Athens and the Cult of Eleusinian Demeter

Appendix 7 Athens and the Cult of Eleusinian Demeter

We bring together here the evidence and descriptions, scattered throughout the book, of the involvement of the Athenian polis in the cult of Demeter at Eleusis. The polis exerted far more control and authority over this cult than over any other, and did so from the time of Solon at least. The nature and extent of this authority serve as an example of what polis control over a cult would look like if it were in fact common.1

Nomoi and Psephismata

There are by far more nomoi and psephismata, that is acts of the Ekklesia, concerning this cult than for all other individual cults combined. Kevin Clinton (1980 and 2005–2008) summarizes the content of I. Eleusis 138 of, probably, 353/2–348/7 as follows: the announcement of the Mysteries and the selection and sending of the spondophoroi to the other Greek cities; the limits and nature of the Sacred Truce surrounding the festival; the behavior of the cities toward the spondophoroi and the report of the latter on their mission; regulations concerning the myesis (the initiation preliminary to participation in the Mysteries); the appointment of the epimeletai, their duties and those of the basileus in managing the festival; the duties of the exegetai before the festival; the selection of the hearth-initiate; and (after a long lacuna) regulations pertaining to the initiates and pompe; legal procedures for various infractions; and the general responsibilities of the epistatai. “The original document,” he claims, “may have covered every aspect of the Mysteries on which it was appro- priate at this time for the Athenian State to legislate.” The motivation for this nomos at this time, as Clinton plausibly suggests, is renewed foreign interest and more foreign visitors after the Peloponnesian War, a “desire to attract them and . . . a concern for their well-being after their arrival.” Clinton puts this law into the context of other legislation concerning Eleusis, some reaching back to Solon.

1 On the epigraphical evidence for the cult at Eleusis in the late Hellenistic period, see Deshours, 2011.136–49. For a survey of changes in the Mysteries from their founding until III AD, often in the context of τὰ πάτρια, see Patera, 2011.

This text and its apparent predecessor, I. Eleusis 19 of ca. 470–460, are suf- ficient to document the intense involvement of the Ekklesia in the administra- tion of the Demeter cult, going far beyond anything we see for other cults. It is noteworthy that both were erected in the Eleusinion in Athens, not at Eleusis, and, of course, the construction of the Eleusinion on the slope of the Acropolis is perhaps the best indicator of the unusual concern of the polis with this Eleusinian cult.2 Other nomoi and psephismata, including some of the earliest surviving, reflect concern with these same elements. I. Eleusis 13 of ca. 500 orders the hieropoioi of the Eleusinians to make specific sacrifices to various Eleusinian deities, probably as preliminaries to the celebration of the Mysteries them- selves. I. Eleusis 30 of ca. 432/1, found at Eleusis, concerns the election, pay, duties, and term of annual epistatai at Eleusis, who are now to oversee annual revenues that come to sanctuaries of Demeter at Eleusis. By 149/8 various psephismata governed the initiation fee of the Eleusinian Mysteries (I. Eleusis 233.11–17). I. Eleusis 250 of II/I BC in its surviving portions treats especially the pompe for the Mysteries. Other surviving nomoi and psephismata also concern the aparche. In the mid-430’s the polis, by a psephisma, revised a number of provisions concerning the aparche, including among other things the determi- nation of the amount and, most notably, the requirement that all allied states make it and the request that all Greek states do it (I. Eleusis 28a). In 353/2 nomothetai revised arrangements of the aparche, and they are expressly revis- ing “the nomos of Chaeremonides about the aparche” (I. Eleusis 142 of 353/2). In other matters, Demosthenes 21.10 and 175–6 gives the nomos of Euegoras preventing restraint for debt during the Mysteries and certain other heortai, and by a psephisma of 422/1 the polis at its own expense built a bridge over one of the Rheitoi, so that “the priestesses may carry τὰ ἱερά as safely as possible,” surely in the pompe from Athens to Eleusis for the Mysteries (I. Eleusis 41).3 Noteworthy here is the nomos proposed by Lycurgus ([Plut.] X. Orat. 842a) not allowing women to ride on wagons to the Mysteries.

2 On all matters concerning the Eleusinion in the city, see Miles, 1998. 3 Other nomoi and psephismata in Clinton’s list (2005–2008.II.447–8) which are of our time period, of the polis, and concern cult matters are I. Eleusis 135 of IV/III BC, 188 of 251/0, 199 of 227/6, 206 of ca. 220, and 237 of ca. 120. The sacred calendar of Eleusis is I. Eleusis 175.