Volume 43 Number 3 DECEMBER 1947 • 1. Demeter, sec~ing her daughter • Persephone,stopped to rest by 0 I ~, a village well j Eleusis "'To the sea, 0 Mystae!" ii And the Eleusinian Mysteries George E. Mylonas ;i ; ! ELEUSIS lies fourteen miles to the west of Goddess of Agriculture and the ordered life, Athens by the blue waters of the Aegean in her quest for Persephone wandered to ,rnd at the extreme southwestern end of the Eleusis and stop red to rest by the village well. 'fhriasian plain, a pleasant, verdant valley There she was found by the daughters of filled with gardens. 'Today Eleusis is a small Kcleos, the ruling prince of Elcusis, and was ~ilJage;in antiquity it was one of the most im• persuaded to stay in the princely palace and portant religious centers of the pagan world. to undertake the bringing up of the infant Jn the mythologicalpast, almost four thousand Damophoon. In that palace, when her efforts yearsago, a1ou.ndits craggyhill a family drama to make the child immortal were interrupted came to a happy ending, and ro that event by the curiosity and the fright of the queen, Eleu5i5owes its fame and prosperity. · the goddess disclosed her identity, and or, dercd the Eleusinbns to build a temple and AccoRDINGto the tradition so wonder, an altar for her below their steep citadel. fully related in the Homeric Hymn, Demeter, Shortly afterwards, filled with joy at her re, union with Persephone, Demeter instructed ((G!orge E. Mylonas, a graduate of the University of the leaders of Eleusis in the performance of her Athens, first swam into Western ken as secretary of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He took rites. Thus the cult of Demeter was intro, part in aevcral excavations, including the neolithic dt• duced to Elcusis by the goddess herself. pc;;it of Professor David M. Robinson's site of Olyn· Unlike other pagan religious rites, the cult thus, became a competent and painstaking prehistoric of Demeter was not open to the general pub, archaeologist, took his Ph.D. at The Johns Hopkins lie, but to the chosen few who were properly UniHrsity with Dr. Robinson, taught at Washington University, then at the University of lllinois, and initiated following the ritual prescribed by eventually returned to Washington Univenicy, where Demeter herself. Consequently, the cult came !:.ehalos the chair of Archaeology and History of Art, to be known as the mysteries of Demeter, or •,:hileengaging in public services too numerous to men, the Eleusinian mysteries. A local cult origi, rion. Professor Mylonas is no stranger to readers of nally, it gradually spread beyond the narrow Tile CLASl!lCAL JouRN.u; his most recent article, "The Eagl" of Zeus," appeared in our February 1946 confines of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, (.jI.pOl-'lO?) issrn:. Her.: he tells of his work with the and in historic times, when the village became Greek Archaeological Society in rcexcavating the site part of the Athenian Comm~mwealth, it be, of the mysU!ry,worship of Eleuois. came a Panhellmic institution. When later U.t;VKUE E. MYLON.AS on the cult was adopted by the Romans it be initiated into its mysteries and annually enjoyed universal reverence. flocked to the sanctuary of Eleusis. Not only The growth in popularity of the cult was simple peasants but even the leaders of naturally followed by a continuous though thought and politics were anxious to take gradual expansion of the sacred precinct. The part in the rites. A preliminary initiation of original small temple of Demeter gave place to the myscaeto the "minor mysteries" at Agrae, a larger structure and that in turn to others a suburb of Athens, preceded by six month. even larger, and their peribolos kept expand, their participation in the Eleusinian rites. ing so as to include larger and ever larger For those rites a number of days were spent areas. Great political leaders, such as Peisis, at Athens in earnest preparation. On the tratos, Kirnon, Pericles, Hadrian, Antoninus fourteenth day of Boedromion (Septem, Pius, and others, erected marble structures in her), in the famous Poecile Stoa of Athens, honor of the goddess, and her precinct became the great priest of Eleusis, the hierophant, crowded with the votive offerings of grateful read the "proclamation," an event that initiates. Resplendent the sanctuary of Eleusis marked the. beginning of the "telete" (initi, remained until the immortal gods were ex, ation). "Everyone who has clean hands and pelled from Olympos by the rising faith of our intelligible (Greek) speech," "he who is pure Saviour, and until Zeus laid his head for from all pollution and whose soul is ronscious eternal rest on the stony summit of Mount of no evil and who has lived