NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
[1] H. Cer. 270 ff. (Demeter speaks) ἀλλ’ ἄγε μοι νηόν τε μέγαν καὶ βωμὸν ὑπ’ αὐτῷ τευχόντων πᾶς δῆμος ὑπαὶ πόλιν αἰπύ τε τεῖχος, Καλλιχόρου καθύπερθεν, ἐπὶ προὔχοντι κολωνῷ. ὄργια δ’ αὐτὴ ἐγὼν ὑποθήσομαι, ὡς ἂν ἔπειτα εὐαγέως ἔρδοντες ἐμὸν μένος ἱλάσκησθε. Building of the temple: 298 ff., and following that the instructions of the goddess as to the δρησμοσύνη ἱερῶν and the ὄργια, 474 ff.
[2] See Lobeck, Agl. 272 ff.
[3] 487 ff. I will not stop to answer the attacks made on the concluding part of the hymn nor to defend the many lines which editors have rejected. None of the attacks seem to me justified.
[4] Körte, Ath. Mitt. 1896, p. 320, dates the decree in the year 418.
[5] κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ τὴν μαντείαν τὴν ἐκ Δελφῶν, SIG. 20, l. 5; 26 f.; 35 [IG. i, Supp., p. 59, 27b]. In Sicily the Eleusinia are already well known in the time of Epicharmos: Epich. ἐν Ὀδυσσεῖ αὐτομόλῳ ap. Ath. 374 D = 100 Kaib. EM. 255, 2; cf. K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 259.
[6] We can only state this definitely of the Eumolpidai who provided the male and female hierophants. Severely as the genealogy of this family has suffered on all sides through fictitious accretions and combinations there can be no doubt of its Eleusinian origin. On the other hand, it is a striking fact that none of the γένη who are known to have shared in the direction of the Eleus. mysteries derived their origin from the Eleusinian princes mentioned in h. Cer. 475–6 as receiving with Eumolpos the instructions of the goddess (Triptolemos, Diokles, Keleos). The Krokonidai and Koironidai did, it is true, claim Triptolemos as their ancestor, but their connexion with the sacred festival is obscure and dubious (see K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 255 f.). The Kerykes (in whose family the posts of Dadouchos, Herald of the Mysteries, Priest ἐπὶ βωμῷ, etc., were hereditary) were only connected with Eumolpos by a tradition which the family itself regarded as apocryphal (Paus. 1, 38, 3); they themselves traced their descent from Hermes and Herse the daughter of Kekrops (s. Dittenberger, Hermes, xx, 2), and therefore evidently regarded themselves as an Athenian family. We know too little of these relationships to venture to say that this claim was unjustified (as Müller, p. 250 f., is inclined to do). Nothing need prevent us from supposing that this is one of the many innovations introduced at and after the union of Eleusis and its festival with Athens—many of them are quite evident—and that in addition to the old Eleusinian priestly families the Athenian family of the Kerykes was given a regular part in the δρησμοσύνη ἱερῶν. This would then be part of the compromise (συνθῆκαι, Paus. 2, 14, 2) between Athens and Eleusis upon which the whole relationship between the two states and their religious cults rested.
[7] See above, chap. v, [n. 18.]
[8] It is doubtful what part the goddess Daeira played in the Eleusinia: that she played some part must be regarded as certain from the fact that among the official priesthoods of the festival a δαειρίτης is expressly mentioned (Poll. i, 35). She stands in a certain opposition to Demeter: but though she is nevertheless identified by Aesch. [231] and others with Persephone (K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 288) the most we may deduce from this is that she also was a chthonic deity. (Acc. to the sacrificial calendar of the Attic Tetrapolis, Leg. Sacr. i, p. 48, B. 12. Δαίρᾳ οἷς κυοῦσα was offered. This does not point to the identity of this goddess with Persephone—as the editor, p. 52, points out. Pregnant animals were by preference offered to Demeter, though occasionally to Artemis and Athene too.) Daeira seems from all the indications to belong to the χθόνιοι. (Meaning of the name uncertain: ? “the knowing one” or “the (torch) burning one”: cf. Lobeck, Pathol. prol. 263.) In Eust. on Ζ 378, p. 648, 24, among the notices collected from the lexicographers there is one in which Pherekydes makes her the sister of Styx (it is not Pherekydes but the over-subtle scholar to whom Eust. owes his note, who thinks that Daeira signified the ὑγρὰ φύσις to the ancients; so also Ael. Dionys. quoting οἱ περὶ τελετὰς καὶ μυστήρια in his Lexicon, ap. Eust. 648, 41. This is a worthless allegorical interpretation).—For which reason some made her the daughter of Okeanos (Müller, pp. 244, 288)—τινὲς δὲ φύλακα Περσεφόνης ὑπὸ Πλούτωνος ἀποδειχθῆναί φασι τὴν Δάειραν (648, 40). According to this she would be a Hades-daimon keeping guard over the wife of Aidoneus (cf. the guardian Κωκυτοῦ περίδρομοι κύνες in Ar., Ran. 472, quoting Eurip.). In this case we can see the origin of Demeter’s hostility. Did this Daeira also play a part (as a character) in the Eleusinian δρᾶμα μυστικόν? Ap. Rh. makes her the same as Hekate, who, however, in the h. Cer. (and on vase-paintings) is the helper rather than the enemy of Demeter.
