.
[104] Strabo. Geography. 14.1.44.
[105] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. xxxiv-xxxv.
[106] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.3.2.
[107] Pausanias. Description of Greece 9.30.4 - 5.

Persephone

“This also raises the question of the “theology” of the pairs Kore-Plouton and Thea-Theos. Did the worshippers at eleusis think of them as co-existing, one pair on earth, the other below? So it would seem. The Lakrateides Relief shows both pairs simultaneously. The Lysimachides Relied, Kore and Thea simultaneously: but the artist in each case may have intended a temporal procession form the Underworld in the scene on the right to the upper world on the left. IGI 79 on the other hand, permits no ambiguity: it calls for separate sacrifices to Kore, Thea and Theos. In this case, Kore and Thea were believed to co-exist…It seems that we should conclude from this coexistence that the Return of Kore, in the context of the Mysteries, may not have been perceived as a seasonal event in the agrarian year, as it was at the end of the Homeric Hymn. The Mysteries re-enact, recelebrate the Return that took place in mythic time. But now, in real time, outside the dram in the cult, Kore and Thea, Plouton and Thos, somehow coexist, each pair in their separate realm.[1]

An interesting feature of the cult of the Mysteries is that the God (Theos) and the Goddess (Thea) are really the gods known elsewhere as Hades and Persephone, but in the context of the Mysteries the names of hades and Persephone do not occur. The only divine couples that occur at Eleusis are (1) Plouton and Kore and (2) Theos and Thea.[2]

This Mistress the Arcadians worship more than any other god, declaring that she is a daughter of Poseidon and Demeter. Mistress is her surname among the many, just as they surname Demeter=s daughter by Zeus Athe Maid.@ But whereas the real name of the Maid is Persephone, as Homer and Pamphos before him say in their poems, the real name of the Mistress I am afraid to write to the uninitiated.[3]

In fact, men assert that Pluto is none other than Serapis and that Persephone is Isis, even as Archemachus of Euboea has said, and also Heracleides Ponticus who holds the oracle in Canopus to be an oracle of Pluto.[4]

In Arcadia, the oldest center of her worship, Artemis was closely associated in cult with Demeter and Persephone. Herodotus says that Aeschylus actually called Artemis the daughter of Demeter, thus identifying her with Persephone, the corn-goddess.
This is the story that the Egyptians tell to explain why the island moves: that on this island that did not move before, Leto, one of the eight gods who first came to be, who was living at Buto where this oracle of hers is, taking charge of Apollo from Isis, hid him for safety in this island which is now said to float, when Typhon came hunting through the world, keen to find the son of Osiris. Apollo and Artemis were (they say) children of Dionysus and Isis, and Leto was made their nurse and preserver; in Egyptian, Apollo is Horus, Demeter Isis, Artemis Bubastis. It was from this legend and no other that Aeschylus son of Euphorion took a notion which is in no poet before him: that Artemis was the daughter of Demeter. For this reason the island was made to float. So they say.[5]

Now Zeus wedded Hera...but he had intercourse with many women, both mortals and immortals...by Styx he had Persephone.[6]

...and the goddesses of twofold name, Persephone and the kindly goddess Demeter the queen of all...

Of the Great Goddesses, Demeter is of stone throughout, but the Savior has drapery of wood. The height of each is about fifteen feet. The images. . . and before them he made small maids in tunics reaching to the ankles, each of whom carries on her head a basket full of flowers. They are said to be daughters of Damophon, but those inclining to a more religious interpretation hold that they are Athena and Artemis gathering the flowers with Persephone.[7]

It is also said that on reaching old age a vision came to him in a dream. As he slept Persephone stood by him and declared that she alone of the deities had not been honored by Pindar with a hymn, but that Pindar would compose an ode to her also when he had come to her.
Pindar died at once, before ten days had passed since the dream. But there was in Thebes an old woman related by birth to Pindar who had practiced singing most of his odes. By her side in a dream stood Pindar, and sang a hymn to Persephone. Immediately on waking out of her sleep she wrote down all she had heard him singing in her dream. In this song, among the epithets he applies to Hades is Agolden-reined@ - a clear reference to the rape of Persephone.[8]

Socrates: And APherephatta@! How many people fear this name, and also AApollo!@ I imagine it is because they do not know about correctness of names. You see they change the name to Phersephone and its aspect frightens them. But really the name indicates that the goddess is wise;[9]

At a relatively early date, when substances were designated in poetic diction by the names of the gods under whose protection they stood, ground wheat was called AKore@ and wine ADionysus.@[10]

As a nature myth, Persephone is the seed that splits off from the body of the ripened grain, the mother, when, sinking beneath the earth, she returns in spring as the new shoot. The etymology of her name - Ashe who shines in the dark@ suggests that the seed doesn=t actually die, but continues to live in the underworld, even though it cannot be seen above.[11]

Persephone (from phero and phonos Ashe who brings destruction@) also called Persephatta at Athens (from pteris and ephapto Ashe who fixes destruction@) and Proserpine (Athe fearful one@) at Rome, was, it seems, a title of the Nymph when she sacrificed the sacred king.[12]

Semele was, in fact, another name for Persephone...Core, of course, did not ascend to heaven; she wandered about on earth with Demeter until the time came for her to return to the Underworld. But soon after the award of Olympic status to Dionysus the Assumption of his virgin-mother became dogmatic and, once a goddess, she was differentiated from Core, who continued heroine like to ascend and descend.[13]

The ancients gave the name of Melissae (bees) to the priestess of Demeter who were initiates of the chthonian goddess; the name Melitodes to Kore herself; the moon (Artemis) too, whose province it was to bring to the birth, they called Melissa, because the moon being a bull and its ascension the bull, bees are begotten of bulls. And souls that pass to the earth are bull begotten.[14]

Again, the fact that the Rape of Kore took place in Sicily is, men say, proof most evident that the goddesses made this island their favorite retreat because it was cherished by them before all others. And the Rape of Kore, the myth relates, took place in the meadows in the territory of Enna. The spot is near the city, a place of striking beauty for its violets and every other kind of flower and worthy of the goddess. And the story is told that, because of the sweet odor of the flowers growing there, trained hunting dogs are unable to hold the trail, because their natural sense of smell is balked. And the meadow we have mentioned is level in the center and well watered throughout, but on its periphery it rises high and falls off with precipitous cliffs on every side. And it is conceived of as lying in the very center of the island, which is the reason why certain writers call it the navel in Sicily. Near to it also are sacred groves, surrounded by marshy flats, to the north, and through it, the myth relates, Pluton, coming out with his chariot, effected the rape of Kore. And the violets, we are told, and the rest of the flowers which supply the sweet odor continue to bloom, to one's amazement, throughout the entire year, and so the whole aspect of the place is one of flowers and delight.(Diodorus Siculus V, 3)

Demeter's daughter, her whom none may name,By secret schemings Pluton, men say, stole,And then he dropped into earth's depths, whose lightIs darkness. Longing for the vanished girlHer mother searched and visited all landsIn turn. And Sicily's land by Aetna's cragsWas filled with streams of fire which no man couldApproach, and groaned throughout its length; in griefOver the maiden now the folk, belovedOf Zeus, was perishing without the corn.Hence honor they these goddesses e'en now.
But we should not omit to mention the very great benefaction which Demeter conferred upon mankind; for beside the fact that she was the discoverer of corn, she also taught mankind how to prepare it for food and introduced laws by obedience to which men became accustomed to the practice of justice, this being the reason, we are told, why she has been given the epithet Thesmophoros or Lawgiver. Surely a benefaction greater than these discoveries of hers one could not find; for they embrace both living and living honorably.(Diodorus Siculus V, 5)

Plutos

Greatly prosperous is he whom of mortal men these goddesses love: immediately they send him Plutos.[15]

The woman in the center, presumably Ge, who is emerging from the earth holding a horn of plenty with the infant Ploutos sitting on it, looks like another such touch. This surely cannot depict the birth of Ploutos, for Ge, after all, is not his mother. Ge here seems to assume the role of Kourotrophos. The scene may in part be a very personal allusion by the artist to what took place in the cult drama, with the emphasis of the dramatic quality of the appearance of Ploutos.[16]

Discussing St. Petersburg Vase: “Here no temporal dimensions are articulated but a general reference to the cult is given in the figure of Eumolpos, symbolizing the celebration of the rites: in the appearance of Ploutos at the reunion of Demeter and Kore we have an image of the telos of the cult.[17]

Chremylus: If Plutus recovers his sight and ceases from wandering about unseeing and at random, he will go to seek the just men and never leave them again; he will shun the perverse and ungodly; so, thanks to him, all men will become honest, rich and pious. Can anything better be conceived for the public weal?[18]

To Iasion and Demeter, according to the story the myths relate, was born Ploutos, but the reference is, as a matter of fact, to the wealth of the grain, which was presented to Iasion because of Demeter=s association with him at the time of the wedding of Harmonia. Now the details of the initiatory rite are guarded among the matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the initiates alone; but the fame has traveled wide of how these gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of peril.[19]

“In red figured painting Eleusinian Plutos is always naked and always a boy of varying age, from infancy to early adolescence.) In seven of eight extant red figure scenes he appears with a cornucopia and in at least one he wears a wreath of grain-stalks in his hair. A fragment of a lekanis cover found in Athens, now stored in the roman Agora is especially important. There he stands with Demeter on his right and Kore on his left; between him and Demeter several stalks of grain are rising from the earth; and grain is emerging from the cornucopia which he holds. The grain rising from the ground between Demeter and the boy is the focus of their attention. Although the boy is naked, a himation is draped over his shoulder. The himation makes a perfect parallel to the one in the Great Eleusinian Relief. Indeed all the significant elements of the Eleusinian Relief are contained in this scene: Demeter, Kore, the naked boy between them, and the grain between the boy and Demeter. The close similarity suggests that the boy in the relief is indeed Ploutus, though in the relief he does not have a horn of plenty. The horn, however, as we shall soon see, is not an essential attribute of Eleusinian Ploutos. The crucial element is the display of grain.”[20]

Plutus, we are told, was born in Cretan Tripolus to Demeter and Iasion, and there is a double account of his origin. For some men say that the earth, when it was sowed once by Iasion and given proper cultivation, brought forth such an abundance of fruits that those who saw this bestowed a special name upon the abundance of fruits when they appear and called it plutus (wealth); consequently it has become traditional among later generations to say that men who have acquired more than they actually need have Plutus. But there are some who recount the myth that a son was born to Demeter and Iasion whom they named Plutus, and that he was the first to introduce diligence into the life of man and the acquisition and safeguarding of property, all men up to that time having been neglectful of amassing and guarding diligently any store of property.(V, 77)

Profanation of the Mysteries

Violators
Whenever light descends to form and color, shadows appear. So the sacred must protect itself from profanation here below. The Greeks recognizing exceptional value guarded it carefully. Silence preserved the spiritual that speech might offend. The Eleusinian Mysteries are one of the most widely spread, best kept secrets in history.
And since they knew that in matters pertaining to the gods the city would be most enraged if any man should be shown to be violating the Mysteries (Isocrates The Team of Horses 6)
Isocrates has expressed a common sentiment, also employed by one of Lucian's characters.
If I see some initiate of the Mysteries giving away the secret ritual and going through the dances in public, and I get angry and show him up, are you going to consider me the wrongdoer?(Lucian The Fisherman 33)

Callimachus hints that the ability to hold one's tongue is prerequisite to initiation.
It is a great blessing for you that you have not seen the rites of the dread goddess, or else you would have spewed up their story too.(Aetia 75)

Aristotle touches on the same theme and also mentions the case of Aeschylus who was born at Eleusis and might have lost his life for the information he gave out in one of his lost plays, except that they could not prove that he had ever been initiated. But of what he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say, 'It slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking,' or 'They did not know it was a secret,' as Aeschylus said of the mysteries.(Nicomachaean Ethics III, I, 17)

Alcibiades, whose rowdy behavior is depicted in Plato's Symposium, is the most famous, or infamous, profaner of the mysteries. He actually mocked them through vulgar initiation. Andocides tells how he was brought to trial on the eve of a major military expedition.
The Assembly had met to give audience to Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades, the generals about to leave with the Sicilian expedition - in fact, Lamachus' flag-ship was already lying off-shore - when suddenly Pythonicus rose before the people and cried: 'Countrymen, you are sending forth this mighty host in all its array upon a perilous enterprise. Yet your commander, Alcibiades, has been holding celebrations of the mysteries in a private house, and others with him; I will prove it, Grant immunity to him whom I indicate, and a non-initiate, a slave belonging to someone here present, shall describe the Mysteries to you. You can punish me as you will, if that is not the truth.'(Andocides On the Mysteries 11-12)

Plutarch in his Life of Alcibiades gives the results of the case, adding an interesting anecdote showing the spirituality of one of the priestesses.
"Thessalus, the son of Cimon, of the township of Lacia, lays information that Alcibiades, the son of Clinias of the township of the Scambonidae, has committed a crime against the goddess Demeter and Persephone, by representing in derision the holy mysteries, and showing them to his companions in his own house. Where, being habited in such robes as are used by the chief priest, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Theodorus, of the township of Phegaea, the herald; and saluted the rest of his company as Initiates and Novices, all which was done contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eulmolpidae, and the heralds and priests of the temple at Eleusis."He was condemned as contumacious upon his not appearing, his property confiscated, and it was decreed that all the priests and priestesses should solemnly curse him. But one of them, Theano, the daughter of Menon, of the township of Agraule, is said to have opposed that part of the decree, saying that her holy office obliged her to make prayers, but not execrations.(Plutarch Alcibiades 34)
Demosthenes in his oration Against Neaera uses the case of a hierophant who favored a certain woman, as an example of the strictness of Athenian law.
It is worth your while, men of Athens, to consider this also - that you punished Archias, who had been hierophant, when he was convicted in court of impiety and of offering sacrifice contrary to the rites handed down by our fathers. Among the charges brought against him was, that at the feast of the harvest he sacrificed on the altar in the court at Eleusis a victim brought by the courtesan Sinope, although it was not lawful to offer victims on that day, and the sacrifice was not his to perform, but the priestess'! It is, then, a monstrous thing that a man who was of the race of the Eumolpidae, born of honorable ancestors and a citizen of Athens, should be punished for having transgressed one of your established customs; and the pleadings of his relatives and friends did not save him, nor the public services which he and his ancestors had rendered to the city; no, nor yet his office of hierophant; but you punished him, because he was judged to be guilty.(Demosthenes Against Neaera 116-117)

Isocrates is not correct in condemning foreigners outright as knowledge of Greek was the only requirement for initiation; murderers were prohibited unless purified by the priests.
And at the celebration of the Mysteries, the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes, because of our hatred of the Persians, give solemn warning to the other barbarians also, even as to men guilty of murder, that they are forever banned from the sacred rites.(Panegyricus 157)

Pausanias tells the story of an Eleusinian martyr.
On the road from Athens to Eleusis, which the Athenians called the Sacred Way, there is the tomb of Anthemocritus. He was the victim of a most foul crime perpetuated by the Megarians; for when he came as a herald to forbid them to encroach on the sacred land, they slew him. And the wrath of the two goddesses abides upon them for that deed to this day; for they were the only Greek people whom even the Emperor Hadrian could not make to thrive.(Pausanias I, 36:3)

Livy relates an unfortunate accident of the year 201 BC which led to war.
Now the Athenians had undertaken the war against Philip for no sufficient reason, since they retained nothing of their ancient greatness except their spirit. Two young men from Acarnania, during the celebration of the mysteries at Eleusis, though not initiated, had entered the temple of Ceres, ignorant that they were committing sacrilege, and merely following the crowd. Their words easily betrayed them, since they asked foolish questions, and though it was clear that they had come in openly and by mistake they were put to death as if they had committed some heinous crime. The Acarnanians reported this revolting and unfriendly act to Philip, and prevailed upon him to send them Macedonian aid and permit them to attack Athens.(Livy XXI, xiv, 6-10)

Horace even feared the company of a violator of the sacred mysteries.
There is a sure reward for trusty silence, too. I will forbid the man who has divulged the sacred rites of mystic Ceres, to abide beneath the same roof or to unmoor with me the fragile bark.(Horace Odes III, ii)

Libanius Decl 12.28 and frg. 50.3. Both passages, slightly corrupt, in the context of Alcibiades’ profanation of the Mysteries, refer to torches from the Anaktoron used by Alcibiades and his fellow revelers…This seems to suggest that initiates took home torches from the Mysteries, perhaps as a sacred momento, just as Christians do with palm leaves on Palm Sunday. These torches Alcibiades was thought to have used in his revels.[1]

When all things were fitted for the voyage, many unlucky omens appeared. At that very time the feast of Adonis happened in which the women were used to expose, in all parts of the city, images resembling dead men carried out to their burial, and to represent funeral solemnities by lamentations and mournful songs. The mutation, however, of the images of Mercury, most of which, in one night, had their faces all disfigured, terrified many persons who were wont to despise most things of that nature...But the report gained no credit with the people, nor yet the opinion of those who would not believe that there was anything ominous in the matter, but that it was only an extravagant action, committed, in that sort of sport which runs into license, by wild young men coming from a debauch...During the examination, Androcles, one of the demagogues, produced certain slaves and strangers before them who accused Alcibiades and some of his friends of defacing other images in the same manner, and of having profanely acted the sacred mysteries at a drunken meeting, where one Theodorus represented the herald, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Alcibiades the chief priest, which the rest of the party appeared as candidates for initiation, and received the title of Initiates. These were the matters contained in the articled of information which Thessalus, the son of Cimon, exhibited against Alcibiades, formation which Thessalus, the son of Cimon, for his impious mockery of the goddesses Ceres and Proserpine.[2]

The information against him was conceived in this form:
Thessalus, the son of Cimon, of the township of Lacia, lays information that Alcibides, the son of Clinias of the township of the Scambonidae, has committed a crime against the goddesses Ceres and Proserpine, by representing in derision the holy mysteries, and showing them to companions in his own house. Where, being habited in such robes as are used by the chief pries, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Theodorius, of the township of Phegea, the herald; and saluted the rest of his company as Initiates and Novices, all which was done contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eumolpidae, and the heralds and priests of the temple at Eleusis.[3]

During that time Androcles, the popular leader, produced sundry aliens and slaves who accused Alcibiades and his friends of mutilating other sacred images, and of making a parody of the mysteries of Eleusis in a drunken revel. They said that one Theodorus played the part of the Herald, Pulytion that of the Torch-bearer, and Alcibiades that of the High Priest, and that the rest of his companions were there in the role of initiates and were dubbed Mystae.[4]

His impeachment is on record and runs as follows: AThessalus, son of Cimon, of the deme Laciadae, impeaches Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, of the deme Scambonidae, for committing crime against the goddesses of Eleusis, Demeter and Core, by mimicking the mysteries and showing them forth to his companions in his own house, wearing a robe such as the High Priest wears when he shows forth the sacred secrets to the initiates, and calling himself High Priest, Pulytion Torch-bearer, and Theodorus, of the deme Phegaea, Herald, and hailing the rest of his companions as Mystae and Epoptae, contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eumolpidae, Heralds and Preisets of Eleusis.[5]

Note the difference between Mystae and Epoptae, many are the thysus bearers, but few the mystics.

Accordingly, it seemed to Alcibiades that it would be a fine thing, enhancing his holiness in the eyes of the gods and his good repute in the minds of men, to restore its traditional fashion to the sacred festival by escorting the rite with his infantry along past the enemy by land. He would thus either thwart and humble Agis, if the king kept entirely quiet, or would fight a fight that was sacred and approved by the gods, in behalf of the greatest and holiest interests, in full sight of his native city, and with all his fellow citizens eye-witnesses of his valor.
When he had determined upon this course and made known his design to the Eumolpidae and Heralds, he stationed sentries on the heights, sent out an advance-guard at break of day, and then took the priests, Mystae, and mystagogues, encompassed them with his men-at-arms, and led them over the road to Eleusis in decorous and silent array. So August and devout was the spectacle which, as general he thus displayed, that he was hailed by those who were not unfriendly to him as High Priest, rather, and Mystagogue.[6]

AI therefore informed the Council that I knew the offenders, and showed exactly what had occurred. The idea, I said, had been suggested by Euphiletus at a drinking party; but I opposed it, and succeeded in preventing its execution for the time being. Later, however, I was thrown from a colt of mine in Cynosarges; I broke my collar-bone and fractured my skull, and had to be taken home on a litter.

When Euphiletus saw my condition, he informed the others that I had consented to join them and had promised to mutilate the Hermes next to the shrine of Phorbuas as my share in the escapade.[7]

What is the connection here? Hermes is guide to the Underworld. Plot hatched at a drinking party. Andocides says that by coming forward, AI freed Athens from the panic which was working such havoc.@[8] Todd: Mutilation of the Hermes might have prevented impregnation.

“Diocleides= tale was that he had to fetch the earnings of a slave of his at Laurium. He arose at an early hour, mistaking the time, and started off on his walk by the light of a full moon. As he was passing the gateway of the theater of Dionysus, he noticed a large body of men coming down into the orchestra from the Odeum. In alarm, he withdrew into the shadow and crouched down between the column and the pedestal with the bronze statue of the general upon it He then saw some three hundred men standing about in groups of five and ten, and in some cases, twenty. He recognized the faces of the majority as he could see them in the moonlight....after seeing what he had, he went on to Laurium; and when he learned next day of the mutilation of the Hermae, he knew at once that it was the work of the men he had noticed.@[9]

Diocleides was lying and then AAlcibiades and Amiantus fled from the country in terror; and when you heard the facts yourselves, you handed Dioclides over to the court and put him to death.@[10]

The prosecution have also accused me in connection with the suppliant=s bough. They allege that it was I who placed it in the Eleusinium and that under ancient law the penalty for doing such a thing during the Mysteries is death...It was on our return from Eleusis, after the information had already been lodged against me. The Basileus appeared before the Prytanes to give the usual report on all the had occurred during the performance of the ceremonies there. The Prytanes said that they would bring him before the Council and told him to give Cephisius and myself notice to attend at the Eleusinium, as it was there that the Council was to sit in conformity with a slaw of Solon=s, which lays down that a sitting shall be held in the Eleusinium on the day after the Mysteries. We duly attended.[11]

And since they knew that in matters pertaining to the gods the city would be most enraged if any man should be shown to be violating the Mysteries, and that in other matters if any man should dare to attempt the overthrow of the democracy, they combined both these charges and tried to bring an action of impeachment before the senate. They asserted that my father was holding meetings of his political club with a view to revolution, and that these members of the club, when dining together in the house of Pulytion, had given a performance of the Mysteries.[12]

One of the porticoes contains shrines of gods, and a gymnasium called that of Hermes. In it is the house of Pulytion, at which it is said that a mystic rite was performed by the most notable of Athenians, parodying the Eleusinian Mysteries.[13]

Not only were Socrates and his friends notorious Spartan sympathizers, but even before the great scandal of the profanations, he was suspect of profaning the Mysteries. In the Clouds, he had been shown teaching his students to disdain conventional theology in a parody of a mystery initiation, as they probed the lower world for the bulbous plants that in the Eleusinian myth were associated with Persephone=s abduction to Hades (188ff.) He had, in fact, even been labeled a Melian in that comedy (830), on the model either of Diagoras of Melos or Aristagoras of the same island, both of whom had profaned the Mysteries on some occasion before the great scandal of 415 (scholia to Clouds 830 and Birds 1072.) If one could accuse Socrates of profaning the Mysteries in 422, the date of the Clouds, certainly the proven guild of Alcibiades seven years later would have implicated his unconventional and pro-Spartan teacher as well, and, in fact, the infamy of Diagoras is recalled in the Birds when the chorus of birds cites the reward that had been posted for the capture and death of that earlier profanation of the Lesser Mystery (1072-1073.) It would have been inevitable, in any case, that suspicion would fall upon Socrates since it was apparently well known that he was subject to mystical trances that were so similar to the experience of the Eleusinian vision that Plato adapts the language of the Mystery to describe them. (Plato Symposium 174dff, and 220bff., Phaedrus 250c.)[14]

The most prominent atheist of the fifth century seems to have been Diagoras of Melos, not a philosopher or theoretician but a poet; later it was a philologist=s joke to quote pious hymns to the gods from his oeuvre...Diagoras revealed the Eleusinian mysteries to everyone Aand thus made them ordinary.@ In the light of day the nocturnal ceremonies are nothing.[15]

This sacred marriage had some relation to the so-called Lesser Eleusinian Mystery, a ceremony that was a preliminary to the Greater Mystery that would be performed in the autumn of the year at the neighboring village of Eleusis. Socrates= rite of necromancy, therefore, in this Swamp with a person like Peisander and at this particular date would seem somehow involved in the great scandal of the day, the profanation of the Mysteries.[16] (See The Dramatic Festivals at Athens, revised by J. Gould and D. Lewis. (Oxford, 1968.)

It also includes Poulytion=s house, where some distinguished Athenians are supposed to have carried out a parody of an initiation at Eleusis; in my time the place was consecrated to Dionysos.[17]

Pig

...may not the pig, which was so closely associated with Demeter, be nothing but the goddess herself in animal form? The pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the reason assigned being that the pig injures the corn and is therefore an enemy of the goddess.[18]

A trace of the older conception survived in the legend that when Demeter was looking for the lost Proserpine, the footprints of the latter were obliterated by the footprints of a pig.[19]

Ovid pleads for the bull which serves man well, giving over the useless pig for sacrifice . As far as we know the trend at Eleusis was in this direction.
You attendants, with tucked up robes, take the knives away from the ox; let the ox plough; sacrifice the lazy sow. The ax should never smite the neck that fits the yoke; let him live and often labor in the hard soil.(Fasti IV, 409-416)

Purification

The skin of a victim sacrificed to Zeus was widely used by the Greeks in various purificatory rites. Individuals, who wished to be purified, stood upon it supporting themselves on their left foot only. When a multitude or a locality was to be cleansed, it is more probable that the skin was carried round in procession. Further, the skins of animals sacrificed to Zeus…were kept and used by those who marshaled the procession…by the torch bearers of Eleusis…[20]

The last general trait which I want to stress - the universal fear of pollution (miasma), and its correlate, the universal craving for ritual purification (catharsis.)[21] (Did Persephone need to be purified upon her return from Hades?)

The need for purification, as we have seen, was bound up with dark superstitions about the power of the dead to return and visit with frightful plagues the guilty or neglected living. Katharmoi and telatai are spoken of together by Plato as means of averting their curse, and teletai, as we know from the nature of the Eleusinian and other mysteries, were above all things a means of getting into touch with the spirits of the other world. There were in the first of chthonian powers like Demeter, Pluto, Dionysus and him of Crete. In this way therefore Apollo=s connection with homicides points not to Olympus but to the Chthonian depths, and he stands as a unique bridge between the two worlds.[22]

In connection with Herakles, a second priest, the Dadouchos, also had to appear and slaughter the ram on whose skin the greatest sinners sat during the remaining rites of purification. (A vase scene depicting the lesser mysteries.@)[23]

There follows a purification ceremony for which the Homeric Hymn has Demeter herself set the example. Without speaking a word she sits down on a stool which is covered by a ram fleece, and she veils her head. Thus reliefs show Herakles at his initiation, veiled and sitting on a ram fleece, while either a winnowing fan is held over him or a torch is brought up close to him from beneath. In ancient interpretation this would be purification by air and by fire; for the blindfolded mystes these must be disquieting, threatening experiences. On the reliefs there follows the encounter with Demeter, Kore, and the kiste. This probably points to the festival proper: >As long as you have not reached the Anaktoron, you are not initiated.=[24]

Ram

The image of the Ram was placed among the stars by Nubes (cloud) to preside over the time of year when the grain is sowed because formerly Ino sowed parched grain at that time – which was largely responsible for the flight of Phrixus and Hellej….the Ram (Zeus) represented among the stars such that when the sun is in its sign, all things that grow are renewed; this comes to pass in the spring because of the fact that Liber’s army was renewed by the ram’s flight.
Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy, 2.20 ff (When the king, Athamas, King of Boetia, was about to sacrifice Phrixus, Zeus sent a golden ram to carry the children to safety…this probably reflects an ancient custom of sacrificing a king’s son in time of famine.)

Zeus, desiring to consort with his own mother Deo or Demeter, turned himself into a bull and so compassed his end. Deo in fierce anger took the title Brimo, ‘the wrathful’ and would not be appeased till Zeus came before her in a mood of mock-repentance, pretended to have made a eunuch of himself, and in proof of his words flung the severed parts into her lap. In reality they were those of a fine ram which he had gelded. The issue of his union with Deo was Kore or Pherephatta, with whom he again had intercourse under the form of a monstrous snake. This time the offspring was shaped like a bull. Hence the well-known line: Bull began Snake, Snake begat Bull.[25]

The Thebans and all other Egyptians who worshiped the Theban god Ammon held rams to be sacred and would not sacrifice them. But once a year at the festival of Ammon they killed a ram, skinned it, and clothed the image of the god in the skin. Then they mourned over the ram and buried it in a sacred tomb. The custom was explained by a story that Zeus had once exhibited himself to Hercules clad in the fleece and wearing the head of a ram. (Herodotus ii, 42) Of course the ram in this case was simply the beast god of Thebes, as the wolf was the beast god of Lycopolis, and the goat was the beast god of Mendes. In other words, the ram was Ammon himself.[26]

Here is Phrixos carried away to Kolchoi by the ram: he sacrifices the ram to some god, perhaps the one called Laphystios at Orchomenos, cuts up the thighs in the Greek traditional way, and watches them burn.[27] (In his footnote, Peter Levi says APhrixos rode on a golden ram that Hermes gave his mother. He went to Kolchoi on it to escape from his stepmother, married, and settled down there. This ram=s fleece was Jason=s golden fleece. Laphystios is the Zeus of Mount Laphystion in Boiotia; there are coins connecting Zeus Laphystios with this saga.)

In connection with Herakles, a second priest, the Dadouchos, also had to appear and slaughter the ram on whose skin the greatest sinners sat during the remaining rites of purification. (A vase scene depicting the lesser mysteries.)[28]

As you go on along the straight road to Lechaion, you come to a seated bronze Hermes, with a ram standing beside him, because Hermes is the god who seems to have most interest in flocks and to increase them, as Homer says in the Iliad:
Phorbas of the flocks of Troy whom Hermes loved and gave him wealth
As for the story about Hermes and the ram told during the mystery of the Mother, I know it but will not tell it.[29] (Fraser thought it was an obscene story told by Clement of Alexandria which is not about Hermes, but about Zeus.)