well and justly," Juctas in Crete. It was then, perhaps at the the proclamation stated, could proceed with beginning of the sixth century of our era, that the initiation; the rest should abstain. its walls were razed to the ground, that its Then followed lustrations and purifications monuments were Jestroyed by the orders of in the sea (the famous cry of "Halade, Mystae the early Christian Fathers, who considered -to the sea, 0 Mystae" became emblematic the sanctuary as the very seat of Satan. A of the Eleusinian rites), the purification and portion of its area was then transformed into a sacrifice of a sucking pig whose blood was cemetery, but even that was soon abandoned sprinkled on the candidates purifying them to its fate and the sanctuary was buried below further, fasting, and some indoctrination. a deep accumulation of debris and mud. Finally, in the forenoon of the nineteenth day Forgotten the temenos of Demeter re, of Boedromion, the initiates were started on mained for centuries and until 1882,when the their procession from the Pompeion of Greek Archaeological Society began to exca, Athens. That procession was one of the most vate its remains.1 Year after year the Greek spectacular religious events of the ancient excavators laborcd among its ruins until the world, and in ~ny respects it resembled the entire area was cleared. Through their efforts processions through the streets of modem Eleusis, the great sanrtuary of Demeter, in, Athens on the night of Good Friday. Dressed deed has been brought back to light and life; in festal clothes, crowned with wreaths, and but instead of marble buildings and rich holding great torches, the initiates, led by the shrines the present-day visitor will find a maze priests of Eleusis and the Eleusinian "sacra," of foundations and broken stones which will left Athens and, following the Sacred Way, bring to his mind the picture of the fallen marched to Eleusis singing and rejoicing. The ~iants of mythology. Today silence and deso­ outer court of the sanctuary at Eleusis was lation reign over the area which once re, not reached until midnight, because many a , sounded with the paeans and the rejoicing of stop had to be made on the way before the grateful initiates; today the sanctuary of altars, shrines, and sanctuaries which flanked Demeter at Fleusis seems completely dead. the Sacred Way. Outside the sanctuary area And yet in the days of the Olympian Gods a multitude of booths, hostelries, baths, etc., people from all over the civilized world, men, stood ready to cater to the needs of the ini, women, and children-free men and women tiates. untainted by crime--even slaves, aspired to Remains of these establishments were ELEUSIS 133 brought to light in the excavations of 1930- tant of these remains-foundations of houses, 1931. In the same year we excavated the old, perhaps even of the palace of the ruling prince, est-known settlement of Eleusis. It is located graves, and pottery-belong to the Late on the southern slope of the Eleusinian hill Helladic 11 and 111 periods (to the Mycenaean and belongs to the Middle Helladic period, Age from c. 1500-1100 B.c.), and to the years i.e. to the Middle Bronze Age.2 Foundations during which, according to the Eleusinian of apsidal houses, graves, and a multitude of tradition, the goddess visited Keleos and small objects were uncovered, proving that stayed in his palace; in other words, to the by 1000 B.c. the Eleusinian hill was already years when the cult of Demeter was intro­ inhabited. From that remote date to the pres, duced. The Mycenaean settlement of Eleusis ent people have lived uninterruptedly on this was naturally surrounded by fortification pine-cladhill. walls which have not survived, but which However, no evidence was uncovered apparently followed the brow of the hill proving that the rites of Demeter were cele, around the point on which the Chapel of brated in the Middle Helladic era, and it Panaghitsa now stands. seems that these rites were introduced in the Below the line of the fortification walls and ensuing Late Helladic period. In that period against the eastern slope of the hill over a pro­ the settlement was moved to the top of the jecting spur the remains of a megaron belong, Eleusinian hill, and in its extreme northeast, ing to the Late Helladic 11 period were em end its remains were uncovered in 1934. brought to light in 1931-1932.3 The megaron (FIGURE 1: FRONTISPIECE). The most impor• is long and narrow as usual, with a single row FtGURE '.l.. SUPERPOSED REMAINS OP THE TEMPLES OP DllMETER: AT, ARCHAIC TEMrLE; n. PEtSISTRATEIAN; J "1, MYCENAEAN; E, Mvcl!NAEAN P1mm0Los WALL: K. GEoMRTRr<" .. ,,~,P," C:b) t"-',1.1t,..L\.AJ \JI,, .tJIV~tt.V.;> t-,J1.UJC.\...L.;;)d.