[9] So also in the recently discovered Paean (fourth century B.C.) of Philodamos of Skarpheia addressed to Dionysos (BCH. 1895, p. 403), where in the third section we are told how Dionysos, the son of Thyone, born in Thebes, went from Delphi to Eleusis where he was called Iakchos by the mortals to whom he had (in the mysteries) revealed πόνων ὅρμον ἄλυπον.—The attempt at historical synthesis, bringing together as many as possible of the different relations and ramifications of the Dionysos nature, is particularly evident in the whole composition of this hymn. The cult of Dionysos was established in Attica by the Delphic oracle—so much is certain; and that is enough for the poet who now makes Iakchos, too, come from Delphi to the people of Attica. Such a conception has no historical significance.
[10] Ἴακχος (there clearly distinguished from Διόνυσος) τῆς Δήμητρος δαίμων is described as ὁ ἀρχηγέτης τῶν μυστηρίων in Str. 468 (cf. Ar., Ran. 398 f.).
[11] The Ἰακχεῖον (Plu., Arist. 27. Alciphr. iii, 59, 1).
[12] Was the birth of Iakchos any part of the spectacle at the mysteries? It might be thought so from what we are told by Hippol., RH. 5, 8, p. 162 D.-S.: the hierophant νυκτὸς ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι ὑπὸ πολλῷ πυρὶ τελῶν τὰ μυστήρια βοᾷ καὶ κέκραγε λέγων· ἱερὸν ἔτεκε πότνια κοῦρον Βριμὼ βριμόν. This statement, however, suffers from the disadvantage belonging to all information given by Christian writers on the subject of mysteries when not confirmed by earlier evidence; such information is admissible at most for the actual time of the writer. (Immediately combined with this in Hippol. comes the remarkable assertion that the hierophant was εὐνουχισμένος διὰ κωνείου. Of this Epict. for example (3, 21, 16) knows nothing, but only speaks of the ἁγνεία—probably confined to the time of the festival and its preparation—of the hierophant. Still, Jerome, adv. Jovin. 1, 49, p. 320 C Vall., speaks of the cicutae sorbitione castrari of the hierophant. Likewise Serv., A. vi, 661.) [232]
[13] An opportunity of speaking in more detail of Orphic doctrine will occur [later on]. Here I will only point out in passing that the ancients themselves never suggested for a moment that Orpheus—the master of every kind of mysticism—had anything in particular to do with the Eleusinia; as Lob. Agl. 239 shows.
[14] As to the admission of slaves to the Eleusinian initiation ceremonies K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 56, opposes Lobeck (Agl. 19) and suggests a doubt. His main objection is that on the great inscr. dealing with the regulation of the Eleusinia (CIA. i, 1) side by side with μύσται καὶ ἐπόπται there is mention also of ἀκόλουθοι (but not of δοῦλοι, Ziehen, Leg. Sacr. [Diss.], p. 14 f.)—i.e. presumably slaves, not themselves Mystai, belonging to the μύσται. But if slaves were initiated that would not prevent there being other slaves, ἀκόλουθοι of the μύσται, uninitiated and not reckoned among the μύσται. It is definitely stated on the official record of building expenses at Eleusis dating from the year 329/8, CIA. ii, 834, b, col. 2, 71, μύησις δυοῖν τῶν δημοσίων (the state slaves employed in the building operations) Δ Δ Δ (cf. l. 68). Initiation of the δημόσιοι also in CIA. ii, 834 c, 24. On this view, when the comic poet Theophilos (ii, p. 473 K.) makes someone speak of his ἀγαπητὸς δεσπότης by whom he ἐμυήθη θεοῖς, it will not be necessary to suppose that a freedman (as Meineke, Com. 3, 626) is speaking and not a slave.—The generosity implied was all the greater since in many of the most sacred feasts of the gods at Athens slaves were expressly excluded: cf. Philo, Q. omn. Prob. 20, ii, p. 467 M. Casaubon on Ath., vol. 12, p. 495 Schw.