About the sanctuaries of HERMES WITH THE RAM and of the Champion, the story told of the first title is that Hermes turned away a plague for them by carrying a ram around the town wall, and so Kalamis made a statue of Hermes carrying the ram over his shoulders. At Hermes= festival, the most beautifully-shaped young man is chosen to go round the circuit of the wall with a lamb on his shoulders.[30]

There are statues of the gods, Karneian Apollo, the Pure One, and Hermes carrying a ram. The Pure One is a title of Demeter=s daughter, the Maid; water comes up from the spring right beside her statue. As for the story of the Great Goddesses, whose mystery is also celebrated in Karnasion, let me not speak of it: I judge them for their awful holiness to be second only to the Eleusinians. But the dream has not forbidden me to tell everybody that the bronze jar the Argive commander found and the bones of Eurytos so of Melaneus were kept here.[31]

There follows a purification ceremony for which the Homeric Hymn has Demeter herself set the example. Without speaking a word she sits down on a stool which is covered by a ram fleece, and she veils her head. Thus reliefs show Herakles at his initiation, veiled and sitting on a ram fleece, while either a winnowing fan is held over him or a torch is brought up close to him from beneath. In ancient interpretation this would be purification by air and by fire; for the blindfolded mystes these must be disquieting, threatening experiences. On the reliefs there follows the encounter with Demeter, Kore, and the kiste. This probably points to the festival proper: >As long as you have not reached the Anaktoron, you are not initiated.=[32]

Hermes=s visit to Penelope in the form of a ram - the ram devil is as common in the North-western witch cult as the goat - her impregnation by all the suitors and the claim that Pan had coupled with everyone of the Maenads refers to the promiscuous nature of the revels in honor of the Fig-goddess Pitys or Elate.[33]

At Hera's orders the Titans seized Zeus= newly-born son Dionysus, a horned child crowned with serpents and, despite his transformations, tore him into shreds. These they boiled in a cauldron, while a pomegranate-tree sprouted from the soil where his blood had fallen; but, rescued and reconstituted by his grandmother Rhea, he came to life again...Then, on Zeus= instructions, Hermes temporarily transformed Dionysus into a kid or a ram, and presented him to the nymphs Macris, Nysa, Erato, Bromie and Bacche, of heliconian Mount Nysa. They tended Dionysus in a cave, cosseted him, and fed him on honey, for which service Zeus subsequently placed their images among the stars, naming them the Hyades.[34]

Secrets

“A most important Athenian testimony concerning the myth and the cult is offered by the brief synopsis which Isocrates gave in his Panegyricus (28)
‘First of all, that which mankind first needed was provided by our city. For even if the story is mythic, nevertheless, it is fitting for it to be told even now. When Demeter, having wandered about after Kore was abducted, arrived in our country, and was well disposed to our ancestors because of their kindnesses which it is not possible for those who are not initiated to hear, and gave them double gifts, which happen to be the greatest – the fruits of the earth, which are responsible for the fact that we do not live like animals, and the festival, the participants in which have sweeter hopes concerning the end of life and all time, our city was so reverent and generous, that when it possessed such great good things it did not begrudge them to others but let all share in the things which it received.’”…
…What is interesting is that the Hymn does not give us a solid clue that there even existed a secret part of the myth itself. [35]

AIs it not, perhaps, the secret of every true and great mystery that it is simple?[36] - Kerenyi

I wanted to go on with this story and describe the contents of the Athenian sanctuary called the Eleusinion, but I was stopped by something I saw in a dream.[37]

But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say Ait slipped out while they were speaking@ or Athey were not aware that the matter was a secret@ as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries.[38]

My dream forbade the description of the things within the wall of the sanctuary, and the uninitiated are of course not permitted to learn that which they are prevented from seeing. The hero Eleusis, after whom the city is names, some assert to be a son of Hermes and of Daeira, daughter of Ocean; there are poets, however, who have made Ogygus father of Eleusis.[39]

Proceeding on the direct road to Lechaeum we see a bronze image of a seated Hermes. By him stands a ram, for Hermes is the god who is thought most to care for and to increase flocks, as Homer puts in the Iliad:
Son was he of Phorbas, the dearest of the Trojans to Hermes
Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance.
The story told at the Mysteries of the Mother about Hermes and the ram I know but do not relate.[40]

And so the envoys came with a request to Aeacus from each city. By sacrifice and prayer to Zeus, God of all the Greeks, he caused rain to fall upon the earth, and the Aeginetans made these likenesses of those who came to him. Within the enclosure are olive trees that have grown there from of old and there is an altar which is raised but a little from the ground. That this altar is also the tomb of Aeacus is told as a holy secret.[41]

Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from the grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother.

“solemn rites which it is not possible to transgress or to learn about or to utter. For a great reverence for the gods holds back one’s voice.”[42] (Note: what is the cause of the reverence – might it not be to reveal something embarrassing to one or more of the gods?)

But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri, and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, once of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.[43]

There are statues of the gods Apollo Carneius and Hagne, also Hermes carrying a ram. Hagne (the holy one) is a title of Kore the daughter of Demeter. Water rises from a spring close to the statue. I may not reveal the rites of the Great Goddesses, for it is their mysteries which they celebrate in the Canasian grove, and I regard them as second only to the Eleusinian in sanctity. But my dream did not prevent me from making known to all that the brazen urn, discovered by the Argive general, and the bones of Eurytus the son of Melaneus were kept here.[44]

Story of Hermes averting a plague from the city by carrying a ram on his shoulders found in Pausanias IX, 22

ASecret@ must not necessarily be taken to mean Amystery.@ Underneath there may indeed be a true mystery in the sense adopted by Romano Guardini, who defined a genuine mystery as one that is experienced, venerated, lived - in other words, is not kept especially secret - and yet remains forever a mystery. The secret itself may be less important than the fact that it is kept secret.[45]

It may be said at the outset that the obligation of secrecy applied only to the final rite of Beholding (Epopteia), which formed the climax to a procedure lasting a number of days.[46]

We need not waste time in speculating on the nature of the final spectacle in the actual Telesterion at Eleusis. This it was that admitted a man to the highest grade of initiation, that of Epoptes, Beholder. Of these last solemn rites it was not permitted to speak. Of these last solemn rites it was not permitted to speak. AA great awe of the gods holds back the voice@, as the Homeric Hymn puts it[47] and a chorus of Sophocles says that a golden key is laid upon the tongue of mortals by the Eumolpid priests.[48]

The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch. Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon AHorse.@[49]

In Arcadia, the oldest center of her worship, Artemis was closely associated in cult with Demeter and Persephone. Herodotus says that Aeschylus actually called Artemis the daughter of Demeter, thus identifying her with Persephone, the corn-goddess.
This is the story that the Egyptians tell to explain why the island moves: that on this island that did not move before, Leto, one of the eight gods who first came to be, who was living at Buto where this oracle of hers is, taking charge of Apollo form Isis, hid him for safety in this island which is now said to float, when Typhon came hunting through the world, keen to find the son of Osiris. Apollo and Artemis were (they say) children of Dionysus and Isis, and Leto was made their nurse and preserver; in Egyptian, Apollo is Horus, Demeter Isis, Artemis Bubastis. It was from this legend and no other that Aeschylus son of Euphorion took a notion which is in no poet before him: that Artemis was the daughter of Demeter. For this reason the island was made to float. So they say.[50]

Aeschylus was accused, says the Scholiast to Aristotle, or revealing the mysteries in the Toxotides, the Priestess, Sisyphus Petrokylistes, Iphigenia and Oedipus: that is, in five different plays. (The Toxotides, or Archer Maidens, dealt with the sparagmos of the Dionysiac hero Actaeon; of the Priestess nothing more is known; Sisyphus Rolling the Stone is so called to distinguish it from Sisyphus the Runaway, which was a satyr-play about the deceiving of death. We cannot tell whether it was a satyr-play also or a tragedy. The Iphigenia and the Oedipus were tragedies dealing with the well-known sagas.[51]

Diodorus does not name his authority. It was probably a historian from Crete. His proof of the Cretan origin of the Mysteries, cited in Diodorus (V 77 3) is of interest: elsewhere, these are the exact words, - such rites are communicated in secret, but in Crete, in Knossos, it has been the custom since time immemorial to speak of these ceremonies quite openly to all, and, if anyone wished to learn of them, to conceal none of the things which elsewhere were imparted to the initiate under the vow of silence.[52]

On the road stands a small temple called that of Cyamites. I cannot state for certain whether he was the first to sow beans, or whether they gave this name to a hero because they may not attribute to Demeter the discovery of beans. Whoever has been initiated at Eleusis or has read what are called the Orphica knows what I mean.[53]

The statue of Hera is seated on a throne; it is huge, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polycleitus. She is wearing a crown with Graces and Seasons worked upon it, and in one had she carries a pomegranate and in the other a scepter. About the pomegranate I must say nothing, for its story is somewhat of a holy mystery.[54]

To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only. There is a sacred story to explain why the bean in their eyes is an impure kind of pulse.[55]

in the first place, the relaxation draws the mind away from human occupations and turns the real mind towards that which is divine; and secondly, the religious frenzy seems to afford a kind of divine inspiration and to be very like that of the soothsayer; and thirdly, the secrecy with which the sacred rites are concealed induces reverence for the divine, since it imitates the nature of the divine, which is to avoid being perceived by our human senses; and, fourthly, music, which includes dancing as well as rhythm and melody, at the same time, by the delight it affords and by its artistic beauty, brings us in touch with the divine, and for this for the following reason; for although it has been well said that human beings then act most like the gods when they are doing food to others, yet one might better say, when they are happy; and such happiness consists of rejoicing, celebrating festivals, pursuing philosophy and engaging in music; for, if music is perverted when musicians turn their art to sensual delights at symposiums and in orchestric and scenic performances and the like, we would not lay the blame upon music itself, but should rather examine the nature of our system of education, since this is based on music.[56]

On the road between the Tralleians and Nysa is a village of the Nysaens, not far from the city Acharaca, where is the Plutonium, with a costly sacred precinct and a shrine of Pluto and Core, and also the Charonium, a cave that lies above the sacred precinct, by nature wonderful; for they say that those who are diseased and give heed to the cures prescribed by these gods resort thither and live in the village near the cave among experienced priests, who on their behalf sleep in the cave and through dreams prescribe the cures. These are also the men who invoke the healing power of the gods. And they often bring the sick into the cave and leave them there, to remain in quiet, like animals in their lurking-holes, without food for many days. And sometimes the sick give heed also to their own dreams, but still they use those other men, as priests, to initiate them into the mysteries and counsel them. To all others the place is forbidden and deadly.[57]

This sacred marriage had some relation to the so-called Lesser Eleusinian Mystery, a ceremony that was a preliminary to the Greater Mystery that would be performed in the autumn of the year at the neighboring village of Eleusis. Socrates= rite of necromancy, therefore, in this Swamp with a person like Peisander and at this particular date would seem somehow involved in the great scandal of the day, the profanation of the Mysteries.[58] (See The Dramatic Festivals at Athens, revised by J. Gould and D. Lewis. (Oxford, 1968.)

What was carried about - whether in a cista mystica or in a liknon - could not, however, be kept entirely secret. It was not a heart but a phallus. This is evident from the Orphic books themselves. In a text about which we shall have more to say later, the object that the goddess Hipta took from Zeus and carried on her head in a liknon was called the AKradiaios Dionysos.@ Kradiaios can have two meanings, and this is the key to the secret. It can be derived either from Kradia (Aheart=) or from krade (Afig tree@): in the latter case, it means an object made from a fig branch or fig wood. According to one myth, Dionysos himself fashioned a phallus from fig wood for use in a mystic rite connected with his return from the underworld. The soft wood was suitable for the Dionysian utensil, which was referred to by the euphemism Aheart.@ According to the sources the object that was preserved by Pallas Athena was the sacrificed he-goat=s male organ, which was neither boiled nor roasted nor burned, but set aside and hidden. The action was symbolic and it is very likely that in place of the dried members, or along with it, a phallus of fig wood was used the following year in the ceremony serving to Aawaken@ Liknites, the god lying in the liknon.[59]
Sisyphus

And Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, founded Ephyra, which is now called Corinth, and married Merope, daughter of Atlas. They had a son Glaucus, who had by Eurymede a son Bellerophon, who slew the fire breathing Chimera. But Sisyphus is punished in Hades by rolling a stone with his hands and head in the effort to heave it over the top; but push as he will, it rebounds backward. This punishment he endures for the sake of Aegina, daughter of Asopus; for when Zeus had secretly carried her off Sisyphus is said to have betrayed the secret to Asopus, who was looking for her.[60]

(Sisyphus the Runaway is named only in the Medicean Catalogue; Sisyphus the Stone-Roller, is mentioned twice in grammarians; elsewhere the form of citation is simply Sisyphus.
The first named drama was satyric; its them, the escape from Hades of the craft Corinthian king. According to the fabulous story told by Pherecydes (Fragment 78 in Muller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum) Sisyphus made know to Asopus that it was Zeus who had carried off his daughter Aegina; in punishment for which offence the god send Death against the babbler; but Sisyphus bound Death fast, so that men ceased to die, until Ares came to the rescue, released Death, and gave Sisyphus into his power. Before he died, however, Sisyphus directed his wife Merope to omit his funeral rites, so that Hades, being deprived of his customary offerings, was persuaded by the cunning trickster to let him go back to life in order to complain of his wife=s neglect. But, once in the upper world, he refused to return, and had to be fetched back by Hermes. The Satyrs forming the Chorus were probably represent as initiates if the play was a parody of the Dionysiac-Orphic mysteries. (Sisyphus the Stone-Roller is one of the six dramas mentioned by the ancients in connection with the charge of impiety brought against the poet.)
ANay, is it some field-mouse so monstrous large?@ From a description of Sisyphus emerging from the earth.
ANow I come to bid farewell to Zagreus and to his sire, the hospitaler.@ (Sisyphus describes his departure from the lower world. Dionysus, viewed by the Orphics as the child of Zeus and Persephone, received the name Zagreus, the Agreat hunter.@ At times he was thus identified with Hades, at times made the son of the Ahospitaler of the dead.@ (Suppliant Maidens 157.)[61]

Soul

Souls therefore, all possessed of this power, which is innate but dim and hardly manifest, nevertheless oftentimes disclose its flower and radiance in dreams, and some in the hour of death, when the body becomes cleansed of all impurities and attains a temperament adapted to this end, a temperament through which the reasoning and thinking faculty of the soul is relaxed and released from their present state as they range amid the irrational and imaginative realms of the future. It is not true, as Euripides says, that
the best of seers is he that guesses well
no, the best of seers is the intelligent man, following the guidance of that in his soul which possess sense and which, with the help of reasonable probability, leads him on his way. But that which foretells the future, like a tablet without writing, is both irrational and indeterminate in itself, but receptive of impressions and presentiments through what may be done to it, and inconsequentially grasps at the future when it is farthest withdrawn from the present. Its withdrawal is brought about by a temperament and disposition of the body as it is subjected to a change which we call inspiration. Often the body of itself alone attains this disposition. Moreover the earth sends forth for men streams of many other potencies, some of them producing derangements, diseases or deaths; others helpful, benignant and beneficial; as is plan from the experience of persons who have come upon them. But the prophetic current and breath is most divine and holy, whether it issues by itself through the air or come in the company of running waters; for when it is instilled into the body, it creates in souls an unaccustomed and unusual temperament, the peculiarity of which it is hard to describe with exactness, but analogy offers many comparisons. It is likely that by warmth and diffusion it opens up certain passages through which impressions of the future are transmitted, just as wine when its fumes rise to the head, reveals many unusual movements and also words stored away and unperceived
for Bacchic rout and frenzied mind contain much prophecy
according to Euripides, when the soul becomes hot and fiery, and throws aside the caution that human intelligence lays upon it, and thus often diverts and extinguishes the inspiration.[62]

The same persons are roused now to less, now to more, extravagant conduct by the Bacchic revels or stimulated by the wine, as the temperament within them becomes different. But especially does the imaginative faculty of the soul seem to be swayed by the alterations in the body, and to change as the body changes, a fact which is clearly shown in dreams; for at one time we find ourselves beset in our dreams by a multitude of visions of all sorts, and at another time again there comes a complete calmness and rest free from all such fancies...Whenever, then, the imaginative and prophetic faculty is in a state of proper adjustment for attempting itself to the spirit as to a drug; inspiration in those who foretell the future is bound to come; and whenever the conditions are not thus, it is bound not to come, or when it does come to be misleading, abnormal and confusing...[63]

I know that the Chaldaeans and Indian sages were the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and have been followed by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato, the son of Ariston.[64]

Socrates: They were certain priests and priestesses who have studied so as to be able to give a reasoned account of their ministry; and Pindar also and many another poet of heavenly gifts. As to their words, they are these: mark now, if you judge them to be true. They say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time comes to an end, which is called dying, and at another is born again, but never perishes. Consequently one ought to live all one=s life in the utmost holiness.
For from whomsoever Persephone shall accept requital for ancient wrong, the souls of these she restores in the ninth year to the upper sun again; from them arise glorious kings and men of splendid might and surpassing wisdom, and for all remaining time are they called holy heroes amongst mankind.
Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether worlds, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything, so that is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that she knew before about virtue and other things. For as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, there is no reason why we should not, by remembering but one single thing - an act which men call learning - discover everything else, if we have courage and faint not in the search; since, it would seem, research and learning are wholly recollection.[65]

Soul, considered collectively, has the care of all that which is soulless, and it traverses the whole heaven, appearing sometimes in one form and sometimes in another; now when it is perfect and fully winged, it mounts upward and governs the whole world; but the soul which has lost its wings is borne along until it gets hold of something solid, when it settles down; taking upon itself an earthly body, which seems to be self-moving, because of the power of the souls within it; and the whole; compounded of soul and body, is called a living being, and is further designated as mortal.[66]

But pregnancy of soul - for there are persons, she declared, who in their souls still more than in their bodies conceive these things which are proper for soul to conceive and bring forth...[67]

We have seen how the Classical Age inherited a whole series of inconsistent pictures of the Asoul@ or Aself@ - the living corpse in the grave, the shadowy image in Hades, the perishable breath that is spilt in the air or absorbed in the aether, the daemon that is reborn in other bodies.[68]

But we must be careful not to assume that this entity which is to be saved is a spiritual soul. Wherever it has appeared, the notion of the soul grew out of and did not precede the idea of salvation.[69]

In Homeric language, a something, the psyche, leaves man at the moment of death and enters the house of Ais, also known as Aides, Aidoneus and in the Attic as Hades. Psyche means breath just as psychein is the verb to breathe; arrested breathing is the simplest outward sign of death...Yet from the moment it leaves the man it is also termed an eidolon, a phantom image, like the image reflected in a mirror which can be seen, though not always clearly, but cannot be grasped: the dream image and the ghostly image, the forms in which the dead man can still appear, are identified with the breath which has left the body. Thus the psyche of a dead man can on appropriate occasions be seen and at all events can be imagined.[70]

Gimbutas suggests that the double blades of the axe evolved from the neolithic butterfly, and that the double double-axe in particular precisely imitates the double wings of the butterfly. The butterfly is still in many lands the image of the soul, and in Greek the word for butterfly and the soul were the same: psyche. Both the axe and the butterfly, Gimbutas adds, are images of the Goddess.[71]

To say gods and men, the Greek might use the words theoi and anthropoi, but he might equally well use the words athanatoi and thnetoi. Athanatos (immortal) is an adjective, and may therefore be used in conjunction with theos. But it may equally well stand alone, and its meaning then is unambiguous: it means god and nothing else, just as theos does. It follows that to believe the soul to be immortal is to believe it to be divine. If man is immortal, then he is a god. This is universal in Greek.[72]

(From the 11th book of the Iliad:) AHe was marvelously like himself to look at, said Achilles afterward, and as the ghost, with a thin shriek, vanished like smoke beneath the earth, eluding his attempts to embrace it, he exclaimed with an ejaculation of astonishment: ATrue it is, then, that even in the house of Hades there exists a soul and a wraith, but there are no phrenes in it at all!@ Phrenes is a word which is sometimes to be translated Aheart@, as when a man feels grief at his phrenes, and sometimes mind, as when one is said to know something, or to conceive an idea, in the phrenes.[73]

Even for those who through the Eleusinian mysteries, or the Atales of those told in Hades@, hoped for something better after death, it was probably a new and astonishing thing to be told that the psyche was the seat of the moral and intellectual faculties and of far greater importance than the body.[74]

Among existing forms of religion, the best hope of a solution seemed to be offered by the Dionysiac, in which by means of ecstasy and frenzy the puny, individual soul felt itself lifted out of its loneliness so that at the height of its passionate experience it could call itself Bacchos, one with the god by whom it was inspired.[75]

"But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world;they may have seen them for a short time only,or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot,and, having had their hearts turned to injusticethrough some corrupting influence,they may have lost the memoryof the holy things which once they saw.Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them;and they when they see here any image of that other world,are rapt in amazement;but they are ignorant of what this rapture means,because they do not clearly perceive.For there is no light of justice or temperanceor any of the higher ideas which are precious to soulsin the earthly copies of them:they are seen through a glass dimly;and there are few who, going to the images,seen in them the realities, and these only with difficulty.There was a time when with the rest of the happy bandthey saw beauty shining in brightness,---we philosophers following in the train of Zeus,others in company with other gods;and then we saw the beatific visionand were initiated into a mysterywhich may be truly called most blessed,celebrated by us in our state of innocence,before we had any experience of evils to come,when we were admitted to the sight of apparitionsinnocent and simple and calm and happy,which we saw shining in pure light,pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tombwhich we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body,like an oyster in his shell."Socrates in Plato Phaedrus 250"There we must ascend again towards the good,desired of every soul.Anyone who has seen this, knows what I intendwhen I say it is beautiful.Even the desire of it is to be desired as a good.To attain it is for those who will take the upward path,who will set all their forces towards it,who will divest themselves of allthat we have put on in our descent:---so, to those who approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries,there are appointed purificationsand the laying aside of the garments worn before,and the entry in nakedness---until, passing on the upward way,all that is other than the God,each in the solitude of oneselfshall see that solitary-dwelling existence,the apart, the unmingled, the pure,that from which all things depend,for which all look and live and act and know,the source of life and of intellection and of being."Plotinus First Ennead VI, 7

"For we believe that there is nothing more importantfor man to receive,or more ennobling for God of his grace to grant,than the truth." Plutarch Isis and Osiris
In Eckankar, Paul Twitchell informs us that all the ancient mysteries of Dionysus, of Delphi, and of Eleusis taught out-of-the-body travel. (p. 134) He describes the path to God from purgatorial virtues of purification, theoretic or epoptic virtues bestowing clairvoyance and clairaudience, exemplary virtues conferring magical powers, and theurgic virtues which transform one into God. Twitchell calls the Eleusinian Mysteries the supreme font of western occult lore that released the soul from bodily bondage. (Twitchell Eckankar p. 18)He quotes Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Glossary under "Soma Drink" which refers to the initiates' drinking the Kykeon which enables them to easily reach the place of splendor or heaven. (Ibid. p. 18) Twitchell also saw Plato's Phaedo as symbolic of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
They are taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to die today.(Plato Phaedo 60)
Socrates' execution has been delayed due to the holy season proclaimed in honor of the ship sent to Delos to commemorate Theseus's and fourteen youths' victory over Minos and Crete. Socrates is advised not to talk too much so that the hemlock may take effect, and before he drank it he bathed and changed his clothes as the initiates did before the final vision at the celebration. Phaedo himself describes the mood at this historic event.
I had singular feeling at being in his company. For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived there; and therefore I did not pity him as might have seemed natural at such an hour.(Plato Phaedo 58-59)

To lift the veil from death, two truths were to be learned and experienced by the initiates. The first is reincarnation or the continual regeneration of spiritual life symbolized by seeds and plants. The second is even a greater mystery and has to do with initiation into divine life or the soul realm achieved while alive on earth and practiced on the higher planes of consciousness after the new birth. Let us look at Socrates' argument for the first.
There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning here, are born again from the dead. Now if it be true that the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have been born again?...Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier.(Ibid. 70)

Thus we see the perpetual transformations of nature. The soul enters the body at birth and departs at death.
For if the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?(Ibid. 77)

What is the reason for the soul's coming to birth in a body over and over again?
Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the souls to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and haunts, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always infected by the body; and so she sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple.(Ibid. 83)

The ethical laws of the universe are just, though not necessarily completed within a lifetime.
We arrive at the conclusion that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and this, if true, affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead exist in some place out of which they come again.... But I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.(Ibid. 72)

Sleep is analogous to death, because the soul and the subtler bodies often leave the physical body to travel the inner realms of consciousness.

The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up.(Ibid. 71)

The very existence of God or the absolute and the soul which comprehends this absolute by being one with it, implies the previous existence of the soul.
Then may we not say,... there is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things;... which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession - then our souls must have had a prior existence.(Ibid. 76)Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality.(Ibid. 72-73)

Socrates tells how the soul may be forgotten when a person is swayed by the body and its senses.
And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses) - were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change.Very true.But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.(Plato Phaedo 79)

Socrates points out that the body and the senses are visible and changing while the soul is invisible and unchanging.
Then reflect,... - that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and that the body is in the very likeness of the human and mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform and dissoluble, and changeable....But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?(Ibid. 80)Yet all men will agree that God, and the essential form of life, and the immortal in general, will never perish.Yes, all men, he said - that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not mistaken, as well as men.Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if she is immortal, be also imperishable?Most certainly.Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to die, but the immortal retires at the approach of death and is preserved safe and sound?True.Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world!(Ibid. 106-107)

Now Socrates discuses how the true philosopher seeks death, by which he means the purification of the soul from the body to reach the higher life.
And now, 0 my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world.... For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?... For they have not found out either what is the nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves, or how he deserves or desires death....Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death?...Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the body? He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body and to turn to the soul.Quite true.In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the communion of the body.Very true.Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that to him who has sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having; and that he who is indifferent about them is as good as dead.That is also true.(Ibid. 63-64)

Socrates tells how the higher levels of consciousness are attained.
Then when does the soul attain truth? - for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived.True.Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?Yes.And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her - neither sound nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure, - when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?Certainly.(Ibid. 65)

Absolute justice, absolute beauty and absolute good are not perceived by bodily senses but by the intellectual vision of the soul.
And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight or any other sense together with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyesores and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements which when they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge - who, if not he, is likely to attain to the knowledge of true being?(Plato Phaedo 65-66)

Socrates explains how the soul attains the higher knowledge when it is apart from the body which also may be achieved through soul travel.
'It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body - the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; for if while in company with the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things follows - either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. or then, and not till then, the soul will be parted from the body and exist in herself alone. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible intercourse or communion with the body, and are not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep ourselves pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And thus having got rid of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is no other than the light of truth.' For the impure are not permitted to approach the pure.(Ibid. 65-66)
He declares this purification of the soul from the body to be the aim of the true philosopher.
But, 0 my friend, if this be true, there is great reason to hope that, going where I go, when I have come to the end of my journey, I shall attain that which has been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on my way rejoicing, and not I only, but every other man who believes that his mind has been made ready and that he is in a manner purified.Certainly, replied Simmias.And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can; - the release of the soul from the chains of the body?Very true, he said.And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed death?To be sure, he said.And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their special study?That is true.(Ibid. 67)

Thus the initiates who are born anew into divine life in the mystery celebration are called by Socrates "the true philosophers."
The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talking nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For 'many,' as they say in the mysteries, 'are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,' - meaning, as I interpret the words, 'the true philosophers.'(Ibid. 69)
It is for the divine soul to rule and govern and the mortal body to obey and serve. The soul must master the lower forces.
But she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in the contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence deriving nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be freed from human ills.(Plato Phaedo 84)
Socrates describes what happens to the soul when separated from the body at death and how its immortality makes the action in life more important as each gets its just reward or punishment.
But then, 0 my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey there.For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages.(Ibid. 107)

But the philosopher who is good and true has no fear of death.
And is it likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the place of the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go, - that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, will be blown away and destroyed immediately on quitting the body as the many say? That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing and draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily during life had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself; - and making such abstraction her perpetual study - which means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; and therefore has in fact been always engaged in the practice of dying? For is not philosophy the study of death?(Ibid. 80-81)

The reward of the good and pure soul is initiation into divine life.
That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world - to the divine and immortal and rational: there arriving, she is secure of bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods.(Ibid. 81)
Then is the holy life remembered.
But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to injustice through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they when they see here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and these only with difficulty. There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness, - we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and then we saw the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we saw shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell.(Plato Phaedrus 250)

The destiny of all souls is to return to God from where we came. Plotinus inspires us in that direction.
Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent: - so, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before, and the entry in nakedness - until, passing on the upward way, all that is other than the God, each in the solitude of himself shall see that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure, that from which all things depend for Which all look and live and act and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and of Being.(Plotinus First Ennead VI, 7) Copyright 1996 Sanderson Beck

The doctrine of the soul’shome in the heavens is at least as old as Pythagoras, whom his biographer Iamblichus represnts as havingheld that the sun and the moon were actually the Isles of the Blessed (De Vita Pythagorica 18, 2.) For Pliny, the soul, being part of the heavens, wished to return there (HN II, 24.95) Plutarch tells us how the sould of Timarchus escaped the body and ascended through the spheres to the realm of fire. There he learned that some souls who have escaped the cycle of birth, decay and death go to the moon, where the immutable realm begins. (De. Gen. 590-592.22)[76]

Tantalus

Tantalus is punished in Hades by having a stone impending over him, by being perpetually in a lake and seeing at his shoulders on either side trees with fruit growing beside the lake. The water touches his jaws, but when he would take a draught of it, the water dries up; and when he would partake of the fruits, the trees with the fruits are lifted by winds as high as the clouds. Some say that he is thus punished because he blabbed to men the mysteries of the gods, and because he attempted to share ambrosia with his fellows.[77]

Telesterion

Eight tiers of seats on 4 sides divided by openings for 2 entrances each on each of 3 sides. A total of 42 superimposed columns arranged in a 6x7 pattern supported the opaioned roof. Directly below the opaion was a rectangular chamber.
Serving as the initiation Hall and Temple for the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Telesterion was located on the same spot through many building enlargements. The interior chamber housed the hiera (sacred objects) and was known as the Anaktoron (Palace). In all renovations after the Archaic period this area remained unaltered.