[15] Isoc. 4, 28, Δήμητρος γὰρ ἀφικομένης εἰς τὴν χώραν . . . καὶ δούσης δωρεὰς διττάς, αἵπερ μέγισται τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι, τούς τε καρποὺς καὶ τὴν τελετήν, . . . οὗτως ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν οὐ μόνον θεοφιλῶς ἀλλὰ καὶ φιλανθρώπως ἔσχεν, ὥστε κυρία γενομένη τοσούτων ἀγαθῶν οὐκ ἐφθόνησε τοῖς ἄλλοις, ἀλλ’ ὧν ἔλαβεν ἅπασι (he means all Greeks: cf. 157) μετέδωκεν.
[16] μυεῖν δ’ εἶναι τοῖς οὖσι Κηρύκων καὶ Εὐμολπιδῶν as the law appoints, CIA. i, 1 (more exactly Supp. p. 3 f.), ll. 110–11. Thus the μύησις belonged exclusively to the members of the γένη of the Eumolpidai and Kerykes (but to all the members, not merely those serving as officers at the particular festival concerned). Cf. Dittenberger, Hermes, 20, 31 f. The Emperor Hadrian, in order to be able to hold the festival in a more sumptuous manner, had himself made ἄρχων of the Εὐμολπιδῶν γένος, having already been made a member of that γένος: ins. from Eleusis, Ath. Mitt. 1894, p. 172.—There is no reference to the Eleusinia in what is said about the μυεῖν of a priestess belonging to the family of the Phyllidai in Phot. Φιλλεῖδαι: see Töpffer, Att. Geneal. 92.—The exx. of μύησις collected by Lobeck (Agl. 28 ff.) do not contradict this law: in the case of Lysias who ὑπέσχετο μυήσειν the hetaira Metaneira [D.] 59, 21, μυεῖν merely means defray the cost of initiation (quite correctly explained by Müller, review of Aglaoph., Kl. Schr. ii, 56). So, too, in the case of Theoph. (ii, p. 473 K.) ἐμυήθην θεοῖς, i.e. at the expense of my master.
[17] The πρόρρησις of the Basileus and the proclamations of the hierophant and dadouchos excluded all ἀνδροφόνοι from those taking part in the mysteries: Lob., Agl. 15. They were also, it is true, excluded from all other sacred rites: Lob. 17. Even τοῖς ἐν αἰτίᾳ the Archon gave warning ἀπέχεσθαι μυστηρίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων νομίμων (Poll. 8, 90): in fact, the person accused of murder was in any case, as “unclean”, excluded from all νόμιμα: Antipho, vi, 36 (in AB. 310, 8 read νομίμων). [233]
[18] ὅσιοι μύσται, Ar., Ran. 336. (So, too, the Mystai of the Orphic mysteries are called οἱ ὅσιοι: Pl., Rp. 363 C; Orph., H. 84, 3.) ὅσιος is probably here used in its primitive sense = “clean” (ὅσιαι χεῖρες, etc.). [Pl.] Axioch. 371 D refers to τὰς ὁσίους ἀγχιστείας of the Eleus. Mystai. In the same way ὁσιοῦν was used of ritual purification and expiation: φυγαῖσιν ὁσιοῦν the murder, E., Or. 515; ὁσιοῦν the returned homicide, D. 23, 73; (of the Bacchic mysteries βάκχος ἐκλήθην ὁσιωθείς, E. fr. 472, 15). Thus the ὅσιοι are identical with the κεκαθαρμένοι as the initiated are called: Pl. Phd. 69 C, and frequently. It would be hazardous to suppose that the Mystai called themselves ὅσιοι as the only pious and righteous people (though that is what ὅσιος ἄνθρωπος and the like mean elsewhere). Their spiritual self-satisfaction hardly went as far as that, and indeed they did not ascribe so much personal merit to themselves at all.