The appearance of the sanctuary at Eleusis went through many changes at different periods in its history. In the sixth century the sanctuary was distinguished from the city of Eleusis. The exterior appearance with its solid unbroken wall of gray-blue stone must have had an impressive effect on the Hellenes who would usually only see such a color in sky or water. There was evidence also of statues having been painted. There were many statues and friezes of the goddesses and others, decorated with different art motifs such as a flower of eight petals or grain. Near the Lesser Propylaia was the sacred precinct of Plouton, the cave where, by legend, Persephone was carried off into the underworld.Warned in a dream not to divulge what was inside the sanctuary wall, Pausanias finds this demand reasonable and in keeping with the silence of these Mysteries.
The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, and another of Artemis of the Portal and of Father Poseidon, and a well called Callichorum, where the Eleusinian women first danced and sang in honor of the goddess. They say that the Rarian plain was the first to be sown and the first to bear crops, and therefore it is their custom to take the sacrificial barley and to make the cakes for the sacrifices out of its produce. Here is shown what is called the threshing floor of Triptolemus and the altar. But my dream forbade me to describe what is within the wall of the sanctuary; and surely it is clear that the uninitiated may not lawfully hear of that from the sight of which they are debarred. The hero Eleusis, after whom they name the city, is said by some to be a son of Hermes and of Daira, daughter of Ocean; but others have made him the son of Ogygus.(Pausanias I, 40:5)

Inside the main entrance of the Lesser Propylaia, serving as pillars are huge (twice life-size) statues of goddesses, one on each side, standing on eight-foot pedestals, and bearing the sacred baskets (kistai) which in turn hold up the ceiling. These baskets are beautifully designed with the three sheaves of grain and the mandala flowers predominant. Between their breasts which show through their typically Grecian dress is a ghost-like head of a child. This head with baby-face cheeks and decoratively curled hair is at the focal point of the crossing straps of the gown. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 77) Here is concrete evidence of the child or new birth in the Mysteries.The final initiations took place in the Telesterion centering around the Anaktoron. In the time of Solon this was still just a rectangular room about seventy feet in length with an entrance at one end and the closed off Anaktoron at the other. The Anaktoron is referred to by Homer and here by Pausanias as the megaron.
Here, too, is what is called the hall (megaron) of Demeter: they say it was made by King Car.(Pausanias I, 40:15)

In the time of Peisistratos the telesterion was more than doubled in size giving a more square-like shape. There was an outer porch with many pillars on the perimeter and inside stairs on the perimeter of the other three sides for standing, except for the west corner where the Anaktoron was located.The Anaktoron was about fifteen feet by forty-five feet with a small entrance way for the Hierophant on the long side in its eastern corner. There was an elaborate throne for the hierophant next to this door. This holy of holies was to remain the same till the end though the telesterion was to change and grow around it. The most significant new feature of the Peisistratean telesterion was the forest of twenty-two pillars squarely spaced in the building. The Persians destroyed this sanctuary around 480 BC. It was rebuilt in the time of Kimon lengthening the building into a long rectangle so that the Anaktoron was in the middle of the long southwest side . The enlarged plan of Iktinos under the rulership of Pericles spaced out the pillars more and left the Anaktoron in the center of a large square-shaped building with entrances on three sides and stairs all the way around except across the doorways. A similar structure lasted into Roman times. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 86-87) Plutarch gives credit to the rebuilders in his Life of Pericles.

The chapel at Eleusis, where the mysteries were celebrated, was begun by Coroebus, who erected the pillars that stand upon the floor or pavement, and joined them to the architraves; and after his death Metagenes of Xypete added the frieze and the upper line of columns;(Pericles 13)

Thesmophoria

"It is called Thesmophoria, because Demeter is called Thesmophoros in respect of her establishing laws or thesmoi in accordance with which men must provide nourishment and work the land."From Notes on the Scholiast to Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans
Since the fall harvest must usually take an agricultural society through winter, it is vitally important for survival. Whatever power provides that bounty deserves praise. Basically, that's why we celebrate Thanksgiving. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls in October; in the U.S., in November. A similar festival was held in Ancient Greece, in honor of the goddess who taught mankind to tend the soil, during a month known as Pyanopsion (Puanepsion), according to the lunar calendar of the Athenians. Since our calendar is solar, the month doesn't exactly match but Pyanopsion would be, more or less, October into November.
On the 11-13 of Pyanopsion, Greek matrons took a break from their usual homebound lives. They participated in the autumn sowing (Sporetos) festival known as Thesmophoria. Although the practices are a mystery, the matrons appear to have symbolically relived the anguish of Demeter when her daughter Kore/Persephone was abducted by Hades and to have asked for her help in obtaining a bountiful harvest. Demeter (the Greek Ceres) was the goddess of grain who refused to eat or feed the world until the other gods arranged a satisfactory resolution to her conflict with Hades over Persephone. After her reunion with her daughter, Demeter gave the gift of agriculture to mankind.
Before the festival itself, there was a preparatory nighttime festival, the Stenia, in which women engaged in Aiskhrologia, insulting each other and using foul language, to commemorate Iambe's successful attempts to make the grieving mother laugh.
A long time she sat upon the stool without speaking because of her sorrow, and greeted no one by word or by sign, but rested, never smiling, and tasting neither food nor drink, because she pined with longing for her deep-bosomed daughter, until careful Iambe -- who pleased her moods in aftertime also -- moved the holy lady with many a quip and jest to smile and laugh and cheer her heart. Homeric Hymn to Demeter
At this time the women may also have placed the fertility objects, molded bread, pine cones and piglets, in the snake-filled chamber called a megaron. After the uneaten pig remains had begun to rot, the women retrieved them and the other objects during the Thesmophoria proper. Two days may not have been enough time for decomposition, so some people think the fertility objects were thrown down during the Skira, a midsummer fertility festival. However, four months may have been too long for there to have been any remains.
The first day of the Thesmophoria itself was Anodos, the ascent. With all the supplies they would need for two nights and three days, the women ascended the hill, set up camp on the Thesmophorion (the hillside sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros). They then slept on the ground probably in two-person (Aristophanes* refers to sleeping partners) leafy huts.
The second day of the Thesmophoria was the Nesteia (Fast) when women fasted and mocked each other, again using the foul language that may have been a deliberate imitation of Iambe and Demeter. They may also have whipped each other with bark scourges.
The third day of the Thesmophoria was the Kalligeneia (Fair Offspring). Commemorating Demeter's torchlight search for her daughter Persephone, there was a night-time torch light ceremony. The Antletriai (Bailers), ritually purified, descended to the megaron to remove the decayed matter thrown down earlier: pigs, pine cones, and dough formed in the shape of men's genitals. They clapped to scare the snakes away and brought back the material to place on the altars for later use as especially potent fertilizer in the sowing of seed.

*For a humorous picture of the religious festival, read Aristophanes' comedy about a man who tries to infiltrate the women-only festival, Thesmophoriazusae.

On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips. So too, with regard to the mysteries of Demeter, which the Greek term "the Thesmophoria," I know them, but I shall not mention them, except so far as may be done without impiety. The daughters of Danaus brought these rites from Egypt, and taught them to the Pelasgic women of the Peloponnese. Afterward, when the inhabitants of the peninsula were driven from their homes by the Dorians, the rites perished. Only in Arcadia, where the natives remained and were not compelled to migrate, their observance continued.(The History II, 171)

The Mysteries are probably not one of the oldest Demeter festival. The main argument for the origin of the Mysteries in the Bronze Age is based on remains of a Mycenaean building that lies under the Telesterion. However, even if these remains served a cult, there is no guarantee that the earlier cult was the same. In fact, a recent study of the evidence concluded that these remains most likely did not belong to a proto-Telesterion. At most, some of the remains may attest that a cult existed on the site in the Bronze Age, perhaps a cult of Demeter, but they offer no compelling evidence for a festival such as the Mysteria.
…Martin Nillsson called the Thesmophoria “by far the most widespread of all Greek festivals.” It was also celebrated at Eleusis. Its early universality and its nature suggest an institution of considerable antiquity. The Eleusinian Mysteries, on the other hand, are unique in the Greek world, especially down through the Classical period. Their uniqueness, in contrast to widespread Demeter festivals like the thesmophoria, urges us to consider seriously the questions whether they are a more recent innovation.”[78]

The Thesmophoria was an autumn festival, celebrated by women alone in October, and appears to have represented with mourning rites the descent of Proserpine (or Demeter) into the lower world, and with joy her return from the dead. Hence the name Descent or Ascent variously applied to the first, and the name Kalligeneia (fair-born) applied to the third day of the festival...The Scholiast tells us that it was customary at the Thesmophoria to throw pigs, cakes of dough, and branches of pine-trees into Athe chasms of Demeter and Proserpine@ which appear to have been sacred caverns or vaults. In these caverns or vaults there were said to be serpents, which guarded the caverns and consumed most of the flesh of the pigs and dough-cakes which were thrown in. Afterwards - apparently at the next annual festival - the decayed remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the pine-branches were fetched by women called Adrawers@ who, after observing rules of ceremonial purity for there days, descended into the caverns, and frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was believed to be sure of a good crop.
To explain this rude and ancient rite the following legend was told. At the moment that Pluto carried off Proserpine, a swineherd called Eubuleus was herding his swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm down which Pluto vanished with Proserpine. Accordingly, at the Thesmophoria, pigs were annually thrown into caverns in order to commemorate the disappearance of the swine of Eubuleus. If follows from this that the casting of the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the dramatic representation of Proserpine=s descent into the lower world;; and as no image of Proserpine appears to have been thrown in, it follows that the descent of the pigs must have been, not an accompaniment of her descent, but the descent itself; in short, the pigs were Proserpine.[79]

The Stemia on the 7th of Pyanepsion, the month after Boedromion, was the last festival before the Thesmophoria when the women ate the pomegranate seeds and probably was concerned with the mother's visit to her daughter in the underworld. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 149-150) The sexual symbolism of the pomegranate finds elaboration in Athenaeus' discussion of mylloi..
Heracleides of Syracuse in his work On Institutions says that in Syracuse, on the Day of Consummation at the Thesmophoria, cakes of sesame and honey were molded in the shape of the female pudenda, and called throughout the whole of Sicily mylloi and carried about in honor of the goddesses.(The Deipnosophists XIV, 646f)
Nilsson recounts how in a fertility ritual connected to the Thesmophoria during threshing pigs were thrown into subterranean hollows, and the putrefied remains were brought back up at the autumn Thesmophoria festival of sowing, laid on altars, and mixed with seed corn as a fertility charm. The swine was the animal sacred to Demeter, and pigs were sacrificed prior to initiation. Figures of swine are found at Eleusis. (Greek Folk Religion p. 49) Pausanias also relates this ritual to Demeter and Persephone.
When you have crossed the Asopus and are just ten furlongs from the city you come to the ruins of Potniae. Amongst them is a grove of Demeter and the Maid, The images at the river which flows past Potniae ... they name the goddesses. At a stated time they perform certain customary ceremonies: in particular they throw sucking pigs into what they call the hallsy and they say that at the same time next year those pigs appear at Dodona.(Pausanias IX, 8:1)

Throne

However, the discovery and restoration of the Hierophant=s throne, which was of the utmost importance for the reconstruction of the most secret ceremony was the work of Travlos and was not sufficiently taken into account by Mylonas.[80]

They are acting just like the celebrants of the Corybantic rites, when they perform the enthronement of the person whom they are about to initiate. There, as you know, if you have been through it, they have dancing and merrymaking; [81]

Also of Cretan origin was the act in Onomakritos= dramatic composition that preceded the slaying and dismembering of the scarcely born Divine Child. In this act, according to the Orphic conception, Dionysos appeared whole for the last time as the ruler of our age of the world.
At the heart of this act is a scene corresponding to a rite of initiation known to us in other contexts: the thronosis or thronismos, the enthronement. In late antiquity Crete was still said to be threskeuousa thronosin, practicing the rite of enthronement as a cult. Homer characterizes Minos, in his function of judge of the dead, as seated and holding his scepter in his hand while the others most uncharacteristically sit or stand. The throne itself is not of particular importance to the Greek poet, but in the centuries that had passed since the Minoan culture no one had forgotten the motif of the king sitting on his throne. The prominent part in the throne room where the ceremonial sitting occurred is known to us from the palaces of Knossos and Pylos. The worship of gods in the cult of thronosis mean more than the offering of a chair or throne, which often occurred in Greek temples as a sign of hospitality to the god. The thronosis was a special festive act in which the god or his representative was paled on a chair standing by itself. If one looks closely at the painting on a calyx krater of the Classical period, one sees that precisely this is being done with a frail human figure in the role of Dionysos. The thronosis is explicitly said to be the first act of what happened to the myoumenoi, the participants in an initiation.[82] Todd: how would this relate to Aboy of the hearth.@?
Triptolemos

The attributes of Triptolemos: A vehicle is his most important attribute in Attic art. It is like a wagon, but it frequently looks merely like a seat with wheels; it is often winged, often accompanied by snakes, but in a couple of instances Triptolemos sits simply in a winged chair.”[83] (Note: why would Triptolemos appear before the judges of the dead, to plead Persephone’s case?)

“In five Apulian red-figure scenes Triptolemos has his familiar snake-wagon (in one case winged.) Four other Apulian scenes show the Judges of the Dean in the Underworld. Triptolemos appears at least once and quite possibly in all four.”[84]

It is said, then, that when Demeter came to Argos she was received by Pelasgus into his home, and the Chrysanthis, knowing about the rape of the Maid, related the story to her. Afterwards Trochilus, the priest of the Mysteries, fled, they say, from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica and married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubuleus and Triptolemos. That is the account given by the Argives. But the Athenians and those who with them . . . know that Triptolemos, son of Celeus, was the first to sow seed for cultivation.[85]

Historians of the earliest period of Patrai say Eumelos, an aboriginal son of the soil, was the first to settle in this country, where he was king of a few people. But Triptolemos came here from Attica and Eumelos obtained cultivated crops from him and learnt how to build; he called his city Ploughland after the cultivation of the earth. But when Triptolemos went to sleep, they say Eumelos= son Antheas yoked up Triptolemos= flying serpents to the chariot and tried to sow on his own; he fell out and was killed, and Triptolemos and Eumelos built the city of Antheia together, named after Eumelos= son.[86]

A consciousness of the intimate connection of the pig with the corn lurks in the tradition that the swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemos, to whom Demeter first imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the story, Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemos, the gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the fate of Proserpine. (Pausanias, I, 14, 3.)[87]

What I say is supported by the testimony of Sophocles, the tragic poet, in his drama entitled Triptolemus ; for he there represents Demeter as informing Triptolemus how large a tract of land he would have to travel over while sowing it with the seeds he had given him.(Roman Antiquities I, 12)
Ovid says this:
Here she gave her fleet car to Triptolemus, and bade him scatter the seed of grain she gave, part in the untilled earth and part in fields that had long lain fallow.... "My country is far-famed Athens; Triptolemus, my name. I came neither by ship over the sea, nor on foot by land; the air opened a path for me. I bring the gifts of Ceres, which, if you sprinkle them over your wide field, will give a fruitful harvest and food not wild."(Metamorphoses V, 645-647, 652-656)
Xenophon argues for peace between Athens and those to whom Triptolemus first granted Demeter's two main gifts: the mystic rites and the grain.
The right course, indeed, would have been for us not to take up arms against one another in the beginning, since the tradition is that the first strangers to whom Triptolemus, our ancestor, revealed the mystic rites of Demeter and Kore were Heracles, your state's founder, and the Dioscuri, your citizens; and further, that it was upon Peloponnesus that he first bestowed the seed of Demeter's fruit.(Hellenica VI, 3)
Pausanias is warned in a dream from describing the sanctuary at Athens, though he does describe what pertains to Triptolemus, which could indicate that his role was not part of the secret doctrine. He also mentions Epimenides, a Cretan mystic of the sixth century BC.
Above the fountain are temples: one of them is a temple of Demeter and the Maid (Kore), in the other there is an image of Triptolemus. I will tell the story of Triptolemus, omitting what relates to Deiope, Of all the Greeks it is the Argives who must dispute the claim of the Athenians to antiquity and to the possession of gifts of the gods, just as among the barbarians it is the Egyptians who dispute the claims of the Phrygians. The story runs that when Demeter came to Argos, Pelasgus received her in his house, and that Chrysanthis, knowing the rape of the Maid told it to her. They say that afterwards Trochilus, a priest of the mysteries, fled from Argos on account of the enmity of Agenor, and came to Attica, where he married an Eleusinian wife, and there were born to him two sons, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. This is the Argive story. But the Athenians and those who take their side know that Triptolemus the son of Celeus was the first who sowed cultivated grain. However, some verses of Musaeus (if his they are) declare Triptolemus to be a child of Ocean and Earth; while other verses, which are attributed, in my opinion, with just as little reason, to Orpheus, assert that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons of Dysaules, and that, as a reward for the information they gave her about her daughter, Demeter allowed them to sow the grain. Choerilus the Athenian, in a drama called Alope says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was a daughter of Amphictyon, but that the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, and that the father of Cercyon was Poseidon. I purposed to pursue the subject, and describe all the objects that admit of description in the sanctuary at Athens called the Eleusinium, but I was prevented from so doing by a vision in a dream. I will therefore turn to what may be lawfully told to everybody, In front of this temple, in which is the image of Triptolemus, stands a bronze ox as in the act of being led to sacrifice; and Epimenides the Cnosian is portrayed sitting, of whom they say that going into the country he entered a cave and slept, and did not awake until forty years had come and gone, and afterwards he made verses and purified cities, Athens among the rest.(Pausanias I, 14:1-3)


[1] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 132.

[2] Plutarch. Lives, AAlcibiades.@ The Dryden translation. New York: Modern Library, p. 243.
[3] Plutarch. Lives, AAlcibiades.@ The Dryden translation. New York: Modern Library, p. 248.
[4] Plutarch. Alcibiades 19.1.
[5] Plutarch. Alcibiades 22.3.
[6] Plutarch. Alcibiades 34. 4-5.
[7] Andocides. On the Mysteries 1.60 - 1.62.
[8] Andocides. On the Mysteries 1.59.
[9] Andocides. On the Mysteries 1.38 - 1.39.
[10] Andocides. On the Mysteries 1.66.
[11] Andocides. On the Mysteries 1.110.
[12] Isocrates. On the Team of Horses 16.6
[13] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.2.5.
[14] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 159-160.
[15] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 316.
[16] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 156-157.
[17] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.2.5.
[18] James Frazer. The Golden Bough. Volume II, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint, p. 44.
[19] James Frazer. The Golden Bough. Volume II, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint, p. 47.
[20] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 422-3.

[21] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 35.
[22] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 203.
[23] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 56.
[24] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 286.
[25] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 393-4.
[26] James Frazer. The Golden Bough. Volume II, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint, p. 92.
[27] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.24.2.
[28] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 56.
[29] Pausanias. Guide to Greece 2.3.4.
[30] Pausanias. Guide to Greece 9.22.1.
[31] Pausanias. Guide to Greece 4.33.4 - 5.
[32] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 286.
[33] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 103.
[34] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, pp. 103-104.
[35] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 14.

[36] Carl G. Jung and Carl Kerenyi. Essays on a Science of Mythology, New York: 1949, p. 256.
[37] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.14.3.
[38] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics 1111a.
[39] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.38.7.
[40] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.3.4.
[41] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.29.8.
[42] Homeric Hymn to Demeter (478-479)

[43] Pausanias. Description of Greece 9.25.5 - 6.
[44] Pausanias. Description of Greece 4.33.4 - 5.
[45] Carl Kerenyi. The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 37.
[46] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 287.
[47] Hymn to Demeter, 479.
[48] Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus, 1052.
[49] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.25.7.
[50] Herodotus. The Histories, ii, 156.1 - 156.6.
[51] Gilbert Murray. Aeschylus, the Creator of Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, p. 152.
[52] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 24.
[53] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.37.4.
[54] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.17.4.
[55] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.15.3.
[56] Strabo. Geography 10.3.9-10.
[57] Strabo. Geography. 14.1.44.
[58] R. Gordon Wasson et al. Persephone=s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pps. 156-157.
[59] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 260.
[60] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.9.3.
[61] Aeschylus. Fragment from Sisyphus the Runaway, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, pp. 457 - 459.
[62] Plutarch. On the Obsolescence of Oracles, 432, 40.
[63] Plutarch. On the Obsolescence of Oracles, 437-438.
[64] Pausanias. Description of Greece 4.32.4.
[65] Plato. Meno 81 b-c.
[66] Plato. Phaedrus 246 b - d.
[67] Plato. Symposium 209 a ff.
[68] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 179.
[69] Paul Masson-Oursel. The Indian Theories of Redemption in the Frame of the Religions of Salvation. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 4.
[70] Walter Burkert. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985, p. 195.
[71] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 114.
[72] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 115.
[73] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 278.
[74] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, p. 346.
[75] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, p. 317.
[76] J.B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1969.
[77] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library E.2.1.
[78] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 29.

[79] James Frazer. The Golden Bough. Volume II, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint, pps. 44-46.
[80] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. xxxiv.
[81] Plato. Euthydemus 277 e.
[82] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pps. 263-264.
[83] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p. 41.

[84] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 45.

[85] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.14.3.
[86] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. VII. 18.2.
[87] James Frazer. The Golden Bough. Volume II, New York: Crown Publishers, 1981 reprint, p. 47.
[1] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 112

[2] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992 , p. 51.

[3] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.37.9.
[4] Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 361, 27.
[5] Herodotus. The Histories, ii, 156.1 - 156.6.
[6] Pseudo-Apollodorus. Library 1.3.1.
[7] Pausanias. Description of Greece 8.31.2.
[8] Pausanias. Description of Greece 9.23.4.
[9] Plato. Cratylus. 404 c.
[10] Walter F. Otto. The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 2, Joseph Campbell, ed. Bollingen Series XXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, p. 17.
[11] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 369.
[12] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 93.
[13] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume One. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 110-111.
[14] Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993 p. 118.
[15] Homeric Hymn to Demeter, lines 486-489.

[16] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 92.

[17] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 82.

[18] Aristophanes. Plutus 494 - 496.
[19] Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, Book V, 49: 4-5.
[20] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 50.

Underworld

At Eleusis flows the Cephisus, a more impetuous stream than the Cephisus mentioned before. Beside it is a place which they call Erineus. They say that Pluto, when he carried off the Maid, descended here.(Pausanias Description of Greece I, 38:5)Having returned to the direct road, you will cross the Erasinus and come to the Chimarrhus river. Near it is an enclosure of stones: they say that when Pluto, as the story goes, ravished Demeter's daughter, the Maid, he here descended to his supposed subterranean realm. Lerna is, as I said before, beside the sea, and they celebrate mysteries here in honor of Lernaean Demeter.(Pausanias II, 36:7)

The attributes of Triptolemos: A vehicle is his most important attribute in Attic art. It is like a wagon, but it frequently looks merely like a seat with wheels; it is often winged, often accompanied by snakes, but in a couple of instances Triptolemos sits simply in a winged chair.”[1] (Note: why would Triptolemos appear before the judges of the dead, to plead Persephone’s case?)

A scholion to Aristophanes’ Knights mentions the ( x Petra) just after describing the (Eleusinian Petra) which seems to be a cliff (or a large rock jutting out of the sea) on Salamis. The scholion describes it as follows: “There is also the so-called (x Petra) among the Athenians, where they say Theseus sat as he was about to descend to Hades: from which the Rock got its name, or because Demeter sat there weeping when she was searching for Kore.”[2]

One of the cave’s important physical features tends to confirm what the inscriptions and reliefs found there have suggested, that the cave was believed to be an entrance to the Underworld. The French excavated a narrow inner cave about 5 meters deep, which proved very difficult to penetrate. At the far end they found sacrificial remains of oxen and sheep along with traces of carbon. This inner cave, which is little known, obviously had religious significance, and it is hard to imagine what else this significance might be than that of an opening to the Underworld.[3]

The first region of Tartarus contains the cheerless Asphodel Fields, where souls of heroes stay without purpose among the throngs of less distinguished dead that twitter like bats, and where only Orion still has the heart to hunt the ghostly deer. None of them but would rather live in bondage to a landless peasant than rule over all Tartarus. Their one delight is in libations of blood poured to them by the living: when they drink they feel themselves almost men again; Beyond these meadows lie Erebus and the palace of Hades and Persephone. To the left of the palace, as one approaches it, a white cypress shades the pool of Lethe, where the common ghosts flock down to drink Initiated souls avoid this water, choosing to drink instead from a pool of Memory, shaded by a white poplar which gives them a certain advantage over their fellows. Close by, newly arrived ghosts are daily judged by Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aeacus at a place where three roads meet. Rhadamanthys tries Asiatics and Aecus tries Europeans; but both refer the difficult cases to Minos. As each verdict is given the ghosts are directed along one of the three roads; that leading back the to Asphodel Meadows, if they are neither virtuous nor evil; that leading to the punishment field of Tartarus, if they are evil; that leaving to the orchards of Elysium, if they are virtuous.
Elysium, ruled over by Cronus, lies near Hade=s dominions, its entrance close to the pool of Memory, but forms no part of them; it is a happy land of perpetual day, without cold or snow, where games, music and revels never cease, and where the inhabitants may elect to be reborn on earth whenever they please. Near by are the Fortunate Islands, reserved for those who have been three times born, and three times attained Elysium. Bust some say that there is another Fortunate Isle called Leuce in the Black Sea, opposite the mouths of the Danube, wooded and full of beasts, wild and tame, where the ghosts of Helen and Achilles hold high revelry and declaim Homer=s verse to heroes who have taken part in the events celebrated by him.[4]

Elysium seems to mean Aapple land@ alisier is a pre-Gallic word for sorb-apple.[5]

Styx (hated), a small stream in Arcadia, the waters of which were supposed to be deadly poison, was located in Tartarus only by late mythographers. Acheron (stream of woe) and Cocytus (wailing) are fanciful names to describe the misery of death. Aornis (birdless) is a Greek mistranslation of the Italic Avernus. Lethe means forgetfulness; and Erebus covered. Phlegethon (burning) refers to the custom of cremation but also, perhaps, to the theory that sinners were burned in streams of lava. Tartarus seems to be a reduplication of the pre-Hellenic word tar which occurs in the names of places lying to the West; its sense of infernality comes later.[6]

Socrates: Liefer were I in the fields up above to be serf to another iller of some poor plot which yields him a scanty subsistence, than to be ruler and king over all the dead who have perished.[7]

Admetus: O noble son of mighty Zeus, may good fortune attend you, and may the father who begot you preserve your life! For you alone have raised up my fortunes. How did you bring her up form below to the light of day?
Herakles: I fought the divinity who controlled her.
Admetus: Where, say you, did you join this battle with Death?
Herakles: Lying in wait hard by the tomb, I seized him with my arms.
Admetus: But why on earth does she stand silent?
Herakles: You are not allowed to hear her speak to you, not until she becomes purified in the sight of the nether gods when the third day comes. But take her in. Continue, Admetus, to show your guests the piety of a righteous man. And now farewell.[8]

His (Gelon's) descendants in time became and continue to be priests of the goddesses of the underworld; this office had been won, as I will show, by Telines, one of their forefathers. There were certain Geloans who had been worsted in party strife and had been banished to the town of Mactorium, inland of Gela.
These men Telines brought to Gela with no force of men but only the holy instruments of the goddesses worship to aid him. From where he got these, and whether or not they were his own invention, I cannot say, however that may be, it was in reliance upon them that he restored the exiles, on the condition that his descendants should be ministering priests of the goddesses.[9]

(Circe speaks) Odysseus of many devices...you must first complete another journey, and come to the house of Hades and dread Persephone, to seek soothsaying of the spirit of Theban Teiresias, the blind seer, whose mind abides steadfast. To him even in death Persephone has granted reason, that he alone should have understanding; but the others flit about as shadows.[10]

ASo I spoke, and the beautiful goddess straightaway made answer: ASon of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, let there be in thy mind no concern for a pilot to guide they ship, but set up thy mast, and spread the white sail, and sit thee down; and the breath of the North Wind well bear her onward. But when in thy ship thou has now crossed the stream of Oceanus, where is a level shore and the groves of Persephone - tall poplars, and willows that shed their fruit -- there do thou beach they ship by the deep eddying Oceanus, but go thyself to the dank house of Hades. There into Acheron flow Periphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of the Styx; and there is a rock, and the meeting place of the two roaring rivers. Thither, prince, do thou draw nigh, as I bid thee, and dig a pit of a cubit=s length this way and that, and around it pour a libation to all the dead, first with mild and honey, thereafter with sweet wine, and in the third place with water, and sprinkle thereon white barley meal. And do thou earnestly entreat the powerless heads of the dead, vowing that when thou comest to Ithaca thou will sacrifice in thy halls a barren heifer, the best thou hast, and wilt fill the altar with rich gifts; and that to Teiresias alone thou wilt sacrifice separately a ram, wholly black, the goodliest of they flock. But when with prayers thou hast made supplication to the glorious tribes of the dead, then sacrifice a ram and a black ewe, turning their heads toward Erebus but thyself turning backward, and setting they face towards the streams of the river. Then many ghosts of men that are dead will come forth. But do thou thereafter call to thy comrades. And bid them flay and burn the sheep that lie there, slain by the pitiless bronze, and make prayer to the gods, to mighty Hades and to dread Persephone. And do thou thyself draw thy sharp sword from beside thy thigh, and sit there, not suffering the powerless heads of the dead to draw near to the blood, til thou has enquired of Teiresias. Then the seer will presently come to thee, leader of men, and he will tell thee thy way and the measures of thy path, and thy return, how thou mayest go over the teeming deep.[11]

And if unto the dead thou art fain to do good, or if thou wouldst work them ill - tis all one, since they feel not or joy or grief. Nevertheless our righteous resentment is mightier than they, and Justice executeth the dead man=s wrath. (Elsewhere Aeschylus declared that the dead possess consciousness and are wroth with those who have done them injury (Libation-Bearers 324, 41.) Here, where Hermes has in mind the outrage done by Achilles to Hector=s corpse, his utterance is intended to console Priam and rebuke Achilles with the though that, though, the dead are insensible and cannot avenge themselves, their cause is in the divine keeping. It is the gods alone who have the power to do that which is commonly ascribed to the spirits of the dead.)[12]

Among the sights of Thesprotia is Zeus= sanctuary at Dodona with the sacred oak tree of the god. Near Kichyros lie an Acherosian lake and a river Acheron, and the detestable stream Kokytos. I think Homer must have seen the region and in his very daring poetry about Hades taken the names of rivers from the rivers in Thesprotia.[13]

On returning to the straight road, you will cross the Erasinus and reach the river Cheimarrus (Winter-torrent). Near it is a circuit of stones, and they say that Pluto, after carrying off, according to the story, Core, the daughter of Demeter descended here to his fabled kingdom underground. Lerna is, I have already stated, by the sea, and here they celebrate mysteries in honor of Lernaean Demeter.[14]

The other side of the course is not a bank of earth but a low hill. At the foot of the hill has been built a sanctuary to Demeter surnamed Chamyne. Some are of the opinion that the name is old, signifying that here the earth gaped for the chariot of Hades and then closed up once more.[15]

The specific fancy of a hell of mud is usually called AOrphic@ on the not very impressive authority of Olympiodorus. Aristides attributes is to Eleusis. At some point in its development it was interpreted as the appropriate punishment of the uninitiated or Aunclean@; this might be the contribution of Eleusis or of the Orphics or of both.[16]

So when the Athenians, and under their leadership the whole of Greece, took over Eleusis, they fused the old idea of immortality, connected with the cult of Demeter and her daughter, with Homer's teaching about Elysium. The thin, barely conscious existence of the Homeric shade remained the lot of the ordinary man after death. Now however the ordinary man was the uninitiated, and Elysium was removed from the surface of the earth, and made into a part of the realm of the dead, and its privileges reserved, not for the relatives-by-marriage of Zeus, but for the initiated.[17]

The original belief of the Eleusinian religion, as of its Cretan forebears and its Thracian relations, must have been in an immortality dependent on some form of union as son of the divinity. The two ideas are not separate, for in human families in Greece the solemn adoption of a child was represent as rebirth from the womb of his new mother. Later writers speak of those initiated in certain mysteries (not the Eleusinian) as reborn, and this phrase was also applied to adopted children. Some have held that the final ceremony at Eleusis actually contained a rite symbolically enacting the rebirth of the initiate from the womb of Demeter. This, though possible, must be held to be not proven.[18]

Judging from these various sources, the Orphic beliefs seem to have been somewhat as follows. At death our souls go to Hades, the road to which, as Socrates says in the myths of the Phaedo and Gorgias, is not simple but forked. Similarly in the Republic we learn that the just are allowed to take the road to the right whereas the unjust are sent to the left. This is strikingly matched by the verses on the gold plates in which the soul is greeted the words: AHail, hail to thee journeying the right-hand road, to holy meadows and groves of Persephone. It is also given the following instructions: AThou shall find to the left of the house of Hades a spring, and by the side of it standing a white cypress. To this spring approach not near. But thou shalt find another, form the lake of Memory cold water flowing forth, and there are guardians before it. Say, I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven. This ye know yourselves. But I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly the cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory. And of themselves they will give thee to drink of the holy spring, and thereafter among the other heroes thou shalt have lordship. In Plato's Myth of Er, all souls destined for reincarnation are made to drink a certain amount of the water of Lethe to make them forget their experiences in the other world. Those who are wise avoid drinking too much, but this is difficult, since they have just come through the stifling heat of the barren plain of Lethe. Naturally the soul of the Orphic is considered to have achieved its final incarnation, and will return no more to a body. Consequently it must avoid drinking of Lethe altogether. As it is made to say, AI have flown out of the sorrowful wary circle. (Todd, if the initiates saw a great fire, felt heat, had fasted, had only the kykeon - which would be a refreshment - ran through a maze, couldn't they have as part of their initiation, a way of refusing the refreshment of the waters and that this would then tie into the final pouring of wine, as a reminder of its importance?)
The whole process of the wary circle was something like this. A soul dies and is judged, and according to its deserts is assigned a place of punishment or happiness. Whichever it is, the sojourn there is temporary. After a lapse of time which together with its previously earthly life completes a period of a thousand years, it is prepared for another life on earth.[19]

There is also in the painting a jar, and an old man, with a boy and two women. One of these, who is young, is under the rock; the other is beside the old man and of a like age to his. The others are carrying water, but you will guess that the old woman=s water-jar is broken. All that remains of the water in the sherd she is pouring out again into the jar. We inferred that these people too were of those who had held of no account the rites at Eleusis. For the Greeks of an earlier period looked upon the Eleusinian mysteries as being as much higher than all other religious acts as gods are higher than heroes.[20]

Beyond Kallisto and the women with her is the shape of a cliff, with Sisyphos son of Aiolos struggling to heave his rock up to the top. There is also a great jar in the painting, an old man, a boy, and some women, a young one under the rock and an old one beside the old man. Most of them are carrying water, but you can see that the old woman=s pot is broken, and whatever water was left in it is pouring back into the great jar. I concluded that these people as well despised the rites at Eleusis; in earlier times the Greeks paid more honor to the Eleusinian mystery than to any other kind of piety whatever, in just the same way as they put gods before heros.[21]

VIRGO

There are numerous other stories concerning this constellation. Some say it id Demeter because of the sheaf of grain that she holds.
Pseudo-Eratosthenes, The Constellations, 9.

Others say she is Fortuna, others Ceres; between the two, the latter is less likely because her head is very obscure. Many say she is Erigone, the daughter of Icarius, about who we spoke earlier (2.4) Others say is is Apollo’s daughter by Chrysothemis, who as an infant was called parthenos and who, because she died young, was placed by Apollo among the stars.
Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy, 2.25.


The spherical device for measuring the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets round the zodiac is certainly a product of later times, but the interpretation of the horoscope is cosmic and the same in all ages. The eclipse of the moon caused by the earth blocking the sun's light is portentous for the mother, the feminine principle and domestic life. Its darkness when it should be full is symbolic of Persephone's prominent and sudden venture to the underworld and the shadowing over the mother. The "sunset house" is the twelfth portion of the sky over the western horizon and is called the seventh house, indicating marriage and partnership. Naturally Asterion found Mars there, the planet of sex, boldness, heat, force, and strong action. Its conjunction with Venus, the planet of love and harmony, can mean a rash, intense, adventurous, harmonious marriage. Jupiter, the benevolent and expansive planet, in Virgo in the "Portion of the Parents" (fourth house) means great benefit to the parents through the products of the earth. Apparently Jupiter was very close to the star symbolizing the ear of corn, indicating Demeter's gift of the grain.

War Games

When the Eleusinians fought with the Athenians, Erechtheus, king of the Athenians, was killed, as was also Immaradus, son of Eumolpus. These were the terms on which they concluded the war: the Eleusinians were to have independent control of the mysteries, but in all things else were to be subject to the Athenians. The ministers of the Two Goddesses were Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus whom Pamphos and Homer agree in naming Diogenia, Pammerope, and the third Saesara. Eumolpus was survived by Ceryx, the younger of his sons whom the Ceryces themselves say was a son of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, and of Hermes, not of Eumolpus.[22]

In order that his first cries might not be heard by his father, certain daimones of Crete called Kuretes danced around him their war dance, clashing their shields and spears together. This is clearly referred to by the maenads of Euripides Bacchae, who in the wildly mingled strains of one of their choruses sing (lines 119-125)
O lair of the Kuretes, holy haunts of Crete that saw the birth of Zeus, where in they caves the triple-crested Korybantes invented this my circle of stretched hide.[23]

Tisamenus, the Elean, had prophesied to Pausanias and all the Greeks, and foretold them victory if they made no attempt upon the enemy, but stood on their defense. But Aristides sending to Delphi, the god answered that the Athenians should overcome their enemies in case they made supplication to Zeus and Hera of Cithaeron, Pan and the nymphs Shragitides, and sacrificed to the heroes Androcrates, Leucon, Pisander, Damocrates, Hypsion, Actaeon, and Polyidus; and if they fought within their own territories in the plain of Demeter Eleusinia and Persephone....But the plain of Demeter Eleusinia, and the offer of victory to the Athenians, if they fought on their own territories, recalled them again, and transferred the war into the country of Attica. In this juncture, Arimnestus, who commanded the Plataeans, dreamed that Zeus, the Savior, asked him what the Greeks had resolved upon; and that he answered, "Tomorrow, my Lord, we march our army to Eleusis, and there give the barbarians battle according to the directions of the oracle of Apollo."(Plutarch Aristides 12)
Herodotus gives two accounts of the mystical events before and during the battle which took place on the same day as the Mysteries were due to be celebrated (around September 23 on our calendar) in the year 480 BC.
The following is a tale which was told by Dicaeus, the son of Theocydes, an Athenian, who was at this time in exile and had gained a good report among the Medes. He declared that after the army of Xerxes had, in the absence of the Athenians, wasted Attica, he chanced to be with Demaratus, the Lacedaemonian in the Thriasian plain, and that while there, he saw a cloud of dust advancing from Eleusis, such as a host of thirty thousand men might raise. As he and his companion were wondering who the men, from whom the dust arose, could possibly be, a sound of voices reached his ear, and he thought that he recognized the mystic hymn to Bacchus, Now Demaratus was unacquainted with the rites of Eleusis, and so he inquired of Dicaeus what the voices were saying. Dicaeus made answer -
O Demaratus! beyond a doubt some mighty calamity is about to befall the king's army! For it is manifest, inasmuch as Attica is deserted by its inhabitants, that the sound which we have heard is an unearthly one and is now upon its way from Eleusis to aid the Athenians and their confederates. If it descends upon the Peloponnese, danger will threaten the king himself and his land army - if it moves towards the ships at Salamis, 'twill go hard but the king's fleet there suffers destruction. Every year the Athenians celebrate this feast to the Mother and the Daughter; and all who wish, whether they be Athenians or any other Greeks, are initiated. The sound thou hearest is the Bacchic song, which is wont to be sung at that festival.
"Hush now," rejoined the other; "and see thou tell no man of this matter. For if thy words be brought to the king's ear, thou wilt assuredly lose thy head because of them; neither I nor any man living can save thee. Hold thy peace therefore. The gods will see to the king's army." Thus Demaratus counseled him; and they looked, and saw the dust, from which the sound arose, become a cloud, and the cloud rise up into the air and sail away to Salamis, making for the station of the Grecian fleet. Then they knew it was the fleet of Xerxes which would suffer destruction. Such was the tale told by Dicaeus the son of Theocydes; and he appealed for its truth to Demaratus and other eye-witnesses.(Herodotus VIII, 65)The Persians, as soon as they were put to flight by the Lacedaemonians, ran hastily away, without preserving any order, and took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defense which they had raised in the Theban territory. It is a marvel to me how it came to pass, that although the battle was fought quite close to the grove of Demeter, yet not a single Persian appears to have died on the sacred soil, nor even to have set foot upon it, while round about the precinct, in the unconsecrated ground, great numbers perished. I imagine - if it is lawful, in matters which concern the gods, to imagine anything - that the goddess herself kept them out, because they had burnt her dwelling at Eleusis. Such, then, was the issue of this battle.(Herodotus IX, 65)
Plutarch also records how Themistocles who was in love with the same woman as Aristides, manages to carry off the battle foreseen by the oracle.
It is reported that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds and voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far as the sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying and escorting the mystic Iacchus, and that a mist seemed to form and rise from the place from whence the sounds came, and, passing forward, fell upon the galleys. Others believed that they saw apparitions, in the shape of armed men, reaching out their hands from the island of Aegina before Grecian galleys; and supposed they were the Aeacidae, whom they had invoked to their aid before the battle. The first man that took a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian, captain of the galley, who cut down its ensign, and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the Greeks thus equaled them in strength and fought with them till the evening forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that noble and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greek nor barbarians was ever known more glorious exploit on the seas; by the joint valor, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom and sagacity of Themistocles.(Plutarch Themistocles 15)

Women

Erich Neumann's formulation: The woman experiences herself first and foremost as the source of life is meaningful also from the standpoint of the hermeneutics of the Eleusinian Mysteries.[24]

Zagreus

Zeus secretly begot his son Zagreus on Persephone, before she was taken to the Underworld by her uncle Hades. He set Rhea's sons, the Cretan Curetes, or some say, the Corybantes, to guard his cradle in the Idaen Cave, where they leaped about him, clashing their weapons, as they had leaped about Zeus himself at Dicte. But the Titans, Zeus's enemies, whitening themselves with gypsum until they were unrecognizable, waited until the Curetes slept. At midnight they lured Zagreus away, by offering him such childish toys as a cone, a bull-roarer, golden apples, a mirror, a knuckle-bone, and a tuft of wool. Zagreus showed several transformations in an attempt to delude them: he became successively Zeus in a goat-skin coat, Cronus making rain, a lion, a horse, a horned serpent, a tiger, and a bull. At that point the Titans seized him firmly by the horns and feet, tore him apart with their teeth, and devoured his flesh raw.
Athena interrupted this grisly banquet before its end and, rescuing Zagreus's heart, enclosed it in a gypsum figure, into which she breathed life; so that Zagreus became an immortal. His bones were collected and buried at Delphi and Zeus struck the Titans dead with thunderbolts.
1. This myth concerns the annual sacrifice of a boy which took place in ancient Crete: a surrogate for Minos the Bull-King. He reigned for a single day, went through a dance illustrative of the five seasons - lion, goat, horse, serpent and bull-calf - and then was eaten raw. All the toys with which the titans lured him away were objects used by the philosophical Orphics, who inherited the tradition of this sacrifice but devoured a bull-calf raw, instead of a boy. The bull-roarer was a pierced stone or piece of pottery, which when whirled at the end of a cord made a noise like a rising gale; and the tuft of wool may have been used to daub the Curetes with the wet gypsum - these being youths who had cut and dedicated their first hair to the goddess Car. They were also called Corybantes, or crested dancers. Zagreus' other gifts served to explain the nature of the ceremony by which the participant became one with the god: the cone was an ancient emblem of the goddess, in whose honor the Titans sacrificed him; the mirror represented each initiate's other self, or ghost; the golden apples, his passport to Elysium after a mock-death; the knuckle bone, his divinatory powers.[25]

Stories about a mythical murder that did not however end with the total destruction of the slain child - a murder that was hinted at in the rite of initiation - have been preserved from the sphere of the Samothracian mysteries. The story told by Clement of Alexandria of the three Korybantes of Thessalonike, the two elder of whom killed the youngest, is an example. The murderers wrapped the severed head in a purple garment, put a wreath on it, and bore it on a bronze shield to the foot of Mt. Olympus - perhaps because this was the birthplace of Orpheus, who, with the exception of its head which went on singing, was torn to pieces by women like a second Dionysos. According to our Christian source, the same two brothers carried the pagan secrets unveiled, the phallus and with it the Dionysian religion, in a basket to the Etruscans...The murder of the Divine Child was his reduction to an organ from which - or as which - he could be reawakened. The murder was prerequisite to the reawakening.
He did not long occupy the throne of Zeus, writes Nonnos of Persephone's just born child, whom he calls Zagreus. Hera in her anger moved the Titans, their faces whitened with plaster, to kill him with infernal knives while he was looking at his reflection in the mirror.[26]

Zeus

Here are placed votive offerings, including a wooden image of Zeus which has two eyes in the natural place and a third on its forehead . . . The reason for its three eyes one might infer to be this. That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men. As for him who is said to rule under the earth, there is a verse of Homer which calls him, too, Zeus: Zeus of the underworld, and the August Persephonea The god in the sea also, is called Zeus by Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion. So whoever made the image made it with three eyes, as signifying that this same god rules in all the three allotments of the Universe, as they are called.[27]

But when all his desire was fulfilled, and nothing that he required was still undone, the Zeus of the Underworld sent forth his thunder, and the maidens shuddered as they heard.[28]

In this last and most terrifying capacity, as god of the thunder and thunderbolt, he naturally impressed himself particularly on the imaginations of his worshipers, and it gave rise to a magnificent series of sonorous epithets.[29] (Todd, how would this tie into Brimo?)

In order that his first cries might not be heard by his father, certain daimones of Crete called Kuretes danced around him their war dance, clashing their shields and spears together. This is clearly referred to by the maenads of Euripides Bacchae, who in the wildly mingled strains of one of their choruses sing (lines 119-125)
O lair of the Kuretes, holy haunts of Crete that saw the birth of Zeus, where in they caves the triple-crested Korybantes invented this my circle of stretched hide.[30]

Yea, though he die, in Hades the guilt of his old deeds shall find him out. There sits to judge our sins, as we are told, another Zeus, the dead=s last arbiter.[31]

Retribution for sin appears as something which awaits the ordinary man after death. Zeus Katachthonios (Abeneath the earth@) was once mentioned in the Iliad as the husband of Persephone.[32]

Zeus the liberator, Eleutherios

Zeus, says Ovid, took the form of a shepherd when he met Mnemosyne – a tale which recalls that of Attis and Kybele; indeed hundreds of terra-cottas representing Attis as a shepherd were found by Monsieur P. Perdizet at Amphipolis. Again, not only in the Muse-mother Mnemosyne, but also in the prominence originally accorded to one of the Muses, Kalliope or Thaleia we may detect a trace of the ancient goddess, whose glory had paled before the rising light of Zeus…A red figured vase painting from Nola formerly in the Hamilton collection, shows Zeus as a might eagle in a blaze of celestial splendor carrying Thaleia from earth to heaven. The maiden has been playing at ball and picking flowers on a mountain side. .[33]

Ammon was said to have transformed himself into a snake in order to win his bride; and snakes at Kyrene were called by the name of Ammon.[34]

Herodotos, therefore, did not hesitate to identify the Greek Zeus with Amen-Ra, the Theban ram-god and sun-god. Doubtless, when Lucian in the second century of our era make Momos, the god of Mockery, ask Zeus how he can permit ram’s horns to be affixed to him and makes Zeus apologize for the disgrace, Greek refinement had come to despise these barbaric identifications.[35]

Zeus, desiring to consort with his own mother Deo or Demeter, turned himself into a bull and so compassed his end. Deo in fierce anger took the title Brimo, ‘the wrathful’ and would not be appeased till Zeus came before her in a mood of mock-repentance, pretended to have made a eunuch of himself, and in proof of his words flung the severed parts into her lap. In reality they were those of a fine ram which he had gelded. The issue of his union with Deo was Kore or Pherephatta, with whom he again had intercourse under the form of a monstrous snake. This time the offspring was shaped like a bull. Hence the well-known line: Bull began Snake, Snake begat Bull.[36]

The Sabazian myth has much in common with Orphic tradition. For Orpheus too represented Zeus as united successively with his mother Rhea or Demeter and his daughter Phersephone or Kore. Rhea, to avoid him, turned into a snake. Thereupon he became another snake, and twined about her with the so-called Herculean knot, which is symbolized in the caduceus of Hermes. Rhea bore to him Phersephone, a horned child with four eyes, two in their normal position, two on the forehead and an extra face on the back of her neck. Zeus, again taking the form of a snake, consorted with his own monstrous progeny. The child born of this second union was Dionysos, i.e., the chthonian Dionysos or Zagreus. Nonnos in Orphic vein describes him as a horned infant, who mounted the throne of Zeus himself and sat there grasping the thunderbolt in his tiny hand. But Hera soon roused the titan to smear their faces with gypsum and to attack him as he was looking in a mirror. In his efforts to escape he took the forms of a youthful Zeus brandishing the aigis, an aged Kronos dropping rain, a babe of shifting shape, a wildly excited youth, a lion, a horse, a horned snake, a tiger and a bull, in which final disguise he was cut to pieces by the knives of the titans.[37]

Now the Cretans, as Dr. Rendel Harris discovered held that Zeus was a prince ripped up by a wild boar and buried in their midst. The manner of his death gives us good reason to suspect that he was related to the great mother-goddess of Crete as was Adonis to Aphrodite or Tammuz to Ishtar. The manner of his burial confirms our suspicion; for his tomb on Mount Juktas was in the temenos of a primitive sanctuary, apparently a sanctuary of the mountain-mother, where in “Middle Minoan” times votive limbs were dedicated for health restored. If this was the character of the Cretan Zeus, it becomes highly probable that his death and resurrection were annually celebrated as a magical means of reviving the life of all that lives.[38]





The Mysteries of Eleusis
Bibliography
Casavis, J. N., The Greek Origin of Freemasonry. (New York, 1956) 208 pp.Diodorus of Sicily tr. Oldfather, C. H. (Cambridge, Mass., 1933) 10 volumes.Durant, Will, The Life of Greece. (New York, 1939) 754 pp.Eliade, Mircea, Rites and Symbols of Initiation. tr. Trask, Willard R. (New York, 1958) 175 pp.Frazer, James George, The Golden Bough Part IV Adonis Attis Osiris Vol. II. (New York, 1935) 321 pp.Frazer, James George, The Golden Bough Part IV Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild Vol. I. (New York, 1935) 319 pp.Grant, Frederick C., Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism. (Indianapolis, 1953) 196 pp.Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, tr. Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (Cambridge, Mass., 1914) 657 pp.James, E. O., The Cult of the Mother-Goddess: An Archaeological and Documentary Study. (New York, 1959) 300 pp.Jung, C. G., The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. (Princeton, 1969) 461 pp.Kerenyi, C., Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. tr. Manheim, Ralph (New York, 1967) 257 pp.Kerenyi, C., The Gods of the Greeks. (London, 1951) 304 pp.Mackenzie, Norman ed., Secret Societies. (London, 1967) 350 pp.Mylonas, George E., Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries. (Princeton, 1961) 346 pp.Mysteries, The. (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, 2; ed. Campbell, Joseph) (New York, 1955) 476 pp.Neumann, Erich, Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine. (New York, 1956) 181 pp.Neumann, Erich, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype. tr. Manheim, Ralph (New York, 1955) 381 pp.Pausanias, Description of Greece. tr. Frazer, J. G. (London, 1898) 613 pp.Plato, The Dialogues of. tr. Jowett, Benjamin (New York, 1927) 534 pp.Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks Vol. I. tr. Hillis, W. B. (New York, 1966) 260 pp.Schuré, Edouard, The Great Initiates. (New York, 1961) 526 pp.Taylor, Thomas, The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus: translated from the Greek and demonstrated to be the Invocations which were used in the Eleusinian Mysteries. (Walworth, 1824) 205 pp.Twitchell, Paul, Eckankar: The Key to Secret Worlds. (New York, 1969) 254.

[1] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p. 41.

[2] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 16.

[3] Kevin Clinton. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Intitutet I Athen 8, XI, Stockholm 1992, p 22.

[4] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, pps. 120-121.
[5] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 123.
[6] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 124.
[7] Plato. Republic 386 c.
[8] Euripides. Alcestis 1135 - 1150.
[9] Herodotus. Histories 7.153.2 - 7.153.3.
[10] Homer. Odyssey 490 - 496.
[11] Homer. Odyssey 504 -540.
[12] Aeschylus. Fragment from The Phrygians, Aeschylus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library: London, 1926, p. 472.
[13] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. 1.17.5.
[14] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.36.7.
[15] Pausanias. Description of Greece 6.21.1.
[16] E.R. Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, p. 173.
[17] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, p. 291.
[18] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, p. 292.
[19] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Hill, 1955, pps. 322-323.
[20] Pausanias. Description of Greece 10.31.11.
[21] Pausanias. Guide to Greece. X. 31.1.
[22] Pausanias. Description of Greece 1.38.3.
[23] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 41.
[24] Carl Kerenyi. Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. xxxiii.
[25] Robert Graves. The Greek Myths: Volume 1. London: Penguin Books, 1960, pps. 118-119.
[26] Carl Kerenyi. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Bollingen Series LXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 267.
[27] Pausanias. Description of Greece 2.24.4.
[28] Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus 1605.
[29] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 38.
[30] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 41.
[31] Aeschylus. The Suppliants, 228.
[32] W.K.C. Guthrie. The Greeks and their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955, p. 217.
[33] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pp 104-105.

[34] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 358-9.

[35] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 348-9.

[36] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 393-4.
[37] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 397-8.

[38] Arthur Bernard Cook. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Volume 1. Zeus: God of the Bright Sky, Biblo and Tannen, NYC, pps 645-6.

Origins of Eleusis

When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athens, Pandion became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis, and Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. (Apollodorus III, xiv, 7)

There is a fair and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly people and there are ninety cities in it; the people speak many different languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans, brave Eteocretans, Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi. There is a great town there, Knossos, where Minos reigned who every nine years had a conference with Zeus himself. (Homer Odyssey XIX, 172-178)

Such, then are the myths which the Cretans recount of the gods who they claim were born in their land. They also assert that the honors accorded to the gods and their sacrifices and the initiatory rites observed in connection with the mysteries were handed down from Crete to the rest of men, and to support this they advance the following most weighty argument, as they conceive it: the initiatory rite which is celebrated by the Athenians in Eleusis, the most famous, one may venture, of them all, and that of Samothrace, and the one practiced in Thrace among the Cicones, whence Orpheus came who introduced them---these are all handed down in the form of a mystery, whereas at Knossos in Crete it has been the custom from ancient times that these initiatory rites should be handed down to all openly, and what is handed down among other people as not to be divulged, this the Cretans conceal from no one who may wish to inform himself upon such matters. Indeed, the majority of the gods, the Cretans say, had their beginning in Crete and set out from there to visit many regions of the inhabited world, conferring benefactions upon the races of men and distributing among each of them the advantage which resulted from the discoveries they had made. Demeter, for example, crossed over into Attica and then removed from there to Sicily and afterwards to Egypt; and in these lands her choicest gift was that of the corn and instructions in the sowing of it, whereupon she received great honors at the hands of these whom she had benefited. (Diodorus Siculus V, 77)

Moreover, I fed the men who were with him with barley meal from the public store, and got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their heart's content. (Odyssey XIX, 196-198)

Hence it was in Crete that I saw Odysseus and showed him hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on his way to Troy, carrying him off his course from cape Malea and leaving him in Amnisos off the cave of Eileithyia, where the harbors are difficult to enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds that were then raging.(Odyssey XIX, 185-190)

The snake of Cychreus: Hesiod says that it was brought up by Cychreus, and was driven out by Eurylochus as defiling the island, but that Demeter received it into Eleusis, and that it became her attendant.(Hesiod Catalogues of Women and Eoiae 77)

But my father soon came to know, and cursed me bitterly, calling the dread Erinyes to witness. He prayed that no son of mine might ever sit upon my knees---and the gods, Zeus of the world below and awful Persephone, fulfilled his curse.(Iliad IX 454-457)

Persephone: Maiden (Kore) and Queen of the Underworld

A Hymn to Proserpine by Orpheus:
Daughter of Jove, Persephone divine,Come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline:Only-begotten, Pluto's honored wife,O venerable Goddess, source of life:'Tis thine in earth's profundities to dwellPast by the wide and dismal gates of hell.Jove's holy offspring, of a beauteous mien,Avenging Goddess, subterranean queen.The Furies' source, fair-hair'd, whose frame proceedsfrom Jove's ineffable and secret seeds.Mother of Bacchus, sonorous, divine,And many-form'd, the parent of the vine.Associate of the Seasons, essence bright,All-ruling virgin, bearing heav'nly light.With fruits abounding, of a bounteous mind,Horn'd, and alone desir'd by those of mortal kind.O vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight,Sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight:Whose holy form in budding fruits we view,Earth's vig'rous offspring of a various hue:Espous'd in autumn, life and death aloneTo wretched mortals from thy pow'r is known:For thine the task, according to thy will,Life to produce, and all that lives to kill.Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increaseOf various fruits from earth, with lovely peace:Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my lifeWith blest abundance, free from noisy strife;Last in extreme old age the prey of Death,Dismiss me willing to the realms beneath,To thy fair palace and the blissful plainsWhere happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )The subject requires that I should narrate the rape of the Virgin.(Ovid Fasti IV, 417-418)

Not the Father alone felt desire; but all that dwelt in Olympus had the same, struck by one bolt, and wooed for a union with Deo's divine daughter. Then Deo lost the brightness of her rosy face, her swelling heart was lashed by sorrows. She untied the fruitful frontlet from her head, and shook loose the long locks of hair over her neck, trembling for her girl; the cheeks of the goddess were moistened with self-running tears, in her sorrow that so many voters had been stung with one fiery shot for a struggle of rival wooing, by maddening Eros, all contending together for their loves. (Nonnus Dionysiaca VI, 3-12)

Homeric Hymn to Demeter of the seventh century BC.

I begin to sing of rich-haired Demeter, awful goddess - of her and her trim-ankled daughter whom Aidoneus rapt away, given to him by all-seeing Zeus the loud-thunderer.Apart from Demeter lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits, she was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth made to grow at the will of Zeus and to please the Host of Many, to be a snare for the bloom-like girl - a marvelous, radiant flower. It was a thing of awe whether for deathless gods or mortal men to see: from its root grew a hundred blooms and it smelled most sweetly, so that all wide heaven above and the whole earth and the sea's salt swell laughed for joy. And the girl was amazed and reached out with both hands to take the lovely toy; but the wide-pathed earth yawned there in the plain of Nysa, and the lord, Host of Many, with his immortal horses sprang out upon her - the Son of Cronos, He who has many names.He caught her up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. Then she cried out shrilly with her voice, calling upon her father, the Son of Cronos, who is most high and excellent.(Homeric Hymn To Demeter 1-21)

Also I will tell how he rapt me away by the deep plan of my father the Son of Cronos and carried me off beneath the depths of the earth, and will relate the whole matter as you ask. All we were playing in a lovely meadow, Leucippe and Phaeno and Electra and Ianthe, Melito also and Iache with Rhodea and Callirhoe and Melobosis and Tyche and Ocyrhoe, fair as a flower, Chryseis, Ianeira, Acaste and Admete and Rhodope and Pluto and charming Calypso; Styx too was there and Urania and lovely Galaxaura with Pallas who rouses battles and Artemis delighting in arrows: we were playing and gathering sweet flowers in our hands, soft crocuses mingled with irises and hyacinths, and rose-blooms and lilies, marvelous to see, and the narcissus which the wide earth caused to grow yellow as a crocus. That I plucked in my joy; but the earth parted beneath, and there the strong lord, the Host of Many, sprang forth and in his golden chariot he bore me away, all unwilling, beneath the earth: then I cried with a shrill cry.(Homeric Hymn To Demeter 411-432)

Again, the fact that the Rape of Kore took place in Sicily is, men say, proof most evident that the goddesses made this island their favorite retreat because it was cherished by them before all others. And the Rape of Kore, the myth relates, took place in the meadows in the territory of Enna. The spot is near the city, a place of striking beauty for its violets and every other kind of flower and worthy of the goddess. And the story is told that, because of the sweet odor of the flowers growing there, trained hunting dogs are unable to hold the trail, because their natural sense of smell is balked. And the meadow we have mentioned is level in the center and well watered throughout, but on its periphery it rises high and falls off with precipitous cliffs on every side. And it is conceived of as lying in the very center of the island, which is the reason why certain writers call it the navel in Sicily. Near to it also are sacred groves, surrounded by marshy flats, to the north, and through it, the myth relates, Pluton, coming out with his chariot, effected the rape of Kore. And the violets, we are told, and the rest of the flowers which supply the sweet odor continue to bloom, to one's amazement, throughout the entire year, and so the whole aspect of the place is one of flowers and delight.(Diodorus Siculus V, 3)

Sow then some seed of fame athwart the isle, that Zeus, the lord of Olympus, gave to Persephone, and shook his locks in token unto her that, as queen of the teeming earth, the fertile island of Sicily would be raised to renown by the wealth of her glorious cities.(Pindar The Nemean Odes I, 14)

Within this grove Proserpina was playing, and gathering violets or white lilies. And while with girlish eagerness she was filling her basket and her bosom, and striving to surpass her mates in gathering, almost in one act did Pluto see and love and carry her away: so precipitate was his love. The terrified girl called plaintively on her mother and her companions, but more often upon her mother.(Ovid Metamorphoses V, 391-398)

To Pluto
O mighty daemon, whose decision dread,The future fate determines of the dead,With captive Proserpina, through grassy plains,Drawn in a four-yoked car with loosened reins,Rapt o'er the deep, impelled by love, you flewTill Eleusina's city rose to view:There, in a wondrous cave obscure and deep,The sacred maid secure from search you keep,The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates displayAn entrance to the kingdoms void of day.Of works unseen and seen thy power aloneTo be the great dispensing source is known.All-ruling, holy God, with glory bright,Thee sacred poets and their hymns delight,Propitious to thy mystics' works incline,Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )

At Eleusis flows the Cephisus, a more impetuous stream than the Cephisus mentioned before. Beside it is a place which they call Erineus. They say that Pluto, when he carried off the Maid, descended here.(Pausanias Description of Greece I, 38:5)Having returned to the direct road, you will cross the Erasinus and come to the Chimarrhus river. Near it is an enclosure of stones: they say that when Pluto, as the story goes, ravished Demeter's daughter, the Maid, he here descended to his supposed subterranean realm. Lerna is, as I said before, beside the sea, and they celebrate mysteries here in honor of Lernaean Demeter.(Pausanias II, 36:7)

That the rape of Kore took place in the manner we have described is attested by many ancient historians and poets. Carcinus the tragic poet, for instance, who often visited in Syracuse and witnessed the zeal which the inhabitants displayed in the sacrifices and festive gatherings for both Demeter and Kore, has the following verses in his writings:
Demeter's daughter, her whom none may name,By secret schemings Pluton, men say, stole,And then he dropped into earth's depths, whose lightIs darkness. Longing for the vanished girlHer mother searched and visited all landsIn turn. And Sicily's land by Aetna's cragsWas filled with streams of fire which no man couldApproach, and groaned throughout its length; in griefOver the maiden now the folk, belovedOf Zeus, was perishing without the corn.Hence honor they these goddesses e'en now.