[19] In a solemn announcement of the Keryx as it seems: the latter acc. to Sopater διαίρ. ζητημ. (Walz, Rhet. Gr. viii, 118, 24 f.) δημοσίᾳ ἐπιτάττει τὴν σιωπήν at the commencement of the sacred ritual.
[20] τὰ μυστήρια ποιεῖν, Andoc., Myst. 11–12.—The more clearly descriptive expression, ἐξορχεῖσθαι τὰ μυστήρια does not seem to occur before Aristides, Lucian, and the latter’s imitator Alciphron. [Lys.] 6, 51: οὗτος ἐνδὺς στολήν, μιμούμενος τὰ ἱερὰ ἐπεδείκνυε τοῖς ἀμυήτοις καὶ εἶπε τῇ φωνῇ τὰ ἀπόρρητα. The ἀπορ. thus divulged were the sacred formulæ uttered by the hierophant.
[21] At least in later ages there was plenty to hear: εἰς ἐφάμιλλον κατέστη ταῖς ἀκοαῖς τὰ ὁρώμενα, Aristid., Eleus. I, 415 Di. [ii, 28 Ke.]. We frequently hear of the beautiful voices of the hierophants, of ὕμνοι ringing out, etc.
[22] The well-known statements of Pindar, Sophokles, Isokrates, Krinagoras, Cicero, and others are collected by Lobeck, Agl. 69 ff. There is a reminiscence of Isocr. in Aristid. Eleus. I 421 Di. [ii, 30 Ke.] ἀλλὰ μὴν τό γε κέρδος τῆς πανηγύρεως οὐχ ὅσον ἡ παροῦσα εὐθυμία . . . ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῆς τελευτῆς ἡδίους ἔχειν τὰς ἐλπίδας. id. Panath. I, 302 Di. τὰς ἀρρήτους τελετὰς ὧν τοῖς μετασχοῦσι καὶ μετὰ τῆν τοῦ βίου τελευτὴν βελτίω τὰ πράγματα γίγνεσθαι δοκεῖ. Cf. also Welcker’s account, Gr. Götterl. ii, 519 ff., in which, however, there is a good deal mixed up which has nothing to do with the mysteries.
[23] That is, in the time of still vital religion and in the circles which still retained an unspoilt feeling for it. Apart from these it is true that the allegorical interpretation of myths was already familiar in antiquity, and in learned circles the gods and the stories of the gods were transformed and disintegrated εἰς πνεύματα καὶ ῥεύματα καὶ σπόρους καὶ ἀρότους καὶ πάθη γῆς καὶ μεταβολὰς ὡρῶν as Plutarch complains, Is. et O. 66, p. 377 D. These allegorical interpreters from Anaxagoras and Metrodoros onwards are the real ancestors of our modern “nature” mythologists. No one doubts, however, that from their interpretations nothing can be learnt except what the real sense of Greek belief in the gods certainly was not. It is worth noticing that Prodikos, because he said that ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ ποταμοὺς καὶ λειμῶνας καὶ καρποὺς καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοιουτῶδες were the real essence of the Greek gods, was looked upon as one of the ἄθεοι (S.E., M. 9, 51–2 = B 5 Diels). Quam tandem religionem reliquit? asks the Greek whom Cicero is reproducing in ND. i, 118, with reference to this ancient prophet of Greek “nature-religion”.—For the ancient allegorists Persephone, too, is nothing but τὸ διὰ τῶν καρπῶν φερόμενον πνεῦμα (so Kleanthes: Plu. as above). Acc. to Varro Persephone “means” fecunditatem seminum, [234] carried off by Orcus on the occasion of some crop-failure, etc. (Aug., CD. vii, 20). In Porph. ap. Eus., PE. 3, 11, 7–9. we actually have the very interpretation which has been recently restored to so much favour—that Κόρη is nothing else but a (feminine) personification of κόρος = young plant, shoot.
[24] A hint of such an explanation occurs in Sallustius, de Dis iv, κατὰ τὴν ἐναντίαν ἰσημερίαν (i.e. the autumnal) ἡ τῆς Κόρης ἁρπαγὴ μυθολογεῖται γενέσθαι· ὃ δὴ κάθοδός ἑστι τῶν ψυχῶν (from the standpoint of this Neoplatonist at any rate the analogy might be carried through). So, too, Sopater διαίρ. ζητ. in Walz, Rh. Gr. viii, 115, 3, speaks of τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς τὸ θεῖον συγγενές as if it were confirmed in the (Eleusinian) mysteries.