But we should not omit to mention the very great benefaction which Demeter conferred upon mankind; for beside the fact that she was the discoverer of corn, she also taught mankind how to prepare it for food and introduced laws by obedience to which men became accustomed to the practice of justice, this being the reason, we are told, why she has been given the epithet Thesmophoros or Lawgiver. Surely a benefaction greater than these discoveries of hers one could not find; for they embrace both living and living honorably.(Diodorus Siculus V, 5)

Demeter: Mother of the Mysteries and the Grain
Teiresias: ... Two things there are, young prince, thathold first rank among men, the goddess Demeter, that is,the earth, call her which name you please; she it is that feeds men with solid food....(Euripides The Bacchantes 274)Ceres was the first to turn the glebe with the hooked plow-share; she first gave laws. All things are the gift of Ceres; she must be the subject of my song.(Ovid Metamorphoses V, 341-344)

To Ceres
O universal mother, Ceres fam'd,August, the source of wealth, and various nam'd:Great nurse, all-bounteous, blessed and divine,Who joy'st in peace; to nourish corn is thine.Goddess of seed, of fruits abundant, fair,Harvest and threshing are thy constant care.Lovely delightful queen, by all desir'd,Who dwell'st in Eleusina's holy vales retired.Nurse of all mortals, whose benignant mindFirst ploughing oxen to the yoke confin'd;And gave to men what nature's wants require,With plenteous means of bliss, which all desire.In verdure flourishing, in glory bright,Assessor of great Bacchus, bearing light:Rejoicing in the reapers' sickles, kind,Whose nature lucid, earthly, pure, we find.Prolific, venerable, nurse divine,Thy daughter loving, holy Proserpine.A car with dragons yok'd 'tis thine to guide,And, orgies singing, round thy throne to ride.only-begotten, much-producing queen,All flowers are thine, and fruits of lovely green.Bright Goddess, come, with summer's rich increaseSwelling and pregnant , leading smiling Peace;Come with fair Concord and imperial Health,And join with these a needful store of wealth.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus)

And Demeter since the corn still grew wild together with the other plants and was still unknown to men, was the first to gather it in, to devise how to prepare and preserve it, and to instruct mankind how to sow it. Now she had discovered the corn before she gave birth to her daughter Persephone, but after the birth of her daughter and the rape of her by Pluton, she burned all the fruit of the corn, both because of her anger at Zeus and because of her grief over her daughter. After she had found Persephone, however, she became reconciled with Zeus and gave Triptolemus the corn to sow, instructing him both to share the gift with men everywhere and to teach them everything concerned with the labor of sowing. And some men say that it was she also who introduced laws, by obedience to which men have become accustomed to deal justly one with another, and that mankind has called this goddess Thesmophoros after the laws which she gave them. And since Demeter has been responsible for the greatest blessing to mankind, she has been accorded the most notable honors and sacrifices, and magnificent feasts and festivals as well, not only by the Greeks, but also by almost all barbarians who have partaken of this kind of food.There is dispute about the discovery of the fruit of the corn on the part of many peoples, who claim that they were the first among whom the goddess was seen and to whom she made known both the nature and use of the corn. The Egyptians, for example, say that Demeter and Isis are the same, and that she was first to bring the seed to Egypt, since the river Nile waters the fields at the proper time and that land enjoys the most temperate seasons. Also the Athenians, though they assert that the discovery of this fruit took place in their country, are nevertheless witnesses to its having been brought to Attica from some other region; for the place which originally received this gift they call Eleusis, from the fact that the seed of the corn came from others and was conveyed to them. But the inhabitants of Sicily, dwelling as they do on an island which is sacred to Demeter and Kore, say that it is reasonable to believe that the gift of which we are speaking was made to them first, since the land they cultivate is the one the goddess holds most dear; for it would be strange indeed, they maintain, for the goddess to take for her on, so to speak, a land which is the most fertile known and yet to give it, the last of all, a share in her benefaction, as though it were nothing to her, especially since she has her dwelling there, all men agreeing that the Rape of Kore took place on this island. Moreover, this land is the best adapted for these fruit, even as the poet also says:
But all these things grow there for them unsownAnd e'en untilled, both wheat and barley.(Odyssey IX, 1O9)

This, then, is what the myths have to say about Demeter.(Diodorus Siculus V, 68-69)

Zeus entered also into the bed of fruitful Demeter, who bore him Persephone of the white arms, she that Aidoneus ravished away from her mother and Zeus of the counsels granted it.(Hesiod, Theogony 912-914)Demeter, shining among goddesses, after the embraces of the hero Iasion in the sweetness of love, brought forth Ploutos in a thrice-plowed field there in the fertile countryside of Crete, a good son, who walks over earth and the sea's wide ridges everywhere, and he who meets him with the giving of hands between them is made a prosperous man, to whom great wealth is granted.(Hesiod, Theogony 969-974)

So again when Demeter fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, Zeus came to hear of it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts.(Homer's Odyssey V, 125)

But Zeus desired that the other of his two sons might also attain to honor, and so he instructed him in the initiatory rite of the mysteries, which had existed on the island since ancient times but was at that time, so to speak, put in his hands; it is not lawful, however, or any but the initiated to hear about the mysteries. And Iasion is reputed to have been the first to initiate strangers into them and by this means to bring the initiatory rite to high esteem.... And Demeter, becoming enamored of Iasion, presented him with the fruit of the corn.... To Iasion and Demeter, according to the story the myths relate, was born Plutus or Wealth, but the reference is, as a matter of fact, to the wealth of the corn, which was presented to Iasion because of Demeter's association with him at the time of the wedding of Harmonia. Now the details of the initiatory rite are guarded among the matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the initiates alone; but the fame has traveled wide of how these gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils. The claim is also made that men who have taken part in the mysteries become both more pious and more just and better in every respect than they were before. And this is the reason, we are told, why the most famous both of the ancient heroes and of the demi-gods were eagerly desirous of taking part in the initiatory rite; and in fact Jason and the Dioscuri, and Heracles and Orpheus as well, after their initiation attained success in all the campaigns they undertook, because these gods appeared to them.(Diodorus Siculus V, 48, 49)

Plutus, we are told, was born in Cretan Tripolus to Demeter and Iasion, and there is a double account of his origin. For some men say that the earth, when it was sowed once by Iasion and given proper cultivation, brought forth such an abundance of fruits that those who saw this bestowed a special name upon the abundance of fruits when they appear and called it plutus (wealth); consequently it has become traditional among later generations to say that men who have acquired more than they actually need have Plutus. But there are some who recount the myth that a son was born to Demeter and Iasion whom they named Plutus, and that he was the first to introduce diligence into the life of man and the acquisition and safeguarding of property, all men up to that time having been neglectful of amassing and guarding diligently any store of property.(Diodorus Siculus V, 77)
But no one, either of the deathless gods or of mortal men, heard her voice, nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit: only tender-hearted Hecate, bright-coifed, the daughter of Persaeus, heard the girl from her care, and the lord Helios, Hyperion's bright son, as she cried to her father, the Son of Cronos. But he was sitting aloof, apart from the gods, in his temple where many pray, and receiving sweet offerings from mortal men. So he, that Son of Cronos, of many names, who is Ruler of Many and Host of Many, was bearing her away by leave of Zeus on his immortal chariot - his own brother's child and all unwilling.And so long as she, the goddess, yet beheld earth and starry heaven and the strong-flowing sea where fishes shoal and the rays of the sun, and still hoped to see her dear mother and the tribes of the eternal gods, so long hope calmed her great heart for all her trouble.... and the heights of the mountains and the depths of the sea rang with her immortal voice: and her queenly mother heard her.Bitter pain seized her heart, and she rent the covering upon her divine hair with her dear hand: her dark cloak she cast down from both her shoulders and sped, like a wild bird, over the firm land and yielding sea, seeking her child. But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal man; and of the birds of omen none came with true news for her. Then for nine days queenly Deo wandered over the earth with flaming torches in her hands, so grieved that she never tasted ambrosia and the sweet draught of nectar, nor sprinkled her body with water.(Homeric Hymn, To Demeter 22-50)

As the basket comes, greet it, you women, saying "Demeter, greatly hail! Lady of much bounty, of many measures of corn." As the basket comes, from the ground you shall see it, you uninitiated, and gaze not from the roof or from aloft - child nor wife nor maid that has shed her hair - neither then nor when we spit from parched mouths fasting. Hesperus from the clouds marks the time of its coming: Hesperus, who alone persuaded Demeter to drink, that time she pursued the unknown tracks of her stolen daughter.Lady, how were your feet able to carry you to the West, to the black men and where the golden apples are? You did not drink nor did you eat during that time nor did you wash. Thrice did you cross Achelous with his silver eddies and as often did you pass over each of the ever-flowing rivers, and thrice did you seat yourself on the ground beside the fountain Callichorus, parched and without drinking, and did not eat nor wash.Nay, nay, let us not speak of that which brought the tear to Deo! Better to tell how she gave to cities pleasing ordinances; better to tell how she was the first to cut straw and holy sheaves of corn-ears and put in oxen to tread them, that time Triptolemus was taught the good craft.(Callimachus To Demeter 1-24)

But when the tenth enlightening dawn had come, Hecate, with a torch in her hands met her, and spoke to her and told her news:
Queenly Demeter, bringer of seasons and giver of good gifts, what god of heaven or what mortal man has rapt away Persephone and pierced with sorrow your dear heart? For I heard her voice, yet saw not with my eyes who it was. But I tell you truly and shortly all I know.
So, then, said Hecate. And the daughter of rich-haired Rhea answered her not but sped swiftly with her, holding flaming torches in her hands. So they came to Helios, who is watchman of both gods and men, and stood in front of his horses: and the bright goddess inquired of him: "Helios, do you at least regard me, goddess as I am, if ever by word or deed of mine I have cheered your heart and spirit. Through the fruitless air I heard the thrilling cry of my daughter whom I bare, sweet scion of my body and lovely in form, as of one seized violently; though with my eyes I saw nothing. But you---for with your beams you look down fro the bright upper air over all the earth and sea--- tell me truly of my dear child, if you have seen her anywhere, what god or mortal man has violently seied her against her will and mine, and so made off."So said she. And the Son of Hyperion answered her:
Queen Demeter, daughter of rich-haired Rhea, I will tell you the truth; for I greatly reverence and pity you in your grief for your trim-ankled daughter. None other of the deathless gods is to blame, but only cloud-gathering Zeus who gave her to Hades, her father's brother, to be called his buxom wife, And Hades seized her and took her loudly crying in his chariot down to his realm of mist and gloom. Yet, goddess, cease your loud lament and keep not vain anger unrelentingly: Aidoneus, the Ruler of Many, is no unfitting husband among the deathless gods for your child, being your own brother and born of the same stock: also, for honor, he has that third share which he received when division was made at the first, and is appointed lord of those among whom he dwells.
So he spoke, and called to his horses: and at his chiding they quickly whirled the swift chariot along, like long winged-birds.But grief yet more terrible and savage came into the heart of Demeter, and thereafter she was so angered with the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that she avoided the gathering of the gods and high Olympus, and went to the towns and rich fields of men, disfiguring her form a long while. And no one of men or deep-bosomed women knew her when they saw her, until she came to the house of wise Celeus who then was lord of fragrant Eleusis. Vexed in her dear heart, she sat near the wayside by the Maiden Well, from which the women of the place were used to draw water, in a shady place over which grew an olive shrub.(Homeric Hymn to Demeter 51-100)
You sat at the well Callichoron, without news of your child.(Callimachus: Fragment 611)

Another road leads from Eleusis to Megara, Following this road we come to a well called the Flowery Well. The poet Pamphos says that Demeter sat on this well in the likeness of an old woman after the rape of her daughter; and that thence she was conducted, in the character of an old woman, by the daughter of Celeus to their mother Metanira, who entrusted her with the upbringing of the boy. A little way from the well is a sanctuary of Metanira.(Pausanias I, 39, 1-2)

And she was like an ancient woman who is cut off from child bearing and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite, like the nurses of king's children who deal justice, or like the house-keepers in their echoing halls. There the daughters of Celeus, son of Eleusis, saw her, as they were coming for easy-drawn water, to carry it in pitchers of bronze to their dear father's house: four were they and like goddesses in the flower of their girlhood, Callidice and Cleisidice and lovely Demo and Callithoe who was the eldest of them all. They knew her not, - for the gods are not easily discerned by mortals -, but standing near by her spoke winged words:"Old mother, whence and who are you of folk born long ago? Why are you gone away from the city and do not draw near the houses? For there in the shady halls are women of just such age as you, and others younger; and they would welcome you both by word and by deed."Thus they said. And she, that queen among goddesses answered them saying: "Hail, dear children, whosoever you are of womankind. I will tell you my story; for it is not unseemly that I should tell you truly what you ask. Doso is my name, for my stately mother gave it me. And now I am come from Crete over the sea's wide back, - not willingly; but pirates brought me thence by force of strength against my liking. Afterwards they put in with their swift craft to Thoricus, and there the women landed on the shore in full throng and the men likewise, and they began to make ready a meal by the stern cables of the ship. But my heart craved not pleasant food, and I fled secretly across the dark country and escaped my master, that they should not take me unpurchased across the sea, there to win a price for me. And so I wandered and am come here: and I know not at all what land this is or what people are in it. But may all those who dwell on Olympus give you husbands and birth of children as parents desire, so you take pity on me, maidens, and show me this clearly that I may learn, dear children, to the house of what man and woman I may go, to work for them cheerfully at such tasks as belong to a woman of my age. Well could I nurse a new-born child, holding him in my arms, or keep house, or spread my master' bed in a recess of the well-built chamber, or teach the women their work."So said the goddess. And straightway the unwed maiden Callidice, goodliest in form of the dauhters of Celeus, answered her and said:
Mother, what the gods send us, we mortals bear perforce, although we suffer; for they are much stronger than we. But now I will teach you clearly, telling you the name of men who have great power and honor here and are chief among the people, guarding our city's coif of towers by their wisdom and true judgments: there is wise Triptolemus and Dioclus and Polyxeinus and blameless Eumolpus and Dolichus and our own brave father. All these have wives who manage in the house and no one of them? so soon as she had seen you, would dishonor you and turn you from the house, but they will welcome you; for indeed you are godlike, But if you will, stay here; and we will go to our father's house and tell Metaneira, our deep-bosomed mother, all this matter fully, that she may bid you rather come to our home than search after the houses of others. She has an only son, late-born, who is being nursed in our well-built house, a child of many prayers and welcome: if you could bring him up until he reached the full measure of youth, any one of womankind who should see you would straightway envy you, such gifts would our mother give for his upbringing.
So she spoke: and the goddess bowed her head in assent. And they filled their shining vessels with water and carried them off rejoicing. Quickly they came to their father's great house and straightway told their mother according as they had heard and seen. Then she bade them go with all speed and invite the stranger to come for a measureless hire. As hinds or heifers in spring time, when sated with pasture, bound about a meadow, so they, holding up the folds of their lovely garments, darted down the hollow path, and their hair like a crocus flower streamed about their shoulders. And they found the good goddess near the wayside where they had left her before and led her to the house of their dear father. And she walked behind, distressed in her dear heart, with her head veiled and wearing a dark cloak which waved about the slender feet of the goddess.Soon they came to the house of heaven-nurtured Celeus and went through the portico to where their queenly mother sat by a pillar of the close-fitted roof, holding her son, a tender scion, in her bosom. And the girls ran to her. But the goddess walked to the threshold: and her head reached the roof and she filled the doorway with a heavenly radiance. Then awe and reverence and pale fear took hold of Metaneira, and she rose up from her couch before Demeter, and bade her be seated. But Demeter, bringer of seasons and giver of perfect gifts, would not sit upon the bright couch, but stayed silent with lovely eyes cast down until careful Iambe placed a jointed seat for her and threw over it a silvery fleece. Then she sat down and held her veil in her hands before her face. A long time she sat upon the stool without speaking because of her sorrow, and greeted no one by word or by sign, but rested, never smiling and tasting neither food nor drink, because she pined with longing for her deep-bosomed daughter, until careful Iambe - who pleased her moods in aftertime also - moved the holy lady with many a quip and jest to smile and laugh and cheer her heart. Then Metaneira filled a cup with sweet wine and offered it to her; but she refused it, for she said it was not lawful for her to drink red wine, but bade them mix meal and water with soft mint and give her to drink. And Metaneira mixed the draught and gave it to the goddess as she bade. So the great queen Deo received it to observe the sacrament.(Homeric Hymn to Demeter 101-212)
But Deo refused to drink, being tipsy with Persephone's trouble: parents of an only child ever tremble for their beloved children.(Nonnus, Dionysiaca VI, 30-32)

Meanwhile all in vain the affrighted mother seeks her daughter in every land, on every deep. Not Aurora rising with dewy tresses, not Hesperus sees her pausing in the search. She kindles two pine torches in the fires of Aetna, and wanders without rest through the frosty shades of night; again, when the genial day had dimmed the stars, she was still seeking her daughter from the setting to the rising of the sun. Faint with toil and athirst, she had moistened her lips in no fountain, when she chanced to see a hut thatched with straw, and knocked at its lowly door. Then out came an old woman and beheld the goddess, and when she asked for water gave her a sweet drink with parched barley floating upon it. While she drank, a coarse, saucy boy stood watching her, and mocked her and called her greedy. She was offended, and threw what she had not yet drunk, with the barley grain, full in his face.(Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 438-452)

After the Rape of Kore, the myth goes on to recount, Demeter, being unable to find her daughter, kindled torches in the craters of Mt. Aetna and visited many parts of the inhabited world, and upon the men who received her with the greatest favor she conferred benefactions, rewarding them with the gift of the fruit of the wheat. And since a more kindly welcome was extended the goddess by the Athenians than by any other people, they were the first after the Siceliotae to be given the fruit of the wheat; and in return for this gift the citizens of that city in assembly honored the goddess above all others with the establishment both of most notable sacrifices and of the mysteries of Eleusis, which, by reason of their very great antiquity and sanctity, have come to be famous among all mankind. From the Athenians many peoples received a portion of the gracious gift of the corn, and they in turn, sharing the gift of the seed with their neighbors, in this way caused all the inhabited world to abound with it. And the inhabitants of Sicily, since by reason of the intimate relationship of Demeter and Kore with them they were the first to share in the corn after its discovery, instituted to each one of the goddesses sacrifices and festive gatherings, which they name after them, and by the time chosen for these made acknowledgment of the gifts which had been conferred upon them. In the case of Kore, for instance, they established the celebration of her return at about the time when the fruit of the corn was found to come to maturity, and they celebrate this sacrifice and festive gathering with such strictness of observance and such zeal as we should reasonably expect those men to show who are returning thanks for having been selected before all mankind for the greatest possible gift; but in the case of Demeter they preferred that time for the sacrifice when the sowing of the corn is first begun, and for a period of ten days they hold a festive gathering which bears the name of this goddess and is most magnificent by reason of the brilliance of their preparation for it, while in the observance of it they imitate the ancient manner of life. And it is their custom during these days to indulge in coarse language as they associate one with another, the reason being that by such coarseness the goddess, grieved though she was of the Rape of Kore, burst into laughter.(Diodorus Siculus V, 4)
And of them all, well-girded Metaneira first began to speak: "Hail, lady! For I think you are not meanly but nobly born; truly dignity and grace are conspicuous upon your eyes as in the eyes of kings that deal justice. Yet we mortals bear perforce what the gods send us, though we be grieved; for a yoke is set upon our necks. But now since you are come here, you shall have what I can bestow: and nurse me this child whom the gods gave me in my old age and beyond my hope, a son much prayed for. If you should bring him up until he reach the full measure of youth, any one of womankind that sees you will straightway envy you, so great reward would I give for his upbringing."Then rich-haired Demeter answered her:
And to you, also, lady, all hail, and may the gods give you good! Gladly will I take the boy to my breast, as you bid me, and will nurse him. Never, I ween, through any heedlessness of his nurse shall witchcraft hurt him nor yet the Undercutter: for I know a charm far stronger than the Woodcutter, and I know an excellent safeguard against woeful witchcraft.
When she had so spoken, she took the child in her fragrant bosom with her divine hands: and his mother was glad in her heart. So the goddess nursed in the palace Demophoön, wise Celeus' goodly son whom well-girded Metaneira bare. And the child grew like some immortal being, not fed with food nor nourished at the breast: for by day rich-crowned Demeter would anoint him with ambrosia as if he were the offspring of a god and breathe sweetly upon him as she held him in her bosom, but at night she would hide him like a brand in the heart of the fire unknown to his dear parents. And it wrought great wonder in these that he grew beyond his age; for he was like the gods face to face. And she would have made him deathless and unageing, had not well-girded Metaneira in her heedlessness kept watch by night from her sweet-smelling chamber and spied. But she wailed and smote her two hips, because she feared for her son and was greatly distraught in her heart, so she lamented and uttered winged words:"Demophoön, my son, the strange woman buries you deep in fire and works grief and bitter sorrow for me."Thus she spoke, mourning. And the bright goddess, lovely crowned Demeter, heard her, and was wroth with her. So with her divine hands she snatched from the fire the dear son whom Metaneira had born unhoped-for in the palace, and cast him from her to the ground; for she was terribly angry in her heart. Forthwith she said to well-girded Metaneira:
Witless are you mortals and dull to foresee your lot, whether of good or evil, that comes upon you. For now in your heedlessness you have wrought folly past healing; for - be witness the oath of the gods, the relentless water of Styx - I would have made your dear son deathless and unaging all his day and would have bestowed on him everlasting honor, but now he can in no way escape death and the fates. Yet shall unfailing honor always rest upon him, because he lay upon my knees and slept in my arms. But, as the years move round and when he is in his prime, the sons of the Eleusinian shall ever wage war and dread strife with one another continually. Lo! I am that Demeter who has share of honor and is the greatest help and cause of joy to the undying gods and mortal men. But now, let all the people build me a great temple and an altar below it and beneath the city and its sheer wall upon a rising hillock above Callichorus. And I myself will teach my rites, that hereafter you may reverently perform them and so win the favor of my heart.
When she had so said, the goddess changed her stature and her looks, thrusting old age away from her: beauty spread round about her and a lovely fragrance was wafted from her sweet-smelling robes, and from the divine body of the goddess a light shone afar, while golden tresses spread down over her shoulders, so that the strong house was filled with brightness as with lightning. And so she went out from the palace.And straightway Metaneira's knees were loosed and she remained speechless for a long while and did not remember to take up her late-born son from the ground. But his sisters heard his pitiful wailing and sprang down from their well-spread bed: one of them took up the child in her arms and laid him in her bosom while another revived the fire, and a third rushed with soft feet to bring their mother from her fragrant chamber. And they gathered about the struggling child and washed him, embracing him lovingly; but he was not comforted, because nurse and handmaids much less skillful were holding him now.All night long they sought to appease the glorious goddess, quaking with fear. But, as soon as dawn began to show they told powerful Celeus all things without fail, as the lovely-crowned goddess Demeter charged them. So Celeus called the countless people to an assembly and bade them make a goodly temple for rich-haired Demeter and an altar upon the rising hillock. And they obeyed him right speedily and harkened to his voice, doing as he commanded. As for the child, he grew like an immortal being.Now when they had finished building and had drawn back from their toil, they went every man to his house. But golden-haired Demeter sat there apart from all the blessed gods and stayed, wasting with yearning for her deep-bosomed daughter. Then she caused a most dreadful and cruel year for mankind over the all-nourishing earth: the ground would not make the seed sprout, for rich-crowned Demeter kept it hid. In the fields the oxen drew many a curved plough in vain, and much white barley was cast upon the land without avail.(Homeric Hymn to Demeter 310-411)
She did not know as yet where her child was; still she reproached all lands, calling them ungrateful and unworthy of the gift of corn; but Sicily above all other lands, where she had found traces of her loss. So there with angry hand she broke in pieces the plows that turn the glebe, and in her rage she gave to destruction farmers and cattle alike, and bade the plowed fields to betray their trust, and blighted the seed. The fertility of this land, famous throughout the world, lay false to its good name: the crops died in early blade, now too much heat, now too much rain destroying them, Stars and winds were baleful, and greedy birds ate up the seed as soon as it was sown; tares and thorns and stubborn grasses choked the wheat.(Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 474-486)

Through wooded glen, o'er torrent's flood, and ocean's booming waves rushed the mountain goddess, mother of the gods, in frantic hate, once long ago, yearning for her daughter lost, whose name men dare not utter; loudly rattled the Bacchic castanets in shrill accord, what time those maidens, swift as whirlwinds, sped forth with the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures in quest of her that was ravished from the circling choir of virgins; here was Artemis with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, sheathed in mail, and spear in hand. But Zeus looked down from his throne in heaven, and turned the issue overwhither. Soon as the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, in seeking her daughter stolen so subtly as to baffle all pursuit, she crossed the snow-capped heights of Ida's nymphs; and in anguish cast her down amongst the rock and brushwood deep in snow; and, denying to man all increase to his tillage from those barren fields, she wasted the human race; nor would she let the leafy tendrils yield luxuriant fodder for the cattle wherefore many a beast lay dying; no sacrifice was offered to the gods and on the altars were no cake to burn; yea, and she made the dew-fed founts of crystal water to cease their flow, in her insatiate sorrow for her child. But when for god and tribes of men alike she made an end to festal cheer, Zeus spoke out, seeking to smooth the mother's moody soul, "Ye stately Graces, go banish from Demeter's angry heart the grief her wanderings bring upon her for her child, and go, ye Muses too, with tuneful choir." Thereon did Cypris, fairest of the blessed gods, first catch up the crashing cymbals, native to that land, and the drum with tight-stretched skin and then Demeter smiled, and in her hand did take the deep-toned flute, well pleased with its loud note.(Euripides, Helen 1303-1361)

So she would have destroyed the whole race of man with cruel famine and have robbed them who dwell on Olympus of their glorious right of gifts and sacrifices, had not Zeus perceived and marked this in his heart. First he sent olden-winged Iris to call rich-haired Demeter, lovely in form. So he commanded. And she obeyed the dark-clouded Son of Cronos, and sped with swift feet across the space between. She came to the stronghold of fragrant Eleusis, and there finding dark-cloaked Demeter in her temple, spake to her and uttered winged words:
Demeter, father Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, calls you to come join the tribes of the eternal gods: come therefore, and let not the message I bring from Zeus pass unobeyed.
Thus said Iris imploring her. But Demeter's heart was not moved. Then again the father sent forth all the blessed and eternal gods besides: and they came, one after the other, and kept calling her and offering many very beautiful gifts and whatever rights she might be pleased to choose among the deathless gods. Yet no one was able to persuade her mind and will, so wrath was he in her heart; but she stubbornly rejected all their words: for she vowed that she would never set foot on fragrant Olympus nor let fruit spring out of the ground, until she beheld with her eyes her own fair-faced daughter.Now when all-seeing Zeus the loud-thunderer heard this, he sent the Slayer of Argus whose wand is of gold to Erebus, so that having won over Hades with soft words, he might lead forth chaste Persephone to the light from the misty gloom to join the gods, and that her mother might see her with her eyes and cease from her anger. And Hermes obeyed, and leaving the house of Olympus, straightway sprang down with speed to the hidden places of the earth. And he found the lord Hades in his house seated upon a couch, and his shy mate with him, much reluctant, because she yearned for her mother. But she was afar off, brooding on her fell design because of the deed of the blessed god. And the strong Slayer of Argus drew near and said:
Dark-haired Hades, ruler over the departed, father Zeus bids me bring noble Persephone forth from Erebus unto the gods, that her mother may see her with her eyes and cease from her dread anger with the immortals; for now she plans an awful deed, to destroy the weakly tribes of earth-born men by keeping seed hidden beneath the earth, and so she makes an end of the honors of the undying gods. For she keeps fearful anger and does not consort with the gods, but sits aloof in her fragrant temple, dwelling in the rocky hold of Eleusis.
So he said. And Aidoneus, ruler over the dead, smiled grimly and obeyed the behest of Zeus the king. For he straightway urged wise Persephone, saying:
Go now, Persephone, to your dark-robed mother, go, and feel kindly in your heart towards me: be not so exceedingly cast down; for I shall be no unfitting husband for you among the deathless gods, that am own brother to father Zeus. And while you are here, you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished for evermore.
When he said this, wise Persephone was filled with joy and hastily sprang up for gladness. But he on his part secretly gave her sweet pomegranate seed to eat, taking care for himself that he might not remain continually with grave, dark-robed Demeter. Then Aidoneus the Ruler of Many openly got ready his deathless horse beneath the olden chariot. And she mounted on the chariot, and the strong Slayer of Argus took reins and whip in his dear hands and drove forth from the hall, the horses speeding readily. Swiftly they traversed their long course, and neither the sea nor river waters nor grassy glens nor mountain-peaks checked the career of the immortal horses, but they clave the deep air above them as they went. And Hermes brought them to the place where rich-crowned Demeter was staying and checked them before her fragrant temple.And when Demeter saw them, she rushed forth as does a Maenad down some thick-wooded mountain, while Persephone on the other side, when she saw her mother's sweet eyes, left the chariot and horses, and leaped down to run to her and falling upon her neck, embraced her. But while Demeter was still holding her dear child in her arms, her heart suddenly misgave her for some snare, so that she feared greatly and ceased fondling her daughter and asked of her at once:
My child, tell me, surely you have not tasted any food while you were below? Speak out and hide nothing, but let us both know. For if you have not, you shall come back from loathly Hades and live with me and your father the dark-clouded Son of Cronos and be honored by all the deathless gods; but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret place of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men. And now tell me how he rapt you away to the realm of darkness and gloom, and by what trick did the strong Host of Many beguile you?
Then beautiful Persephone answered her thus:
Mother , I will tell you all without error. When luck-bringing Hermes came, swift messenger from my father the Son of Cronos and the other Sons of Heaven, bidding me come back from Erebus that you might see me with your eyes and so cease from your anger and fearful wrath against the gods, I sprang up at once for joy; but he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste against my will.
(Homeric Hymn to Demeter 31-411)

"Proserpina shall return to heaven, but on one condition only: if in the lower-world no food has as yet touched her lips. For so have the fates decreed."He spoke; but Ceres was resolved to have her daughter back. Not so the fates; for the girl had already broken her fast, and while, simple child that she was she wandered in the trim garden, she had plucked a purple pomegranate hanging from a bending bough, and peeling off the hard rind, she had eaten seven of the seeds...But now Jove, holding the balance between his brother and his grieving sister, divides the revolving year into two equal parts. Now the goddess, the common divinity of two realms, spends half the months with her mother and with her husband, half.(Ovid, Metamorphoses 530-538, 564-567)

"All this is true, sore though it grieves me to tell the tale." So did they then, with hearts at one, greatly cheer each the other's soul and spirit with many an embrace: their heart had relief from their griefs while each took and gave back joyousness.Then bright-coifed Hecate came near to them, and often did she embrace the daughter of holy Demeter: and from that time the lady Hecate was minister and companion to Persephone.And all-seeing Zeus sent a messenger to them, rich-haired Rhea, to bring dark-cloaked Demeter to join the families of the gods: and he promised to give her what rights she should choose among the deathless gods and agreed that her daughter should go down for the third part of the circling year to darkness and gloom, but for the two parts should live with her mother and the other deathless gods. Thus he commanded. And the goddess did not disobey the message of Zeus; swiftly she rushed down from the peaks of Olympus and came to the plain of Rharus rich, fertile corn-land once, but then in nowise fruitful, for it lay idle and utterly leafless, because the white grain was hidden by design of trim-ankled Demeter. But afterwards, as springtime waxed, it was soon to be waving with long ears of corn, and its rich furrows to be loaded with grain upon the ground, while others would already be bound in sheaves. There first he landed from the fruitless upper air: and glad were the goddesses to see each other and cheered in heart. Then bright-coifed Rhea said to Demeter:
Come, my daughter; for far-seeing Zeus the loud-thunderer calls you to join the families of the gods, and has promised to give you what rights you please among the deathless gods, and has agreed that for a third part of the circling year your daughter shall go down to darkness and gloom, but for the two parts shall be with you and the other deathless gods: so has he declared it shall be and has bowed his head in token. But come, my child, obey, and be not too angry unrelentingly with the dark-clouded son of Cronos; but rather increase forthwith for men the fruit that give them life.
So spoke Rhea. And rich-crowned Demeter did not refuse but straightway made fruit to spring up from the rich lands, so that the whole wide earth was laden with leaves and flowers. Then she went, and to the kings who deal justice, Triptolemus and Diocles, the horse-driver, and to doughty Eumolpus and Celeus, leader of the people, she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries, to Triptolemus and Polyxeinus and Diocles also, - awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiated and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom.But when the bright goddess had taught them all, they went to Olympus to the gathering of the other gods. And there they dwell beside Zeus who delights in thunder, awful and reverend goddesses. Right blessed is he among men on earth whom they freely love: soon they do send Plutus as guest to his great house, Plutus who gives wealth to mortal men.And now, queen of the land of sweet Eleusis and sea-girt Paros and rocky Antron, lady, giver of good gifts, bringer of seasons, queen Deo, be gracious, you and your daughter all beauteous Persephone, and for my song grant me heart-cheering substance. And now I will remember you and another song also.(Homeric Hymn to Demeter 433-495)

Agricultural Background and History

Triptolemus and the Spread of Agriculture
What I say is supported by the testimony of Sophocles, the tragic poet, in his drama entitled Triptolemus ; for he there represents Demeter as informing Triptolemus how large a tract of land he would have to travel over while sowing it with the seeds he had given him.(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities I, 12)
Here she gave her fleet car to Triptolemus, and bade him scatter the seed of grain she gave, part in the untilled earth and part in fields that had long lain fallow.... "My country is far-famed Athens; Triptolemus, my name. I came neither by ship over the sea, nor on foot by land; the air opened a path for me. I bring the gifts of Ceres, which, if you sprinkle them over your wide field, will give a fruitful harvest and food not wild."(Ovid, Metamorphoses V, 645-647, 652-656)
The right course, indeed, would have been for us not to take up arms against one another in the beginning, since the tradition is that the first strangers to whom Triptolemus, our ancestor, revealed the mystic rites of Demeter and Kore were Heracles, your state's founder, and the Dioscuri, your citizens; and further, that it was upon Peloponnesus that he first bestowed the seed of Demeter's fruit.(Xenophon, Hellenica VI, 3)

Above the fountain are temples: one of them is a temple of Demeter and the Maid (Kore), in the other there is an image of Triptolemus. I will tell the story of Triptolemus, omitting what relates to Deiope, Of all the Greeks it is the Argives who must dispute the claim of the Athenians to antiquity and to the possession of gifts of the gods, just as among the barbarians it is the Egyptians who dispute the claims of the Phrygians. The story runs that when Demeter came to Argos, Pelasgus received her in his house, and that Chrysanthis, knowing the rape of the Maid told it to her. They say that afterwards Trochilus, a priest of the mysteries, fled from Argos on account of the enmity of Agenor, and came to Attica, where he married an Eleusinian wife, and there were born to him two sons, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. This is the Argive story. But the Athenians and those who take their side know that Triptolemus the son of Celeus was the first who sowed cultivated grain. However, some verses of Musaeus (if his they are) declare Triptolemus to be a child of Ocean and Earth; while other verses, which are attributed, in my opinion, with just as little reason, to Orpheus, assert that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons of Dysaules, and that, as a reward for the information they gave her about her daughter, Demeter allowed them to sow the grain. Choerilus the Athenian, in a drama called Alope says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was a daughter of Amphictyon, but that the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, and that the father of Cercyon was Poseidon. I purposed to pursue the subject, and describe all the objects that admit of description in the sanctuary at Athens called the Eleusinium, but I was prevented from so doing by a vision in a dream. I will therefore turn to what may be lawfully told to everybody, In front of this temple, in which is the image of Triptolemus, stands a bronze ox as in the act of being led to sacrifice; and Epimenides the Cnosian is portrayed sitting, of whom they say that going into the country he entered a cave and slept, and did not awake until forty years had come and gone, and afterwards he made verses and purified cities, Athens among the rest.(Pausanias I, 14:1-3)

Pausanias' Descriptions of Other Demeter Cults
After Thelpusa the Ladon descends to the sanctuary of Demeter in Onceum. The Thelpusians call the goddess Fury, and with them agrees Antimachus, the poet who celebrated the expedition of the Argives against Thebes. His verse runs thus: -They say that there is a seat of Demeter Fury in that place. Oncius, according to common fame, was a son of Apollo, and he reigned at Onceum in the land of Thelpusa. The goddess received the surname of Fury on this wise. When Demeter was seeking her daughter, they say that in her wanderings she was followed by Poseidon, who desired to gain her favors. So she turned herself into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Oncius; but Poseidon, detecting the deception, likewise took the form of a horse, and so enjoyed Demeter. They say that at first Demeter was wroth, but that in time she relented, and was fain to bathe in the Ladon. Hence the goddess received two surnames: that of fury (Erinus) on account of her wrath, because the Arcadians call a fit of anger erinuein ; and that of Lusia, because she bathed (lousasthai) in the Ladon. The images in the temple are of wood, but the faces, hands, feet, are of Parian marble. The image of the Fury holds the so-called cista (sacred basket), and in her right hand a torch: the height of the image we guessed to be nine feet. The Lusia appeared to be six feet high. Some think that the image represents Themis, and not Demeter Lusia; but this is an idle fancy, and so I would have them know. They say that Demeter had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to uninitiated persons, and that he also gave birth to the horse Arion; it was for this reason, they say, that they gave Poseidon the surname of Hippius ('of horses'), and they were first of the Arcadians who did so.(Pausanias VIII, 25:4-7)

... and with befitting counsel, while he tends, not only the worship of Demeter with the ruddy feet, and the festival of her daughter with her white horses, (Pindar, Olympian Odes VI, 95)

The Arcadians bring into the sanctuary the fruits of all cultivated trees except the pomegranate. On the right as you leave the temple there is a mirror fitted into the wall. Anyone who looks into this mirror will see himself either very dimly or not at all, but the images of the gods and the throne are clearly visible. Beside the temple of the mistress a little higher up on the right is what is called the Hall. Here the Arcadians perform mysteries, and sacrifice victims to the Mistress in great abundance. Each man sacrifices what he has got. They do not cut the throats of the victims as in the other sacrifices, but each man lops off a limb of the victim, it matters not which. This Mistress is worshipped by the Arcadians above all the gods and they say she is a daughter of Poseidon and Demeter. Mistress is her popular surname, just as the daughter of Demeter by Zeus is surnamed the Maid. The real name of the Maid is Proserpine, as it occurs in the poetry of Homer and of Pamphos before him; but the true name of the Mistress I fear to communicate to the uninitiated.(Pausanias VIII, 37:7-9)
In front of the temple is an altar to Demeter, and another to the Mistress, and after it one to the Great Mother. The images of the goddesses, namely, the mistress and Demeter, as well as the throne on which they sit and the footstool under their feet, are all made of a single block of stone. None of the drapery or work about the throne is made of a different stone, attached with iron clamps or cement: all is of one block, This block was not fetched from outside: they say that, following directions given in a dream, they found it by digging within the enclosure. The size of each of the two images is about that of the image of the Mother at Athens. They are also works of Damophon. Demeter carries a torch in her right hand, the other hand is laid on the Mistress. The Mistress has a scepter, and the basket, as it is called, on her knees: she holds the basket with her right hand.(Pausanias VIII, 37:2-4)

The other mountain, Mount Elaius, is about thirty furlongs from Phigalia: there is a cave there sacred to Demeter surnamed the Black. All that the people of Thelpusa say touching the loves of Poseidon and Demeter is believed by the Phigalians; but the Phigalians say that Demeter gave birth not to a horse, but to her whom the Arcadians name the Mistress, and they say that afterwards Demeter, wroth with Poseidon, and mourning the rape of Proserpine, put on black raiment, and entering this grotto tarried there in seclusion a long while. But when all the fruits of the earth were wasting away, and the race of man was perishing still more of hunger, none of the other gods, it would seem, knew where Demeter was hid; but Pan, roving over Arcadia, and hunting now on one mountain, now on another, came at last to Mount Elaius, and spied Demeter, and saw the plight she was in, and the garb she wore. So Zeus learnt of his from Pan, and sent the Fates to Demeter, and she hearkened to the Fates, and swallowed her wrath, and abated even from her grief.For that reason the Phigalians say that they accounted the grotto sacred to Demeter, and set up in it an image of wood. The image, they say, was made thus: it was seated on a rock, and was in the likeness of a woman, all but the head; the head and the hair were those of a horse, and attached to the head were figures of serpents and other wild beasts; she was clad in a tunic that reached even to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, and on the other a dove. Why they made the image thus is plain to any man of ordinary sagacity who is versed in legendary lore. They say they surnamed her Black, because the garb the goddess wore was black. They do not remember who made this wooden image, nor how it caught fire. When the old image disappeared the Phigalians did not give the goddess another in its stead, and as to the festivals and sacrifices, why they neglected most of them, until a dearth came upon the land; then they besought the god, and the Pythian priestess answered them as follows: -Arcadians, Azanians, acorn-eaters, who inhabit Phigalia, the cave where the Horse-mother Deo lay hid,You come to learn a riddance of grievous famine,You who alone have been nomads twice, and twice tasted the berries wild.'Twas Deo stopped your pasturing, and 'twas Deo caused you againTo go without the cakes of herdsmen who drag the ripe ears home,Because she was robbed of privileges that men of old bestowed on her and of her ancient honors,And soon shall she make you to eat each other, and to feast on your children,If you appease not her wrath with libations offered of the whole people,And if you adorn not the nook of the tunnel with honors divine.When the oracle was reported to them, the Phigalians held Demeter in higher honor than before, and in particular they induced Onatas, the Aeginetan, son of Micon, to make them an image of Demeter for so much. There is a bronze Apollo at Pergamus by this Onatus, which is one of the greatest marvels both for size and workmanship. So he made a bronze image for the Phigalians guided by a painting or a copy which he discovered of the ancient wooden image; but he relied mainly, it is said, on directions received in dreams.(Pausanias VIII, 42:1-7, 11)

However that may be, the first who reigned in this country were Polycaon, son of Lelex, and his wife Messene. It was to this Messene that Caucon, son of Celaenus, son of Phylus, brought the orgies of the Great Goddesses from Eleusis. The Athenians say that Phylus himself was a son of Earth, and they are supported by the hymn which Musaeus composed on Demeter for Lycomids. But many years after the time of Caucon the mysteries of the Great Goddesses were raised to higher honor by Lycus, son of Pandion; and the place where he purified the initiated is still named the oak-coppice of Lycus.... And that this Lycus was the son of Pandion is shown by the verses inscribed on the statue of Methapus. For Methapus also made some changes in the mode of celebrating the mysteries. Methapus was an Athenian by descent, and he was a devisor of Mysteries and all sorts of orgies It was he who instituted the mysteries of the Cabiri for the Thebans; and he also set up in the chapel of the Lycomids a statue inscribed with an epigram, which contains a passage confirming what I have said: -And I purified houses of Hermes ... and pathsOf Demeter and of the first-born Maid, where they sayThat Messene instituted for the Great Goddesses a riteWhich she learned from Caucon, illustrious scion of Phylus.And I marveled how Lycus, son of Pandion,Established all the sacred rites of Attis in dear Andania.(Pausanias IV, 1:5-8)

At the other or western end of the colonnade there is an enclosure sacred to the Great Goddesses. The Great Goddesses are Demeter and the Maid, as I have already shown in my account of Messenia. The Maid is called Savior by the Arcadians.... With regard to the image of the Great Goddesses, that of Demeter is of stone throughout, but the drapery of the Savior is of wood. The height of each is about fifteen feet. The images ... and before them he made small images of girls in tunics reaching to their ankles: each of the two girls bears on her head a basket full of flowers: they are said to be the daughters of Damophon. But those who put a religious interpretation on them think that they are Athena and Artemis gathering flowers with Proserpine.(Pausanias VIII, 31:1-2)

Five-and-twenty furlongs from here you come to a grove of Cabirian Demeter and the Maid: the initiated are allowed to enter it. About seven furlongs from this grove is the sanctuary of the Cabiri. I must crave pardon of the curious if I preserve silence as to who the Cabiri are, and what rites are performed in honor of them and their mother. There is, however, nothing to prevent me disclosing the account which the Thebans give of the origin of the rites. They say that in this place there was once a city, the men of which were named Cabiri; and that Demeter made the acquaintance of Prometheus, one of the Cabiri, and of his son Aetnaeus, and entrusted something to their care; but what it was he entrusted to them and what happened to it, I thought it wrong to set down. At all events, the mysteries are a gift of Demeter to the Cabiri.(Pausanias IX, 25:5-6)

Once more, when Alexander after his victory gave Thebes and all the land of Thebes to the flames, some Macedonians who entered the sanctuary of the Cabiri because it was in the enemy's country, were destroyed by thunderbolts and lightening from heaven. So holy has this sanctuary been from the beginning.(Pausanias IX, 25:10)

But the most remarkable object of all is a sanctuary of Demeter on Mount Pron. The Hermionians say that the founders of this sanctuary were Clymenus, son of Phoroneus, and his sister Chthonia. But the Argive story is this. When Demeter came to Argolis she was hospitably received by Athera and Mysius. However, Colontas neither opened his house to the goddess nor paid her any other mark of respect. But this churlish behavior was not to the mind of his daughter Chthonia. They each had their reward: the house of Colontas was burnt down and he in it; but Chthonia was brought by Demeter to Hermion and founded the sanctuary. However that may have been, the goddess herself is certainly called Chthonia ('subterranean'), and they celebrate a festival called Chthonia every year in summer-time.(Pausanias II, 35:4-5)
The Pheneatians have also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian, and they celebrate mysteries in her honor, alleging that rites identical with those performed at Eleusis were instituted in their land; for Naus, they say, a grandson of Eumolpus, came to their country in obedience to an oracle from Delphi. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess is what is called the Petroma, two great stones fitted to each other. Every second year, when they are celebrating what they call the Greater Mysteries they open these stones, and taking out of them certain writings which bear on the mysteries, they read them in the hearing of the initiated, and put them back in their place that same night. I know, too, that on the weightiest matters most of the Pheneatians swear by the Petroma. There is a round top on it, which contains a mask of Demeter Cidaria: this mask the priest puts on his face at the Greater Mysteries, and smites the Underground Folk with rods. I suppose there is some legend to account for the custom. The Pheneatians have a legend that Demeter came hither on her wanderings even before Naus; and that to those of the Pheneatians who welcomed her hospitably she gave all the different kinds of pulse except beans. They have a sacred story about the bean to show why they think it an unclean kind of pulse. The men who received the goddess, according to the Pheneatian legend, were Trisaules and Damithales: They built a temple of Demeter Thesmia ('goddess of laws') under Mount Cyllene, and instituted in her honor the mysteries which they still celebrate.(Pausanias VIII, 15:1-4)

Dionysus and Iacchos at Eleusis

Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysus, Apollo, Hecate, the Muses, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bacchic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name "Iacchus" not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the genius of Demeter. And branch-bearing, choral dancing, and initiations are common elements in the worship of these gods. As for the Muses and Apollo, the Muses preside over the choruses, whereas Apollo presides both over these and the rites of divination. But all educated men, and especially the musician, are ministers of the Muses; and both these and those who have to do with divination are ministers of Apollo; and the initiated and torch-bearers and hierophants, of Demeter; and the Sileni and Satyri and Bacchae, and also the Lenae and Thyiae and Mimallones and Naides and Nymphae and the beings called Tityri, of Dionysus.(Strabo Geography X, 3:10)

Was it haply, when you did bring into being Dionysus of the flowing locks, who is enthroned beside Demeter of the clashing cymbals?(Pindar, Isthmian VII, 3-5)

O you of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride, offspring of loud-thundering Zeus! you who watches over famed Italia, and reigns, where all guests are welcomed, in the sheltered plain of Eleusinian Deo! O Bacchus,(Sophocles' Antigone 1115-1120)

Hard by is a temple of Demeter with images of the goddess, her daughter, and Iacchus, who is holding a torch. An inscription in Attic letters on the wall declares that they are works of Praxiteles.(Pausanias, I, 2:4)

This god (Dionysus) was born in Crete, men say, of Zeus and Persephone, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titans.(Diodorus Siculus, V, 75)

Orpheus the Classic Mystic
.
In my opinion Orpheus was a man who surpassed his predecessors in the beauty of his poetry, and attained great power because he was believed to have discovered mystic rites, purifications for wicked deeds, remedies for diseases, and modes of averting the wrath of the gods.... But some say that Orpheus was struck dead by the god with a thunderbolt on account of certain revelations which he had made to men at the mysteries.(Pausanias, IX, 30:4-5

To Amphietus Bacchus
Terrestrial Dionysus, hear my pray'r,Rise vigilant with Nymphs of lovely hair:Great Amphietus Bacchus, annual God,Who laid asleep in Proserpine's abode,Her sacred seat, didst lull to drowsy restThe rites triennial and the sacred feast;Which rous'd again by thee, in graceful ring,Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing;When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow'rs,Thou mov'st in concert with the circling hours,Come blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine,And on this sacred Telete propitious shine;Accept the pious incense and the pray'r,And make prolific holy fruits thy care.

To Bacchus
Of Jove and Proserpine occultly bornIn beds ineffable; all-bless'd pow'r,Whom with triennial off'rings men adore.Immortal daemon, hear my suppliant voice,Give me in blameless plenty to rejoice;And listen gracious to my mystic pray'r,Surrounded with thy choir of nurses fair,

To the Nereids
Give plenteous wealth, and bless our mystic rites;For you at first disclosed the rites divine,Of holy Bacchus and of Proserpine,

To the Nymphs
With Bacchus and with Ceres hear my pray'r,And to mankind abundant favor bear;Propitious listen to your suppliant's voice,Come, and benignant in these rites rejoice;Give plenteous seasons and sufficient wealth,And pour in lasting streams, continued health.

To Semele
Whom Proserpine permits to view the light,And visit mortals from the realms of night.Constant attending on the sacred rites,And feast triennial, which thy soul delights;When thy son's wondrous birth mankind relateAnd secrets pure and holy celebrate.Now I invoke thee, great Cadmean queen,To bless thy mystics, lenient and serene.

To Adonis
Descended from the secret bed divineOf Pluto's queen, the fair-hair'd Proserpine.'Tis thine to sink in Tartarus profound,And shine again thro' heav'ns illustrious roundCome, timely pow'r, with providential care,And to thy mystics earth's productions bear.

To the Curetes
Fam'd deities the guards of Proserpine,Preserving rites mysterious and divine:

To the Seasons
Invested with a veil of shining dew,A flow'ry veil delightful to the view:Attending Proserpine, when back from nightThe Fates and Graces lead her up to light;When in a band harmonious they advance,And joyful round her form the solemn dance.With Ceres triumphing, and Jove divine,Propitious come, and on our incense shine;Give earth a store of blameless fruits to bear,And make these novel mystics' life your care.

To Nereus
Great daemon, source of all, whose pow'r can makeThe sacred basis of blest Ceres shake,...Send to thy mystics necessary wealth,With gentle peace, and ever tranquil health.

To Love
Of all that Ceres' fertile realms contains,By which th'all parent Goddess life sustains,Or dismal Tartarus is doom'd to keep,Widely extended, or the sounding deep;For thee all Nature's various realms obey,Who rul'st alone, with universal sway.Come, blessed pow'r, regard these mystic fires,And far avert unlawful mad desires.

To Corybas
By thee transmuted, Ceres' body pureBecame a dragon's savage and obscure.Avert thy anger, hear me when I pray,And, by fix'd fate, drive fancy's fears away.

To the Sun
Propitious on these mystic labors shine,And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.

To the Moon
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays,And pleas'd accept thy suppliants' mystic praise.

To the Stars
These sacred rites regard with conscious rays,And end our works devoted to your praise.

To Latona
Hear me, O queen, and fav'rbly attend,And to this Telete divine afford a pleasing end.

To the Daemon
O holy blessed father, hear my pray'r,Disperse the seed of life-consuming care,With fav'ring mind the sacred rites attend,And grant to life a glorious blessed end.

To the Muse
Commanding queens, who lead to sacred lightThe intellect refin'd from Error's night;And to mankind each holy rite disclose,For mystic knowledge from your nature flows....Come, venerable, various pow'rs divine,With fav'ring aspect on your mystics shine;Bring glorious, ardent, lovely, fam'd desire,And warm my bosom with your sacred fire .

To Aurora
For all the culture of our life is thine.Come, blessed pow'r and to these rites incline:Thy holy light increase, and unconfin'dDiffuse its radiance on thy mystics' mind

To Themis
Honor'd by all, of form divinely bright,Majestic virgin, wand'ring in the night.Mankind from thee first learnt perfective rites,And Bacchus' nightly choirs thy soul delights;For the God's honors to disclose is thine,And holy mysteries and rites divine.Be present Goddess, to my pray'r inclin'd,And bless thy Telete with fav'ring mind.

To Death
Hear me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'dExtends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind.On thee the portion of our time depends,Whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends.Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid foldsBy which the soul attracting body holds:

To Mnemosyne or the Goddess of Memory
The consort I invoke of Jove divine,Source of the holy, sweetly speaking Nine;Free from th'oblivion of the fallen mind,By whom the soul with intellect is join'd.Reason's increase and thought to thee belong,All-powerful, pleasant, vigilant and strong.'Tis thine to waken from lethargic restAll thoughts deposited within the breast;And naught neglecting, vig'rous to exciteThe mental eye from dark oblivion's nightCome, blessed pow'r, thy mystics' mem'ry wakeTo holy rites, and Lethe's fetters break.

To Heaven
Propitious on a novel mystic shine,And crown his wishes with a life divine.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )
The Goddesses' Blessings of Nature
The earth, again, they looked upon as a kind of vessel which holds all growing things and so gave it the name "mother;" and in like manner the Greeks also call it Demeter, the word having been slightly changed in the course of time; for in olden time they called her Ge Meter (Earth Mother), to which Orpheus bears witness when he speaks of "Earth the Mother of all, Demeter giver of wealth."(Diodorus, I, 12)

Demeter is who gives food like a mother;(Plato Cratylus 404c)
"The chaste heaven loves to violate the earth, and love lays hold on earth to join in wedlock. The rain from the streaming heaven falls down and impregnates the earth; and she brings forth her mortals the pasturage of sheep and Demeter's sustenance; and the ripe season for the trees is perfected by the watery union. Of all this I am the cause."(Aeschylus, The Deipnosophists XIII, 600b)

Furthermore, the early men have given Dionysus the name of "Dimetor" ("twice-born"), reckoning it as a single and first birth when the plant is set in the ground and begins to grow, and as a second birth when it becomes laden with fruit and ripens its clusters, the god, therefore, being considered as having been born once from the earth and again from the vine. And though the writers of myths have handed down the account of a third birth as well, at which as they say the sons of Gaia tore to pieces the god, who was a son of Zeus and Demeter, and boiled him, but his members were brought together again by Demeter and he experienced a new birth as if for the first time, such accounts as this they trace back to certain causes found in nature. For he is considered to be the son of Zeus and Demeter, they hold, by reason of the fact that the vine gets its growth both from the earth and from rain and so bears as its fruit the wine which is pressed out from the clusters of grapes; and the statement that he was torn to pieces, while yet a youth, by the "earth-born" signifies the harvesting of the fruit by the laborers, and the boiling of his members has been worked into a myth by reason of the fact that most men boil the wine and then mix it, thereby improving its natural aroma and quality. Again, the account of his members, which the "earth-born" treated with despite, being brought together again and restored to their former natural state, shows forth that the vine, which has been stripped of its fruit and pruned at the yearly seasons, is restored by the earth to the high level of fruitfulness which it had before. For, in general, the ancient poets and writers of myths spoke of Demeter as Ge Meter (Earth Mother). And with these stories the teachings agree which are set forth in the Orphic poems and are introduced into their rites, but it is not lawful to recount them in detail to the uninitiated.(Diodorus III, 62:5-8)

And in general, the myths relate that the gods who receive the greatest approval at the hands of human beings are those who excelled in their benefactions by reason of their discovery of good things, namely, Dionysus and Demeter, the former because he was the discoverer of the most pleasing drink, the latter because she gave to the race of men the most excellent of the dry foods.Some writers of myths, however, relate that there was a second Dionysus who was much earlier in time than the one we have just mentioned. For according to them there was born of Zeus and Persephone a Dionysus who is called by some Sabazius and whose birth and sacrifices and honors are celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgrace resulting from the intercourse of the sexes. They state also that he excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed, this being the reason why they also represent him as wearing a horn.(Diodorus, Library of History IV, 3-4)The second Dionysus, the writers of myth relate, was born to Zeus by Persephone, though some say it was Demeter. He is represented by them as the first man to have yoked oxen to the plough, human beings before that time having prepared the ground by hand. Many other things also, which are useful for agriculture, were skillfully devised by him, whereby the masses were relieved of their great distress; and in return for this those whom he had benefited accorded to him honors and sacrifices like those offered to the gods, since all men were eager, because of the magnitude of his service to them, to accord to him immortality. And as a special symbol and token the painters and sculptors represented him with horns, at the same time making manifest thereby the other nature of Dionysus and also showing forth the magnitude of the service which he had devised for the farmers by his invention of the plough.(Diodorus Library of History. III, 64)

The season of the year also gives us a suspicion that this gloominess is brought about because of the disappearance from our sight of the crops and fruits that people in days of old did not regard as gods, but as necessary and important contributions of the gods toward the avoidance of a savage and a bestial life. At the time of year when they saw some of the fruit vanishing and disappearing completely from the tree, while they themselves were sowing others in a mean and poverty-stricken fashion still, scraping away the earth with their hands and again replacing it, committing the seed to the ground with uncertain expectation of their ever appearing again or coming to fruition they did many things like persons at a funeral in mourning for their dead.(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 70)

Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's grain.(Hesiod Works and Days 31)But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work, high-born Perses, that Hunger may hate you, and venerable Demeter richly crowned may love you and fill your barn with food.(Hesiod, Works and Days, 328-331)Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stock on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps.(Hesiod, Works and Day, 465-469)

When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set. Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea, and who inhabit rich country, the glens and dingles far from the tossing sea,---strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter's fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season.(Hesiod, Works and Days, 383-393)Set your slaves to winnow Demeter's holy grain, when strong Orion first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy place.(Hesiod, Works and Days,. 597-599)But when the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set, then remember to plough in season: and so the completed year will fitly pass beneath the earth.(Hesiod, Works and Days, 614-617)

O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and you servants of the goddess who attend her sanctuary, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus.... Now it chanced, that I had left my house and come to offer sacrifice on behalf of the earth's crop at this shrine, where first the fruitful corn showed its bristling shocks above the soil. And here at the holy altar of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that binds not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets.(Euripides, The Suppliants 1-4, 30-35)
You attendants, with tucked up robes, take the knives away from the ox; let the ox plough; sacrifice the lazy sow. The ax should never smite the neck that fits the yoke; let him live and often labor in the hard soil.(Ovid, Fasti IV, 409-416)
Good Ceres is content with little, if that little be but pure.(Ovid, Fasti IV 407-408)

The Thesmophoria
On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips. So too, with regard to the mysteries of Demeter, which the Greek term "the Thesmophoria," I know them, but I shall not mention them, except so far as may be done without impiety. The daughters of Danaus brought these rites from Egypt, and taught them to the Pelasgic women of the Peloponnese. Afterward, when the inhabitants of the peninsula were driven from their homes by the Dorians, the rites perished. Only in Arcadia, where the natives remained and were not compelled to migrate, their observance continued.(Herodotus, The History II, 171)

Look about you very carefully and throw out Demeter's holy grain upon the well-rolled threshing floor on the seventh of the mid-month.(Hesiod Works and Days 805-807)As the breezes sport with the chaff upon some goodly threshing floor, when men are winnowing - while yellow Demeter blows with the wind to sift the chaff from the grain, and the chaff-heaps grow whiter and whiter -(Homer Iliad V, 499-502)

Heracleides of Syracuse in his work On Institutions says that in Syracuse, on the Day of Consummation at the Thesmophoria, cakes of sesame and honey were molded in the shape of the female pudenda, and called throughout the whole of Sicily mylloi and carried about in honor of the goddesses.(Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists XIV, 646f)

When you have crossed the Asopus and are just ten furlongs from the city you come to the ruins of Potniae. Amongst them is a grove of Demeter and the Maid, The images at the river which flows past Potniae ... they name the goddesses. At a stated time they perform certain customary ceremonies: in particular they throw sucking pigs into what they call the hallsy and they say that at the same time next year those pigs appear at Dodona.(Pausanias IX, 8:1)

Eleusis and History
Tisamenus, the Elean, had prophesied to Pausanias and all the Greeks, and foretold them victory if they made no attempt upon the enemy, but stood on their defense. But Aristides sending to Delphi, the god answered that the Athenians should overcome their enemies in case they made supplication to Zeus and Hera of Cithaeron, Pan and the nymphs Shragitides, and sacrificed to the heroes Androcrates, Leucon, Pisander, Damocrates, Hypsion, Actaeon, and Polyidus; and if they fought within their own territories in the plain of Demeter Eleusinia and Persephone....But the plain of Demeter Eleusinia, and the offer of victory to the Athenians, if they fought on their own territories, recalled them again, and transferred the war into the country of Attica. In this juncture, Arimnestus, who commanded the Plataeans, dreamed that Zeus, the Savior, asked him what the Greeks had resolved upon; and that he answered, "Tomorrow, my Lord, we march our army to Eleusis, and there give the barbarians battle according to the directions of the oracle of Apollo."(Plutarch Aristides 12)
The following is a tale which was told by Dicaeus, the son of Theocydes, an Athenian, who was at this time in exile and had gained a good report among the Medes. He declared that after the army of Xerxes had, in the absence of the Athenians, wasted Attica, he chanced to be with Demaratus, the Lacedaemonian in the Thriasian plain, and that while there, he saw a cloud of dust advancing from Eleusis, such as a host of thirty thousand men might raise. As he and his companion were wondering who the men, from whom the dust arose, could possibly be, a sound of voices reached his ear, and he thought that he recognized the mystic hymn to Bacchus, Now Demaratus was unacquainted with the rites of Eleusis, and so he inquired of Dicaeus what the voices were saying. Dicaeus made answer -
O Demaratus! beyond a doubt some mighty calamity is about to befall the king's army! For it is manifest, inasmuch as Attica is deserted by its inhabitants, that the sound which we have heard is an unearthly one and is now upon its way from Eleusis to aid the Athenians and their confederates. If it descends upon the Peloponnese, danger will threaten the king himself and his land army - if it moves towards the ships at Salamis, 'twill go hard but the king's fleet there suffers destruction. Every year the Athenians celebrate this feast to the Mother and the Daughter; and all who wish, whether they be Athenians or any other Greeks, are initiated. The sound thou hearest is the Bacchic song, which is wont to be sung at that festival.
"Hush now," rejoined the other; "and see thou tell no man of this matter. For if thy words be brought to the king's ear, thou wilt assuredly lose thy head because of them; neither I nor any man living can save thee. Hold thy peace therefore. The gods will see to the king's army." Thus Demaratus counseled him; and they looked, and saw the dust, from which the sound arose, become a cloud, and the cloud rise up into the air and sail away to Salamis, making for the station of the Grecian fleet. Then they knew it was the fleet of Xerxes which would suffer destruction. Such was the tale told by Dicaeus the son of Theocydes; and he appealed for its truth to Demaratus and other eye-witnesses.(Herodotus VIII, 65)The Persians, as soon as they were put to flight by the Lacedaemonians, ran hastily away, without preserving any order, and took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defense which they had raised in the Theban territory. It is a marvel to me how it came to pass, that although the battle was fought quite close to the grove of Demeter, yet not a single Persian appears to have died on the sacred soil, nor even to have set foot upon it, while round about the precinct, in the unconsecrated ground, great numbers perished. I imagine - if it is lawful, in matters which concern the gods, to imagine anything - that the goddess herself kept them out, because they had burnt her dwelling at Eleusis. Such, then, was the issue of this battle.(Herodotus IX, 65)

It is reported that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds and voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far as the sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying and escorting the mystic Iacchus, and that a mist seemed to form and rise from the place from whence the sounds came, and, passing forward, fell upon the galleys. Others believed that they saw apparitions, in the shape of armed men, reaching out their hands from the island of Aegina before Grecian galleys; and supposed they were the Aeacidae, whom they had invoked to their aid before the battle. The first man that took a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian, captain of the galley, who cut down its ensign, and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the Greeks thus equaled them in strength and fought with them till the evening forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that noble and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greek nor barbarians was ever known more glorious exploit on the seas; by the joint valor, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom and sagacity of Themistocles.(Plutarch Themistocles 15)
The resentment felt upon it was heightened by the time it happened in, for the garrison was brought in on the twentieth of the month of Boedromion just at the time of the great festival, when they carry forth Iacchus with solemn pomp from the city to Eleusis; so that the solemnity being disturbed, many began to call to mind instances, both ancient and modern, of divine interventions and intimations. For in old time, upon the occasions of their happiest successes, the presence of the shapes and voices of the mystic ceremonies had been vouchsafed to them, striking terror and amazement into their enemies; but now, at the very season of their celebration, the gods themselves stood witnesses of the saddest oppressions of Greece, the most holy time being profaned, and their greatest jubilee made the unlucky date of their most extreme calamity....While a candidate for initiation was washing a young pig in the haven of Cantharus, a shark seized him, bit off all his lower parts up to the belly and devoured them, by which the god gave them manifestly to understand, that having lost the lower town and seacoast, they should keep only the upper city.(Plutarch, Life of Phocion 28)
For most of the Hellenic cities, in memory of our ancient services, send us each year the first-fruits of the harvest, and those who neglect to do so have often been admonished by the Pythian priestess to pay us our due portion of their crops and to observe in relation to our city the customs of their fathers.(Panegyricus 31)

For the highest and dearest of the gods are come to our city. Hither, indeed, the time has brought together Demeter and Demetrius. She comes to celebrate the solemn mysteries of the Daughter. (Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists VI, 253d)

Violators
And since they knew that in matters pertaining to the gods the city would be most enraged if any man should be shown to be violating the Mysteries (Isocrates The Team of Horses 6)
If I see some initiate of the Mysteries giving away the secret ritual and going through the dances in public, and I get angry and show him up, are you going to consider me the wrongdoer?(Lucian The Fisherman 33)

It is a great blessing for you that you have not seen the rites of the dread goddess, or else you would have spewed up their story too.(Callimachus, Aetia 75)

But of what he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say, 'It slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking,' or 'They did not know it was a secret,' as Aeschylus said of the mysteries.(Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics III, I, 17)

The Assembly had met to give audience to Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades, the generals about to leave with the Sicilian expedition - in fact, Lamachus' flag-ship was already lying off-shore - when suddenly Pythonicus rose before the people and cried: 'Countrymen, you are sending forth this mighty host in all its array upon a perilous enterprise. Yet your commander, Alcibiades, has been holding celebrations of the mysteries in a private house, and others with him; I will prove it, Grant immunity to him whom I indicate, and a non-initiate, a slave belonging to someone here present, shall describe the Mysteries to you. You can punish me as you will, if that is not the truth.'(Andocides On the Mysteries 11-12)

"Thessalus, the son of Cimon, of the township of Lacia, lays information that Alcibiades, the son of Clinias of the township of the Scambonidae, has committed a crime against the goddess Demeter and Persephone, by representing in derision the holy mysteries, and showing them to his companions in his own house. Where, being habited in such robes as are used by the chief priest, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Theodorus, of the township of Phegaea, the herald; and saluted the rest of his company as Initiates and Novices, all which was done contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eulmolpidae, and the heralds and priests of the temple at Eleusis."He was condemned as contumacious upon his not appearing, his property confiscated, and it was decreed that all the priests and priestesses should solemnly curse him. But one of them, Theano, the daughter of Menon, of the township of Agraule, is said to have opposed that part of the decree, saying that her holy office obliged her to make prayers, but not execrations.(Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades 34)

It is worth your while, men of Athens, to consider this also - that you punished Archias, who had been hierophant, when he was convicted in court of impiety and of offering sacrifice contrary to the rites handed down by our fathers. Among the charges brought against him was, that at the feast of the harvest he sacrificed on the altar in the court at Eleusis a victim brought by the courtesan Sinope, although it was not lawful to offer victims on that day, and the sacrifice was not his to perform, but the priestess'! It is, then, a monstrous thing that a man who was of the race of the Eumolpidae, born of honorable ancestors and a citizen of Athens, should be punished for having transgressed one of your established customs; and the pleadings of his relatives and friends did not save him, nor the public services which he and his ancestors had rendered to the city; no, nor yet his office of hierophant; but you punished him, because he was judged to be guilty.(Demosthenes Against Neaera 116-117)

And at the celebration of the Mysteries, the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes, because of our hatred of the Persians, give solemn warning to the other barbarians also, even as to men guilty of murder, that they are forever banned from the sacred rites.(Isocrates, Panegyricus 157)
On the road from Athens to Eleusis, which the Athenians called the Sacred Way, there is the tomb of Anthemocritus. He was the victim of a most foul crime perpetuated by the Megarians; for when he came as a herald to forbid them to encroach on the sacred land, they slew him. And the wrath of the two goddesses abides upon them for that deed to this day; for they were the only Greek people whom even the Emperor Hadrian could not make to thrive.(Pausanias I, 36:3)
Now the Athenians had undertaken the war against Philip for no sufficient reason, since they retained nothing of their ancient greatness except their spirit. Two young men from Acarnania, during the celebration of the mysteries at Eleusis, though not initiated, had entered the temple of Ceres, ignorant that they were committing sacrilege, and merely following the crowd. Their words easily betrayed them, since they asked foolish questions, and though it was clear that they had come in openly and by mistake they were put to death as if they had committed some heinous crime. The Acarnanians reported this revolting and unfriendly act to Philip, and prevailed upon him to send them Macedonian aid and permit them to attack Athens.(Livy XXI, xiv, 6-10)

There is a sure reward for trusty silence, too. I will forbid the man who has divulged the sacred rites of mystic Ceres, to abide beneath the same roof or to unmoor with me the fragile bark.(Horace Odes III, ii)
Heracles and the Lesser Mysteries

Demeter instituted the Lesser Mysteries in honor of Heracles, that she might purify him of the guilt he had incurred in the slaughter of the Centaurs.(Diodorus Siculus, IV, 14)And assuming that it would be to his advantage for the accomplishment of this labor, he went to Athens and took part in the Eleusinian Mysteries, Musaeus, the son of Orpheus, being at that time in charge of the initiatory rite.(Diodorus Siculus IV, 25)

Kerenyi translates the fragments on a papyrus from an oration of the time of Hadrian
"I was initiated long ago (or: elsewhere). Lock up Eleusis, (Hierophant,) and put the fire out, Dadouchos. Deny me the holy night! I have already been initiated into more authentic mysteries.... (I have beheld) the fire, whence (...and) I have seen the Kore.(Kerenyi Eleusis p. 83-84)

Yet it is more credible, as others write, that there were, before, frequent interviews between them, and that it was by the means of Theseus that Hercules was initiated at Eleusis, and purified before initiation, upon account of several rash actions of his former life.(Plutarch, Theseus 30)
When Hercules was about to depart to fetch him, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, wishing to be initiated. However it was not then lawful for foreigners to be initiated: since he proposed to be initiated as the adoptive son of Pylius. But not being able to see the mysteries because he had not been cleansed of the slaughter of the centaurs, he was cleansed by Eumolpus and then initiated.(Apollodorus, The Library II, v, 12)

Heracles: ... After my return at length from the soulless den of Hades and the maiden queen of hell, I will not neglect to greet first of all the gods beneath my roof.Amphitryon: Why, did you in very deed go to the house of Hades, my son?Heracles: Aye, and brought to the light that three-headed monster.Amphitryon: Did you worst him fight, or receive him from the goddess?Heracles: In fair fight; for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated.Amphitryon: Is the monster really lodged in the house of Eurystheus?Heracles: The grove of Demeter and the city of Hermione are his prison.(Euripides, Herakles Mad, 602-614)

I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the great mysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought that this was not allowable.(Plato Gorgias 497)

The Greater Mysteries were Demeter's and the Lesser Persephone's.(The scholiast of Aristophanes :Mylonas Eleusis p. 240)

The goddess Demeter is coming to celebrate her daughter's Mysteries.(A fragment of Douris, the Samian Mylonas Eleusis p. 239-240)

The Greater Mysteries:Announcement and Meeting at Athens
And when your heralds carried the proclamation of the sacred truce of the Mysteries, the Phocians alone in all Hellas refused to recognize the truce.(Aeschines On the Embassy 133)
There is also an altar of Zephyr, and a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter: along with them are worshipped Athena and Poseidon. They say that in this place Phytalus received Demeter in his house, and that for so doing the goddess gave him the figtree. This story is attested by the inscription on the grave of Phytalus: - Here the lordly hero Phytalus once received the august Demeter, when she first revealed the autumnal fruit which the race of mortals names the sacred fig; since when the race of Phytalus hath received honors that wax not old.(Pausanias I, 37:1-2)

The King in the first place superintends the Mysteries, in conjunction with the Superintendents of Mysteries. The latter are elected in the assembly by open vote, two from the general body of Athenians, one from the Eumolpidae, and one from the Ceryces. (Artistotle, The Athenian Constitution, 57:1)

And Cleocritus, the herald of the initiated, a man with a very fine voice, obtained silence and said:(Xenophon, Hellenica II, iv, 20)All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our choirs depart,Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart.I charge them once, I charge them twice, charge them thrice, that they draw not nigh To the sacred dance of the Mystic choir.(Aristophanes The Frogs 346-347, 361-362)

When he was in Greece, he durst not attend the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, at the initiation of which, impious and wicked persons are warned by the voice of the herald from approaching the rites.(Suetonius Nero XXXIV)

Ocean's unpolluted tide(Aeschylus, The Persians, 577)
Iphigenia: My purpose is to cleanse them first by purification.Thoas: In fresh spring water or salt sea-spray?Iphigenia: The sea washes away from man all that is ill.Thoas: True, they would then be holier victims for the goddess.(Euripides, Iphigenia Among the Tauri 1191-1194)
Trygaeus: And is it so? And must I die indeed?Hermes: You must indeed.Trygaeus: O then, I prithee, lend me half a crown. I'll buy a pig, and get initiated first.(Aristophanes' The Peace 372-374)
But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.(Plato, Republic II, 378)

For instance, the Athenians professedly assign to Aesculapius a share in the mysteries, and give to the day on which they do so the name of Epidauria; and they date their worship of Aesculapius as a god from the time when this practice was instituted.(Pausanias, II, 26:8)

He (Archon) also superintends sacred processions, both that in honor of Asclepius, when the initiated keep house, and that of the great Dionysia.(Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution 56:4)
Arriving at Pireaus about the season of the Mysteries, when Athens is more crowded than any place in Greece, he lost no time in going up to the city from his ship. As he went he met many of the learned making their way down to Piraeus. Some were basking naked---the autumn is fine and sunny at Athens---others were deep in discussions upon a text, some practicing recitations, some disputing. None of them passed him by, but all guessing that this was Apollonius, turned back with him and hailed him with enthusiasm. A party of ten youths fell in with him, who stretched out their hands towards the Acropolis and swore 'by yonder Athena, they were just setting out for Piraeus to take ship for Ionia and find him there.' He welcomed them, and said he congratulated them on their desire for learning.It was the day of the Epidauria; and at the Epidauria the Athenian usage, after the Preface and the sacrifice, is to initiate aspirants for a second sacrifice. This tradition represents Asclepius' experience, because he came from Epidaurus, late in the Mysteries, and they initiated him. Heedless of the initiation service, the multitude hung round Apollonius, more concerned with this than to secure admission to the Elect. He said he would be with them anon, and encouraged them to attend the service for the meanwhile, as he himself intended to be initiated. But the hierophant refused him access to the holy things, saying that he would never admit a charlatan, nor open Eleusis to a man of impure theology. Apollonius was equal to himself on this occasion, and said, 'You have not yet mentioned the greatest charge that might be brought against me, which is that I know more than you about this rite, although I came to you as to a man better skilled than myself.' The bystanders applauded this vigorous and characteristic rebuke; and the hierophant, seeing that the excommunication was unpopular, changed his tune and said, 'You shall be admitted, for you seem to be a person of doctrine.' Apollonius answered, 'I will be admitted at another time; the ceremony will be performed by So-and-so'---prophetically naming the next occupant of the hierophancy, who succeeded to his sacred office four years later.(Philostratus In Honor of Apollonius of Tyana IV, 17-18)

The Procession to Eleusis and Dancing
Chorus: O Iacchus! O Iacchus! O Iacchus! Xanthias: I have it, master: 'tis those blessed Mystics,...Chorus: O Iacchus! power excelling, here in stately temples dwelling. O Iacchus! O Iacchus!Come to tread this verdant level,Come to dance in mystic revel,Come whilst round thy forehead hurtlesMany a wreath of fruitful myrtles,Come with wild and saucy pacesMingling in our joyous dance,Pure and holy, which embraces all the charms of all the Graces,When the mystic choirs advance.Xanthias: Holy and sacred queen, Demeter' s daughter,O, what a jolly whiff of pork breathed o'er me! Dionysus: Hist! and perchance you'll get some tripe yourself.Chorus: Come, arise, from sleep waking, come the fiery torches shaking,O Iacchus! 0 Iacchus!Morning Star that shinest nightly.Lo, the mead is blazing brightly,Age forgets its years and sadness,Aged knees curvet for gladness,Lift thy flashing torches o'er us,Marshall all thy blameless train,Lead, O lead the way before us; lead the lovely youthful ChorusTo thy marshy flowery plain.All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our choirs depart,Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart;Who ne'er has the noble revelry learned, or danced the dance of the Muses high;Or shared in the Bacchic rites which old bull-eating Cratinus's words supply;Who vulgar coarse buffoonery loves, though all untimely the jests they make;Or lives not easy and kind with all, or kindling faction forbears to slake,But fan the fire, from a base desire some pitiful gain for himself to reap;Or takes, in office, his gifts and bribes, while the city is tossed on the stormy deep;Who foe or fleet to the foe betrays; or, a vile Thorycion, ships awayForbidden stores from Aegina's shores, to Epidaurus across the BayTransmitting oar-pads and sails and tar, that curst collector of five per cents;The knave who tries to procure supplies for the enemy's armaments;The cyclian singer who dares befoul the Lady Hecate's wayside shrine;The public speaker who once lampooned in our Bacchic feasts would, with heart malign,Keep nibbling away the Comedian's pay; - to these I utter my warning cry,I charge them once, I charge them twice, I charge them thrice, that they draw not nighTo the sacred dance of the Mystic choir. But you, my comrades, awake the song,The night-long revels of joy and mirth which ever of right to our feast belong.Advance, true hearts, advance!On to the gladsome powers,On to the sward, with flowersEmbosomed bright!March on with jest, and jeer, and dance,Full well ye've supped tonight.March, chanting loud your lays,Your hearts and voices raising,The Savior goddess praisingWho vows she'll stillOur city save to endless days,Whate'er Thorycion's will.Break off the measure, and change the time; and now with chanting and hymns adornDemeter, goddess mighty and high, the harvest-queen, the giver of corn.O Lady, over our rites presiding,Preserve and succor thy coral throng,And grant us all, in thy help confiding,To dance and revel the whole day long;And much in earnest, and much in jest,Worthy thy feast, may we speak therein.And when we have bantered and laughed our best,The victor's wreath be it ours to win.Call we now the youthful god, call him hither without delay,Him who travels amongst his chorus, dancing along on the Sacred Way.O, come with the joy of thy festival song,O, come to the goddess, O, mix with our throngUntired, though the journey be never so long.O Lord of the frolic and dance, :Iacchus, beside me advance!For fun, and for cheapness, our dress thou hast rent,Through thee we may dance to the top of our bent,Reviling, and jeering, and none will resent.O Lord of the frolic and dance,Iacchus, beside me advance!A sweet pretty girl I observed in the show,Her robe had been torn in the scuffle, and lo,There peeped through the tatters a bosom of snow.O Lord of the frolic and dance,Iacchus, beside me advance!...Chorus: Now wheel your sacred dance through the glade with flowers bedight,All ye who are partakers of the holy festal rite;And I will with the women and the holy maidens goWhere they keep the nightly vigil, an auspicious light to show.Now haste we to the roses,And the meadows full of posies,Now haste we to the meadowIn our own old way,In choral dances blending,In dances never ending,Which only for the holyThe Destinies array.O, happy mystic chorus,The blessed sunshine o'er usOn us alone is smiling,In its soft sweet light:On us who strove foreverWith holy, pure endeavorAlike by friend and strangerTo guide our steps aright. (Aristophanes The Frogs 317-318, 323-413, 440-459)

What are called the Rhiti only resemble rivers in that they flow, for their water is salt. One might suppose that they flow under ground from the Chalcidian Euripus, falling into a lower sea. The Rhiti are said to be sacred to the Maid and Demeter; and the priests alone are allowed to catch the fish in them. The Rhiti were of old, as I am apprised, the boundary between the Eleusinians and the rest of the Athenians.(Pausanias, I, 38:1)
At the great assembly of the Eleusinia and at the festival of Poseidon, in full sight of the whole Greek world, she removed only her cloak and let down her long hair before stepping into the water. (Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists XIII, 591a)

Nor did the son of Mene, Musaeus, master of the Graces, cause Antiope to go without her meed of honor. And she, beside Eleusis's strand, expounded to the initiates the loud, sacred voice of mystic oracles, as she duly escorted the priest through the Rarian plain to honor Demeter. And she is known even in Hades.(Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 597d)

Chorus: Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,... I blush for that god of song, if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus' fair springs, a sleepless rotary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus, the moon, and Nereus' fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o'er the sea and the eternal rivers' tides, join the dance in honor of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; (Euripides, Ion, 1048-1049, 1079-1086)

Situation at Eleusis
Kerenyi analyzes the etymology of Eleusis. The place had been called Saisari, meaning "the grinning one" after an Eleusinian heroine probably connected to the underworld goddess. Eleusis means the "place of happy arrival" and is related to Elysion, the realm of the blessed. (Kerenyi Eleusis p. 23)

Celeae is distant just about five furlongs from the city. They celebrate the mysteries of Demeter there every third year, not annually. The high-priest of the mysteries is not appointed for life, but at each celebration a new priest is elected, who may, if he chooses, take a wife . In these respects their practice differs from that observed at Eleusis; but the actual mysteries are an imitation of the Eleusinian mysteries, indeed the Phliasians themselves admit that they imitate the rites of Eleusis.(Pausanias, II, 14:1)

The temple at Eleusis ... should be under the superintendence of the Ceryces and the Eumolpidae, according to primitive custom.(Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution 39:2)
They say that this Eumolpus came from Thrace, and that he was a son of Poseidon and Chione, who is said to have been a daughter of the North Wind and Orithyia. Homer says nothing of the lineage of Eumolpus, but in his verses calls him 'manly.' In a battle between the Eleusinians and the Athenians, there fell Erechtheus, king of Athens, and Immaradus, son of Eumolpus; and peace was made on these terms: the Eleusinians were to perform the mysteries by themselves, but were in all other respects to be subject to the Athenians. The sacred rites of the two goddesses were celebrated by Eumolpus and he daughters of Celeus: Pamphos and Homer agree in calling these damsels Diogenia, Pammerope, and Saesara. On Eumolpus' death, Ceryx, the younger of his sons, was left. But the Ceryces themselves say that Ceryx was a son of Hermes by Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, and not a son of Eumolpus.(Pausanias, I, 38:3)

What glory remains to Eleusis, if we are to be ashamed of Eumolpus, who, a migrant from Thrace, initiated and still initiates the Greeks into the mysteries? (Plutarch, On Exile 607b)

In Thebes, for example, a certain Alcaeus has a statue which they say is a Heracles and was formerly so called; and among the Athenians there is an image of a boy who was an initiate in the mysteries at Eleusis and it bears no inscription; he, too, they say, is a Heracles.(Dio Chrysostom XXXI, 92)

Calliades opposed his admission; but the Ceryces voted in favor of the law which they have, whereby a father can introduce his son, if he swears that it is his own son whom he is introducing.(Andocides, On the Mysteries 127)

Aeschylus, too, besides inventing that comeliness and dignity of dress which Hierophants and Dadouchoi emulate, when they put on their vestments(Athenaeus 21e)

The Council and the People have decreed: Democrates, son of Sunieus of Colonus, proposed the motion: Whereas, the chosen stewards of the mysteries for the year of the archon Diocles have offered to Demeter and Kore and the other gods, as is customary, for the Council and the People and the children and wives, all the offerings which are appropriately to be made during the year, and also the preliminary offering...; and have further provided, at their own cost, the conveyance for the use of the sanctuaries, and have voluntarily turned over to the Council the amount set aside for their use as the expense of the conveyances, and have also provided for the procession to the sea and for the reception of Iacchos in Eleusis, and similarly for the mysteries before Agra, which took place twice in this year, during the celebration of the Eleusinian games; and have moreover sent a steer as sacrifice for the Eleusinian games, giving the six hundred and fifty members of the Council their share of the flesh; and beyond all this have delivered the accounts to the office of the treasury and the metroion (the Athenian state archives in the temple of Cybele), and have rendered their account before the court, in accordance with the laws; and out of their own funds have provided for everything else connected with the sacrifice, in order to show themselves agreeably disposed toward the Council and the People, thus setting an example for those who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the public welfare and showing that they can count upon the proper gratitude, by good fortune.Let the Council decree that the presiding offices who are to preside at the next assembly of the people shall place this matter on the agenda and present the decree of the Council to the People, that the Council has agreed to honor the stewards of the mysteries in the year of the archon Diocles, Thrasykles (son of ...) of Auridae, and Nicetes, son of Nicetes of Pergase, and to crown them both with myrtle because of their piety toward the gods and their unselfishness toward the council and the People; and to set before them other popular honors in the future, if they show themselves to be worthy of them; finally, that the secretary for the Prytany is to have this decree inscribed upon two columns of stone and set them up, one in the court of the sanctuary at Eleusis, the other on the Acropolis. For the (cost of) inscribing ...(Grant, F. C. Hellenistic Religions p. 15-16)

The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, and another of Artemis of the Portal and of Father Poseidon, and a well called Callichorum, where the Eleusinian women first danced and sang in honor of the goddess. They say that the Rarian plain was the first to be sown and the first to bear crops, and therefore it is their custom to take the sacrificial barley and to make the cakes for the sacrifices out of its produce. Here is shown what is called the threshing floor of Triptolemus and the altar. But my dream forbade me to describe what is within the wall of the sanctuary; and surely it is clear that the uninitiated may not lawfully hear of that from the sight of which they are debarred. The hero Eleusis, after whom they name the city, is said by some to be a son of Hermes and of Daira, daughter of Ocean; but others have made him the son of Ogygus.(Pausanias I, 40:5)

Here, too, is what is called the hall (megaron) of Demeter: they say it was made by King Car.(Pausanias I, 40:15)

The chapel at Eleusis, where the mysteries were celebrated, was begun by Coroebus, who erected the pillars that stand upon the floor or pavement, and joined them to the architraves; and after his death Metagenes of Xypete added the frieze and the upper line of columns;(Plutarch, Life of Pericles 13)

Fasting and Drinking the Kykeon
So, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before,(Plotinus, First Ennead VI, 7)

fasting on the sacred days of the Rarian Demeter. (Callimachus, Aetia 10)

But most theologians say that the name of Persephone is derived from nourishing a ringdove; for the ringdove is sacred to this Goddess. Hence, also the priests of Maia dedicate to her a ringdove. And Maia is the same with Persephone, as being obstetric, and a nurse. For this Goddess is terrestrial, and so likewise is Demeter. To this Goddess, also a cock is consecrated; and on this account those that are initiated in her mysteries abstain from domestic birds. In the Eleusinian mysteries, likewise, the initiated are ordered to abstain from domestic birds, from fishes and beans, pomegranates and apples, which fruits are as equally defiling to the touch, as a woman recently delivered, and a dead body But whoever is acquainted with the nature of divinely-luminous appearances knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds, and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns, and to be established with the celestial Gods.(Porphyry On Abstinence From Animal Food IV, 16)

As she was about to pass within the lowly dwelling, she plucked a smooth, a slumberous poppy that grew on the waste ground; and as she plucked, 'tis said she tasted it forgetfully, and so unwitting stayed her long hunger. Hence, because she broke her fast at nightfall, the initiates time their meal by the appearance of the stars.(Ovid, Fasti IV ca. 530)
the slow rivers of dark night,

the sluggish gift of sleep
Pindar

Initiation: Dromena (Things Acted)

to those entering the temenos (sacred precinct) of Eleusis the program was stated, not to advance inside the adytum.(Proclus, Mylonas Eleusis p. 261)

Why is the priestess of Demeter carried off, unless Demeter herself had suffered the same sort of thing?(Tertullian, To the Nations 30)

In the Mysteries of Demeter all night long with torches kindled they seek for Persephone and when she is found, the whole ritual closes with thanksgiving and the tossing of torches.(Lactantius, Mylonas Eleusis p. 215)

There the goddess kindled two pine-trees to serve her as a light; hence to this day a torch is given out at the rites of Ceres.(Ovid, Fasti IV, 492-494)

The Hierophant is in the habit of sounding the so-called gong when Kore is being invoked by name.(Apollodorus, Fragment 36)

Just as persons who are being initiated into the Mysteries throng together at the outset amid tumult and shouting, and jostle against one another but when the holy rites are being performed and disclosed the people are immediately attentive in awe and silence, so too at the beginning of philosophy: about its portals also you will see great tumult and talking and boldness, as some boorishly and violently try to jostle their way towards the repute it bestows; but he who has succeeded in getting inside, and has seen a great light, as though a shrine were opened, adopts another bearing of silence and amazement, and "humble and orderly attends upon" reason as upon a god.(Plutarch, Progress in Virtue 81e)

Aristeides describes the range of emotions experienced.
Within this hall, the mystics were made to experience the most bloodcurdling sensations of horror and the most enthusiastic ecstasy of joy.
But their procedure is like Bacchic frenzy - like the leap of a man mad, or possessed - the attainment of a goal without running the race, a passing beyond reason without the previous exercise of reasoning. For the sacred matter (contemplation) is not like attention belonging to knowledge, or an outlet of mind, nor is it like one thing in one place and another in another. On the contrary - to compare small and greater - it is like Aristotle's view that men being initiated have not a lesson to learn, but an experience to undergo and a condition into which they must be brought, while they are becoming fit (for revelation).(Synesius Dio 1133)

Entering now into the secret dome, he is filled with horror and astonishment. He is seized with loneliness and total perplexity; he is unable to move a step forward, and at a loss to find the entrance to the way that leads to where he aspires to, till the prophet or conductor lays open the anteroom of the Temple.(Themistius Orat. in Patrem. 50)

a rude and fearful march through night and darkness. (Stobaeus, Casavis The Greek Origins of Freemasonry p. 111)

In the most sacred Mysteries before the scene of the mystic visions, there is terror infused over the minds of the initiated. (Proclus, Casavis The Greek Origins of Freemasonryp. 111)

For, in your mysteries, what the boy who attends the altar accomplishes, by performing accurately what he is commanded to do, in order to render the gods propitious to all those who have been initiated, as far as to muesis, that, in nations and cities, priests are able to effect, by sacrificing for all the people, and through piety inducing the Gods to be attentive to the welfare of those that belong to them.(Porphyry, On Abstinence From Animal Food )

Thus death and initiation closely correspond; even the words (teleutan and teleisthai) correspond, and so do the things. At first there are wanderings, and toilsome running about in circles and journeys through the dark over uncertain roads and culs de sac ; then, just before the end, there are all kinds of terrors, with shivering, trembling, sweating, and utter amazement. After this, a strange and wonderful light meets the wanderer; he is admitted into clean and verdant meadows, where he discerns gentle voices, and choric dances, and the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions. Here the now fully initiated is free, and walks at liberty like a crowned and dedicated victim, joining in the revelry; he is the companion of pure and holy men, and looks down upon the uninitiated and unpurified crowd here below in the mud and fog, trampling itself down and crowded together, though of death remaining still sunk in its evils, unable to believe in the blessings that lie beyond. That the wedding and close union of the soul with the body is a thing really contrary to nature may clearly be seen from all this.(The following passage from Plutarch's essay On the Soul survives today only because it was quoted by Stobaeus (Florigelium 120). Grant, F. C. Hellenistic Religions p. 148)

Revelation of the Mystic Grain
And the formula of the Eleusinian mysteries is as follows: "I fasted, I drank the draught (kykeon ); I took from the chest; having done my task, I placed in the basket, and from the basket into the chest.(Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks II, 18)

As the basket comes, greet it, you women, saying "Demeter, greatly hail! Lady of much bounty, of many measures of corn." As the basket comes, from the ground you shall see it, you uninitiated, and gaze not from the roof or from aloft - child nor wife nor maid that has shed her hair - neither then nor when we spit from parched mouths fasting.(Callimachus, To Demeter 1-5)

Moreover Polemon, in the treatise On the Sacred Fleece, says: "After these preliminaries (the priest) proceeds to the celebration of the mystic rites; he takes out the contents of the shrine and distributes them to all who have brought round their tray (kernos ). The latter is an earthenware vessel, holding within it a large number of small cups cemented together, and in them are sage, white poppy-seeds, grains of wheat and barley, peas, vetches, okra-seeds, lentils, beans, rice-wheat, oats, compressed fruit, honey, oil, wine, milk, and sheep's wool unwashed The man who carries it, resembling the bearer of the sacred winnowing-fan, tastes these articles."(Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists XI, 478d)

I cannot say with certainty whether he was the first who sowed beans (kuamoi ), or whether they made up the name of a bean-hero because the discovery of beans cannot be attributed to Demeter. Any one who has seen the mysteries at Eleusis, or has read what are called the works of Orpheus, knows what I mean.(Pausanias, I, 37:3)

In regard to the dance in which kerna were carried, I know that they carried lights or small hearths on their heads.(Pollux IV, 103)

The Phrygians, however assert, he says, that he is likewise "a green ear of corn reaped." And after the Phrygians, the Athenians, while initiating people into the Eleusinian rites, likewise display to those who are being admitted to the highest grade at these mysteries, the might, and marvelous, and most perfect secret suitable for one initiated into the highest mystic truths: (I allude to) an ear of corn in silence reaped. But this ear of corn is also (considered) among the Athenians to constitute the perfect enormous illumination (that has descended) from the unportrayable one, just as the Hierophant himself (declares); not, indeed, emasculated like Attis, but made a eunuch by means of hemlock, and despising all carnal generation. (Now) by night in Eleusis, beneath a huge fire, (the Celebrant,) enacting the great and secret mysteries, vociferates and cries aloud, saying, "August Brimo has brought forth a consecrated son, Brimus;" that is, a potent (mother has been delivered of) a potent child. But revered, he says, is the generation that is spiritual, heavenly, from above, and potent is he that is so born. For the mystery is called "Eleusin" and "Anactorium." "Eleusin," because, he says, we who are spiritual come flowing down from Adam above; for the word "eleusesthai" is, he says, of the same import with the expression "to come." But "Anactorium" is of the same import with the expression "to ascend upward." This, he says, is what they affirm who have been initiated in the mysteries of the Eleusinians. It is, however, a regulation of law, that those who have been admitted into the lesser should again be initiated into the Great Mysteries. For greater destinies obtain greater portions. But the inferior mysteries, he says are those of Proserpine below; in regard of which mysteries, and the path which leads there, which is wide and spacious, and conducts those that are perishing to Proserpine, the poet likewise says: -
"But under her a fearful path extends,Hollow, miry, yet best guide toHighly-honored Aphrodite's lovely grove."
These, he says, are the inferior mysteries those appertaining to carnal generation. Now, those men who are initiated into these inferior (mysteries) ought to pause, and (then) be admitted into the great (and) heavenly (ones). For they, he says, who obtain their shares (in this mystery), receive greater portions. For this, he says, is the gate of heaven; and this a house of God, where the Good Deity dwells alone. And into this (gate), he says, no unclean person shall enter, nor one that is natural or carnal; but it is reserved for the spiritual only.(Hippolytus The Refutation of All Heresies V, 3)

According to Himerios, a sophist who lived in Athens when Julian was Emperor of Rome (361-363):
an old law ordered the initiates to take with them landfuls of agricultural produce which were the badges of a civilized life.
Now Semus of Delos in his work On Paeans says: "The handfuls of barley, taken separately, they called amalai; but when these are gathered together and many are made into a single bundle people called them ouloi or iouloi; hence also they called Demeter sometimes Chloe, sometimes Ioulo. Hence from Demeter's gifts they call not only the fruit, but also the hymns sung in honor of the goddess, ouloi or iouloi. There are also Demetrouloi and kalliouloi ; and the refrain: 'Send forth a sheaf, a plenteous sheaf, a sheaf send forth.'"(Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists XIV, 618d)

In Proclus' commentary on the Timaios 293c, he offers another recitation.
In the Eleusinian rites they gazed up to the heaven and cried aloud "rain," they gazed down upon the earth and cried "conceive."

On the edge of a well by the Dipylon gate of Athens where the procession to Eleusis began, an inscription reads:
O Pan, O Men, be of good cheer, beautiful Nymphs, rain, conceive, overflow.(Mylonas Eleusis p. 270)

Legomena (Things Said)
Porphyrus gives us a description of initiation which includes legomena and seems to indicate also much of the content and feeling of the Epopteia.
Crowned with myrtle, along with the other initiates we enter the entrance hall of the temple, still blind, but the hierophant who is within will soon open our eyes. But first, for nothing is to be done in haste, let us wash in the holy water. We are led before the hierophant. From a book of stone, he reads to us things which we must not divulge, under penalty of death. Let us say only that they are in harmony with the place and circumstance. You would laugh, perhaps, if you heard them outside the temple, but here you have no desire to laugh as you listen to the words of the elder (for he is always old) and as you look at the exposed symbols. And you are far from laughing when, by her special language and signs, by vivid sparkling of light and clouds piled upon clouds, Demeter confirms everything that we have seen and heard from her holy priest. Then, finally, the light of a serene wonder fills the temple; we see the pure Elysian fields; we hear the chorus of the blessed ones. Now it is not merely through an external appearance or through a philosophical interpretation, but in fact and in reality that the hierophant becomes the creator and the revelator of all things; the sun is but his torchbearer, the moon, his helper of the altar, and Hermes, his mystical messenger. But the last word has been uttered: Knox Om Pax.The ritual has been consummated, and we are seers forever.(Schuré, Edouard The Great Initiates p. 406)

Epopteia: The Holy Light of the Holy Night
And I will with the women and the holy maidens go Where they keep the nightly vigil, an auspicious light to show. (Aristophanes, The Frogs 442-443)

I was initiated long ago. Lock up Eleusis, and put the fire out, Dadouchos. Deny me the holy night! I have already been initiated into more authentic mysteries.... (I have beheld) the fire, whence (... and) I have seen the Kore.(Kerenyi Eleusis p. 84)

Schuré quotes Proclus and interprets the word "gods" in this instance as "all orders of spirits."

In all the initiations and Mysteries the gods manifest themselves in many forms, assuming a great variety of guises; sometimes they appear in a formless light, again in quite different form.(The Great Initiates p. 407)

Ericapaeus, celebrated pow'r,Ineffable, occult, all-shining flow'r.'Tis thine from darksome mists to purge the sight,All-spreading splendor, pure and holy light;Hence, Phanes, call'd the glory of the sky,On waving pinions thro' the world you fly.Priapus, dark-ey'd splendor, thee I sing,Genial, all-prudent, ever blessed king.With joyful aspect on these rites divineAnd holy Telite propitious shine.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )

When, under Pluto's semblance, Jove divineDeceiv'd with guileful arts dark Proserpine.Hence, partly black thy limbs and partly white,From Pluto dark, from Jove ethereal brightThy color'd member, men by night inspireWhen seen in spectred forms, with terrors dire;Now darkly visible involved in night,Perspicuous now they meet the fearful sight.Terrestrial queen, expel wherever foundThe soul's mad fears to earth's remotest bound;With holy aspect on our incense shine,And bless thy mystics, and rites divine.(Taylor, Mystical Hymns of Orpheus.)

There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness, - we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most bleed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we beheld shining in pure light.(Plato, Phaedrus, 250)

Plemochoe is an earthen dish shaped like a top, but tolerably firm on its base; some call it a kotyliskos, according to Pamphilus. They use it at Eleusis on the last day of the Mysteries, a day which they call from it Plemochoai; on that day they fill two plemochoai, and they invert them (standing up and facing the east in the one case, the west in the other), reciting a mystical formula over them.(Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists XI, 496a)

Different Interpretations
On the tomb of Menoeceus there grows a pomegranate-tree: if you break the outer husk of the ripe fruit, you will find the inside like blood. This pomegranate-tree is living.(Pausanias, IX, 25:1)

Asterios (c. 390 CE), the bishop of Amaseia in Asia Minor in his Engomion to the Saintly Martyrs.
The Eleusinian Mysteries, are they not the main part of your religion and the demos of Athens, yea the whole of Greece gathers to celebrate that vanity? I not there (in the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis) the katabasion and the solemn meeting of the Hierophant and the priestess, each with the other alone; are not the torches then extinguished and the vast crowd believes that its salvation depends on what those two act in the darkness?(. 311-312)

The next is by Epiphanios who was a bishop of Eleutheroupolis of Palestine and Konstantia of Kypros and lived 367-403 CE.
In Alexandria there is the so-called Korion, and it is a very large temple, that is the temenos of Kore. (The worshippers) having passed the night in vigilance with songs and flute playing, singing to the idol... After the call of the roosters they descend with torches in hand to an underground chamber and from it they bring up on a litter a wooden xoanon, seated, nude, bearing on its forehead some seal of a cross, covered with gold ... and they carry this xoanon around seven times, making a circle around the most central temple with flutes and drums and hymns, and having sang and danced they take it down again to the underground place ... and they say that at this hour, today the Kore, that is the Virgin, gave birth to the Aion. (Ibid. p. 302)

Demeter and Persephone have come to be the subject of a mystic drama, and Eleusis celebrates with torches the rape of the daughter and the sorrowful wandering of the mother. Now it seems to me that the terms "orgy" and "mystery" must be derived, the former from the wrath (orge) of Demeter against Zeus, and the latter from the pollution (mysos) that took place in connection with Dionysus.(Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks II, 12)

It tells how Demeter, wandering through Eleusis, which is a part of Attica, in search of her daughter the Maiden, becomes exhausted and sits down at a well in deep distress. This display of grief is forbidden, up to the present day, to those who are initiated, lest the worshippers should seem to imitate the goddess in her sorrow. At that time Eleusis was inhabited by aborigines, whose names were Baubo, Dysaules, Triptolemus, and also Eumolpus and Eubouleus. Triptolemus was a herdsman, Eumolpus a shepherd, and Eubouleus a swineherd. These were progenitors of the Eumolpidae and of the Heralds, who form the priestly clan at Athens. But to continue; for I will not forbear to tell the rest of the story. Baubo, having received Demeter as a guest, offers her a draught of wine and meal. She declines to take it, being unwilling to drink on account of her mourning. Baubo is deeply hurt, thinking she has been slighted, and thereupon uncovers her secret parts and exhibits them to the goddess. Demeter is pleased at the sight, and now at last receives the draught, - delighted with the spectacle! These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians! These are also the subjects of Orpheus' poems. I will quote you the very lines of Orpheus, in order that you may have the originator of the mysteries as witness of their shamelessness:
This said, she drew aside her robes and showedA sight of shame; child Iacchus was there,And laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts.Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled,And drank the draught from out the glancing cup.(Clement of Alexandria, II, 16-18)

The mysteries, then, are mere custom and vain opinion, and it is a deceit of the serpent that men worship when, with spurious piety, they turn towards these sacred initiations that are really profanities, and solemn rites that are without sanctity. Consider, too, the contents of the mystic chests; for I must strip bare their holy things and utter the unspeakable. Are they not sesame cakes, pyramid and spherical cakes, cakes with many navels, also balls of salt and a serpent, the mystic sign of Dionysus Basareus? Are they not also pomegranates, fig branches, fennel stalks, ivy leaves, round cakes and poppies? These are their holy things! In addition, there are the unutterable symbols of Ge Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, and a woman's comb, which is euphemistic expression used in the mysteries for a woman's secret parts.(Clement of Alexandria, II, 19)

But no man sails from a port without having sacrificed to the Gods and invoked their help; nor do men sow without having called on Demeter; and shall a man who has undertaken so great a work undertake it safely without the Gods? and shall they who undertake this work come to it with success? What else are you doing, man, than divulging the mysteries? You say, "There is a temple at Eleusis, and one here also. There is an Hierophant at Eleusis, and I also will make an Hierophant: there is a herald, and I will establish a herald; there is a torch-bearer at Eleusis, and I also will establish a torch-bearer; there are torches at Eleusis, and I will have torches here. The words are the same; how do the things done here differ from those done there?" Most impious man, is there no difference? these things are done both in due place and in due time; and when accompanied with sacrifice and prayers, when a man is first purified, and when he is disposed in his mind to the thought that he is going to approach sacred rites and ancient rites. In this way the mysteries are useful, in this way we come to the notion that all these things were established by the ancients for the instruction and correction of life. But you publish and divulge them out of time, out of place, without sacrifices, without purity; you have not the garments which the hierophant ought to have, nor the hair, nor the head-dress, nor the voice nor the age; nor have you purified yourself as he has: but you have committed to memory the words only, and you say: "Sacred are the words by themselves."You ought to approach these matters in another way; the thing is great, it is mystical, not common thing, nor is it given to every man.(Epictetus Discourses III, 21)

Now, in the case of those Eleusinian mysteries, which are the very heresy of Athenian superstition, it is their secrecy that is their disgrace. Accordingly, they previously beset all access to their body with tormenting conditions; and they require a long initiation before they enroll (their members), even instruction during five years for their perfect disciples, in order that they may mold their opinions by this suspension of full knowledge, and apparently raise the dignity of their mysteries in proportion to the craving for them which they have previously created. Then follow the duty of silence. Carefully is that guarded, which is so long in finding. All the divinity, however, lies in their secret recesses: there are revealed at last all the aspirations of the fully initiated, the entire mystery of the sealed tongue, the symbol of virility. But this allegorical representation, under the pretext of nature's reverend name, obscures a real sacrilege by help of an arbitrary symbol and by empty images obviates the reproach of falsehood!(Tertullian Against the Valentinians I)

He learned the details of the day when her only child was new born, and the exact time and veritable course of the season which gave her birth: then he bent the turning fingers of his hands and measured the moving circle of the ever-recurring number counting from hand to hand in double exchange He called to a servant, and Asterion lifted a round revolving sphere, the shape of the sky, the image of the universe, and laid it upon the lid of a chest. Here the ancient got to work. He turned it upon its pivot, and directed his gaze round the circle of the Zodiac, scanning in this place and that planets and fixed stars. He rolled the pole about with a push, and the counterfeit sky went rapidly round and round in mobile course with a perpetual movement, carrying the artificial stars about the axle set through the middle. Observing the sphere with a glance all round, the deity found that the Moon at the full was crossing the curved line of her conjunction, and the Sun was half through his course opposite the Moon moving at his central point under the earth; a pointed cone of darkness creeping from the earth into the air opposite to the Sun hid the whole Moon. Then when he heard the rivals for wedded love, he looked especially for Ares, and espied the wife-robber over the sunset house along with the evening star of the Cyprian. He found the portion called the Portion of the Parents under the Virgin's starry corn-ear; and round the Ear ran the light-bearing star of Cronides, father of rain.When he had noticed everything and reckoned the circuit of the stars, he put away the ever-revolving sphere in its roomy box, the sphere with its curious surface; and in answer to the goddess he mouthed a triple oracle of prophetic sound:
Fond mother Demeter, when the rays of the Moon are stolen under a shady cone and her light is gone, guard against a robber-bridegroom for Persephoneia, a secret ravisher of your unsmirched girl, if the threads of the Fates can be persuaded. You will see before marriage a false and secret bedfellow come unforeseen, a half-monster cunning-minded: since I perceive by the western point Ares the wife-stealer walking with the Paphian, and I notice the Dragon rising beside them both. But I proclaim you most happy: for you will be known for glorious fruits in the four quarters of the universe, because you shall bestow fruit on the barren soil; since the Virgin Astraia holds out her hand full of corn for the destined lot of your girl's parents.
(Nonnus Dionysiaca VI, 58-102)

When Demeter came to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and, being moved to kindness towards our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two gifts, the greatest in the world - the fruits of the earth, which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity, - our city was not only so beloved of the gods but also so devoted to mankind that, having been endowed with these great blessings, she did not begrudge them to the rest of the world, but shared with all men what she had received. The mystic rite we continue even now, each year, to reveal to the initiates; and as for the fruits of the earth, our city has, in a word, instructed the world, in their uses, their cultivation, and the benefits derived from them.(Isocrates, Panegyricus 28-29)

M: Then what will become of our Iacchus and Eumolpidae and their impressive mysteries, if we abolish nocturnal rites? For we are composing laws not for the Roman people in particular, but for all virtuous and stable nations.A: I take it for granted that you make an exception of those rites into which we ourselves have been initiated.M: I will do so indeed. For among the many excellent and indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life, none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by their means we have been brought out of our barbarous and savage mode of life and educated and refined to a state of civilization; and as the rites are called "initiations," so in very truth we have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a better hope.(Cicero Laws II, xiv, 36)

Psyche cast herself before the goddess, wetting the holy feet with tears and sweeping the ground with her tresses. Amid a thicket of supplications she asked for the favor of Ceres:
'By your right hand of Plenty, I implore you. By your joyous Ceremonies of Harvest; by your Mystery enclosed in Osier-baskets; by the winged Gig of your familiar Dragons; by the Furrows of the Sicilian Glebe, the Rape of the Chariot, the Earth that yields not up its own, the Descent into the Night of the Nuptials of Proserpine, and the Ascent into the light of the Maiden's Restoration; by all the other Symbols which the Sanctuary of Eleusis in Attica preserves in Silences - stand by your suppliant Psyche in the hour of her deep need. Permit me, at least for a few days, to shelter myself among the layers of wheat until the passage of time mitigates the raging rancor of the mighty goddess, or until an interval of rest refreshes the body that daily stress has now exhausted.'
(Apuleius Metamorphoses VI, 2)

I say nothing of the holy and awe-inspiring sanctuary of Eleusis, "where tribes from earth's remotest confines seek Initiation," and I pass over Samothrace and those "occult mysteries which throngs of worshippers at dead of night in forest covert deep do celebrate" Lemnos, since such mysteries when interpreted and rationalized prove to have more to do with natural science than with theology.(Cicero De Natura Deorum I, 52)

If the earth transmits the generative soul to growing things - or retains it while allowing a vestige of it to constitute the vegetal principle in them - at once the earth is ensouled, as our flesh is, and any generative power possessed by the plant world is of its bestowing: this phase of the soul is immanent in the body of the growing thing, and transmits to it that better element by which it differs from the broken off part no longer a thing of growth but a mere lump of material.But does the entire body of the earth similarly receive anything from the soul?Yes: for we must recognize that earthly material broken of from the main body differs from the same remaining continuously attached; thus stones increase as long as they are embedded, and from the moment they are separated, stop at the size attained.We must conclude, then, that every part and member of the earth carries its vestige of this principle of growth, an under-phase of that entire principle which belongs not to this or that member but to the earth as a whole: next in order is the nature (the soul-phase), concerned with sensation, this not interfused (like the vegetal principle) but in contact from above: then the higher soul and the Intellectual Principle, constituting together the being known as Hestia (Earth-Mind) and Demeter (Earth-Soul) - a nomenclature indicating the human intuition of these truths, asserted in the attribution of a divine name and nature.(Plotinus, Fourth Ennead IV, 27)

The result of soul and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice. In the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind to man for the purpose of his generation even as it furnishes light to the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces man from three factors to two and another reduces him from two to one; and the former takes place in the earth that belongs to Demeter (wherefore "to make an end" is called "to render one's life to her" and Athenians used in olden times to call the dead "Demetrians"), the latter in the moon that belongs to Persephone, and associated with the former is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial. While the goddess here dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Persephone gently and by slow degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore been called "single-born" because the best part of man is "born single" when separated off by her. Each of the two separations naturally occurs in this fashion: All soul, whether without mind or with it, when it has issued from the body is destined to wander in the region between earth and moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls pay penalties for their offenses; but the good soul must in the gentlest part of the air, which they call "the meads of Hades," pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow away the pollution contracted from the body as from an evil odor. Then, as if brought home from banishment abroad, they savor joy most like that of initiates, which attended by glad expectation is mingled with confusion and excitement. For many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside down as if sinking again into the deep. Those that have got up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called wreathes of steadfastness, because in life they had made the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and tolerably tractable to reason; secondly, in appearance resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours, resembling the ether about the moon, they get from it both tension and strength as edged instruments get a temper, for what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and Heraclitus was right in saying: "Souls employ the sense of smell in Hades."(Plutarch The Face of the Moon 28)

To the Terrestrial Hermes
O Bacchic Hermes, progeny divineOf Dionysus, parent of the vine,And of celestial Venus, Paphian queen,Dark-eyelash'd Goddess of a lovely mien:Who constant wand'rest thro' the sacred seatsWhere Hell's dread empress, Proserpine, retreats;To wretched souls the leader of the way,When Fate decrees, to regions void of day.Thine is the wand which causes sleep to fly,Or lulls to slumb'rous rest the weary eye;For Proserpine, thro' Tart'rus dark and wide,Gave the for ever flowing souls to guide,Come, blessed pow'r, the sacrifice attend,And grant thy mystics' works a happy end.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )

Taylor quotes Proclus who also makes the distinction between terrestrial and celestial gods.
Hence, there is a terrestrial Ceres, Vesta, and Isis, as likewise a terrestrial Jupiter and a terrestrial Hermes, established about the one divinity of the earth, just as a multitude of celestial Gods proceeds about the one divinity of the heavens. For there are progressions of all the celestial Gods into the Earth: and Earth contains all things, in an earthly manner, which Heaven comprehends celestially. Hence we speak of a terrestrial Bacchus and a terrestrial Apollo, who bestows the all-various streams of water with which the earth abounds, and openings prophetic of futurity.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus p. xxxiii)

... having, by happy fortune, culled the fruit of the rite that releases from toil. And, while the body of all men is subject to over-mastering death, an image of life remains alive, for it alone comes from the gods. But it sleeps, while the limbs are active; yet, to them that sleep in many a dream it gives presage of a decision of things delightful or doleful.(Pindar Fragment 96)

When his fame was spread abroad from one end of Greece to the other, the Pythian priestess set him on a still higher pinnacle of renown by bidding the Delphians give to Pindar an equal share of all the first-fruits they offered to Apollo. It is said, too, that in his old age there was vouchsafed to him a vision in a dream. As he slept Proserpine stood by him and said that of all the deities she alone had not been hymned by him, but that, nevertheless, he should make a song on her also when he was come to her. Before ten days were out Pindar had paid the debt of nature. But there was in Thebes an old woman, a relation of Pindar's, who had practiced singing, most of his songs. To her Pindar appeared in a dream and sang to her a hymn on Proserpine; and she, as soon as she was awake, wrote down all the song she had heard him singing in her dream. In this song, amongst the epithets applied to Hades is that of 'golden-reined,' obviously in reference to the rape of Proserpine.(Pausanias IX, 23:3-4)

A man in the night kindles a light for himself when his vision is extinguished; living, he is in contact with the dead, when asleep, and with the sleeper, when awake.(Herakleitos, Diels 236)

To the Divinity of Dreams
Thee I invoke, blest pow'r of dreams divine,Angel of future fates, swift wings are thine.Great source of oracles to human kind,When stealing soft, and whisp'ring to the mind,Thro' sleep's sweet silence, and the gloom of night,Thy pow'r awakes th'intellectual sight;To silent souls the will of heaven relates,And silently reveals their future fates.Forever friendly to the upright mind,Sacred and pure, to holy rites inclin'd;For these with pleasing hope thy dreams inspire:Bliss to anticipate, which all desire.Thy visions manifest of fate disclose,What methods best may mitigate our woes;Reveal what rites the Gods immortal please,And what the means their anger to appease;For ever tranquil is the good man's end,Whose life thy dreams admonish and defend,But from the wicked turned averse to bless,Thy form unseen, the angel of distress;No means to check approaching ill they find,Pensive with fears, and to the future blind.Come blessed pow'r, the signatures revealWhich heav'n's decrees mysteriously conceal,Signs only present to the worthy mind,Nor omens ill disclose of monstrous kind.(Taylor Mystical Hymns of Orpheus )

There are holy things that are not communicated all at once: Eleusis always keeps something back to show those who come again.(Seneca, Quaestiones Naturalis VII, 30:6)

Haply by the shores loved of Apollo, haply by that torch-lit strand where the Great Goddess cherish dread rites for mortals, on whose lips the ministrant Eumolpidae have laid the precious seal of silence;(Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 1048-1053)

But for your mysteries which speech may not profane, you shall mark them for yourself, when you come to that place alone; and when you are coming to the end of life, disclose them to your heir alone; let him teach his heir; and so thenceforth.(Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1526-1534)

This way - hither, this way! - for this way does Guiding Hermes lead me, and the goddess of the dead.(Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus 2556-1558)

And then he called his daughters, and bade them fetch water from some fount, that he should wash, and make a drink-offering. And they went to the hill which was in view, Demeter's hill who guards the tender plants, and in short space brought that which their father had enjoined; then they ministered to him with washing, and dressed him, as use ordains.(Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus 1595-1602)

Weep no more maidens; for where the kindness of the Dark Powers is an abiding grace to the quick and to the dead, there is no room for mourning; divine anger would follow.(Sophocles,Oedipus at Colonus 1750-1753)

Thrice happy are those of mortals, who having seen those rites depart for Hades; for to them alone is it granted to have true life there; to the rest all there is evil.(Sophocles Fragment 719)

Beautiful indeed is the Mystery given us by the blessed gods: death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing.(Inscription at Eleusis, S. Angus tr. The Mystery Religions and Christianity p. 140)

It was the common belief in Athens that whoever had been taught the Mysteries would, when he died, be deemed worthy of divine glory. Hence all were eager for initiation.(Scholiast on Aristophanes The Frogs 158)

Blessed is he who has seen these things before he goes beneath the earth; for he understands the end of mortal life, and the beginning (of a new life) given of god.(Pindar, Fragment 102)

They are taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to die today.(Plato Phaedo 60)

I had singular feeling at being in his company. For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived there; and therefore I did not pity him as might have seemed natural at such an hour.(Plato Phaedo 58-59)

There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning here, are born again from the dead. Now if it be true that the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have been born again?...Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier.(Plato Phaedo . 70)

For if the soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?(Plato Phaedo,77)

Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the souls to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and haunts, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always infected by the body; and so she sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple.(Plato Phaedo, 83)

We arrive at the conclusion that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and this, if true, affords a most certain proof that the souls of the dead exist in some place out of which they come again.... But I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.(Plato Phaedo, 72)

The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up.(Plato Phaedo, 71)

Then may we not say,... there is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and an absolute essence of all things;... which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them, finding these ideas to be pre-existent and our inborn possession - then our souls must have had a prior existence.(Plato Phaedo, 76)

Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality.(Plato Phaedo,72-73)

And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses) - were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change.Very true.But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.(Plato Phaedo 79)

Then reflect,... - that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and that the body is in the very likeness of the human and mortal, and unintellectual, and multiform and dissoluble, and changeable....But if it be true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?(Plato Phaedo, 80)

Yet all men will agree that God, and the essential form of life, and the immortal in general, will never perish.Yes, all men, he said - that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not mistaken, as well as men.Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if she is immortal, be also imperishable?Most certainly.Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to die, but the immortal retires at the approach of death and is preserved safe and sound?True.Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world!(Plato Phaedo,106-107)

And now, 0 my judges, I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world.... For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?... For they have not found out either what is the nature of that death which the true philosopher deserves, or how he deserves or desires death....Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death?...Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the body? He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body and to turn to the soul.Quite true.In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the communion of the body.Very true.Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that to him who has sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having; and that he who is indifferent about them is as good as dead.That is also true.(Plato Phaedo, 63-64)

Then when does the soul attain truth? - for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived.True.Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?Yes.And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her - neither sound nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure, - when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?Certainly.(Plato Phaedo, 65)

And he attains to the purest knowledge of them who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought sight or any other sense together with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyesores and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements which when they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge - who, if not he, is likely to attain to the knowledge of true being?(Plato Phaedo 65-66)

'It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body - the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; for if while in company with the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things follows - either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. or then, and not till then, the soul will be parted from the body and exist in herself alone. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible intercourse or communion with the body, and are not surfeited with the bodily nature, but keep ourselves pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And thus having got rid of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is no other than the light of truth.' For the impure are not permitted to approach the pure.(Plato Phaedo, 65-66)

But, 0 my friend, if this be true, there is great reason to hope that, going where I go, when I have come to the end of my journey, I shall attain that which has been the pursuit of my life. And therefore I go on my way rejoicing, and not I only, but every other man who believes that his mind has been made ready and that he is in a manner purified.Certainly, replied Simmias.And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can; - the release of the soul from the chains of the body?Very true, he said.And this separation and release of the soul from the body is termed death?To be sure, he said.And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeking to release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their special study?That is true.(Plato Phaedo, 67)

The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talking nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For 'many,' as they say in the mysteries, 'are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,' - meaning, as I interpret the words, 'the true philosophers.'(Plato Phaedo, 69)

But she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in the contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence deriving nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be freed from human ills.(Plato Phaedo 84)

But then, 0 my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey there.For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages.(Plato Phaedo,107)

And is it likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the place of the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go, - that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, will be blown away and destroyed immediately on quitting the body as the many say? That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing and draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily during life had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself; - and making such abstraction her perpetual study - which means that she has been a true disciple of philosophy; and therefore has in fact been always engaged in the practice of dying? For is not philosophy the study of death?(Plato Phaedo, 80-81)

That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world - to the divine and immortal and rational: there arriving, she is secure of bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods.(Plato Phaedo, 81)

But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to injustice through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they when they see here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and these only with difficulty. There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness, - we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and then we saw the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we saw shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell.(Plato Phaedrus 250)

Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent: - so, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before, and the entry in nakedness - until, passing on the upward way, all that is other than the God, each in the solitude of himself shall see that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure, that from which all things depend for Which all look and live and act and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and of Being.(Plotinus First Ennead VI, 7)

The Mysteries of Eleusis
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