[25] It may be mentioned here by anticipation that a real doctrine of the indestructibility of the human soul was first traditionally attributed in antiquity to the Greek philosophers such as Thales or to the theosophoi such as Pherekydes (and Pythagoras too). In what sense this can be regarded as true we shall learn in the course of our inquiry. The mysteries of Eleusis, from which many modern critics would like to derive the belief in immortality among the Greeks, are mentioned by no ancient authority as among the sources of that belief or of such a doctrine. In which they were quite right.
[26] Soph. fr. 753 N. [791 P.] ὡς τρὶς ὄλβιοι κεῖνοι βροτῶν, οἳ ταῦτα δερχθέντες τέλη μόλωσ’ ἐς Ἅιδου· τοῖσδε γὰρ μόνοις ἐκεῖ ζῆν ἔστι, τοῖς δ’ ἄλλοισι πάντ’ ἐκεῖ κακά.
[27] The privileged position of the initiated is exhibited with striking vigour in the well-known outburst of Diogenes: τί λέγεις, ἔφη, κρείττονα μοῖραν ἕξει Παταικίων ὁ κλέπτης ἀποθανὼν ἢ Ἐπαμεινώνδας, ὅτι μεμύηται; Plu., Aud. Poet. iv, p. 21 F; D.L. vi, 39; Jul., Or. vii, 238 A (p. 308 Hert.).—A homiletic application of Diogenes’ saying is made by Philo, Vict. Off. 12, ii, p. 261 M. συμβαίνει πολλάκις τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν μηδένα μυεῖσθαι, λῃστὰς δὲ ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ καταποντιστὰς καὶ γυναικῶν θιάσους βδελυκτῶν καὶ ἀκολάστων, ἐπὰν ἀργύριον παράσχωσι τοῖς τελοῖσι καὶ ἱεροφαντοῦσι. Cf. Spec. Leg. 3, 7, i, p. 306 M.
[28] Of this nature were the ἱερά which the hierophant “showed” and the other things that were employed in the festival: pictures of gods, relics, and paraphernalia of all sorts (e.g. the κίστη and the κάλαθος: O. Jahn, Hermes, 3, 327 f.): see Lob., Agl. 51–62.
[29] Preller, for example (stimulated by K. O. Müller), is fond of dwelling on the special character and meaning of the worship of the chthonic deities as something quite distinct from other Greek worships of the gods. An example may be found in Pauly-Wissowa1, s.v. Eleusis, iii, p. 108: “The department of religion to which the Eleusinian cult belongs is that of the chthonic deities, which had been indigenous in Greece from the earliest times and was a widely popular cultus. In this cultus ideas of the generous fruitfulness of the earth’s soil and of the fruitfulness of death—whose seat seems to be beneath the earth like the Old Testament Sheol—were interwoven in a mysteriously suggestive way: a way which essentially resisted all efforts at clear and distinct comprehension, and could not help leading to mystical or occult suggestions and obscure symbolistic expression.” This and further amplifications in the same sense all rest upon the unprovable axiom that the activities of the χθόνιοι as gods of the soil and as gods of the kingdom of the souls were “interwoven”: the suggestive haze of the rest follows naturally. But what in all this is Greek?
[30] ἡ κρύψις ἡ μυστικὴ τῶν ἱερῶν σεμνοποιεῖ τὸ θεῖον, μιμουμένη τὴν φύσιν αὐτοῦ φεύγουσαν ἡμῶν τὴν αἴσθησιν. Str. 467. [235]
[31] In fact the ancient allegorical interpretations of the mysteries differed widely among themselves: Lob., Agl. 136–40.—Even Galen attributed an allegorical sense to the mysteries of Eleusis, but he thinks ἀμυδρὰ ἐκεῖνα πρὸς ἔνδειξιν ὧν σπεύδει διδάσκειν (iv, p. 361 K.). This cannot have been true of the assurances given to the Mystai of a blessed future in Hades.
[32] Such proclamations may have occurred in the ἱεροφάντου ῥήσεις (Sop. διαίρ. ζητ. Walz, viii, 123, 29; cf. Lob., Agl. 189).
[33] Lob., Agl. 52, 58 f.
[34] No one says anything of any kind of moral obligation undertaken by the Mystai or of any consequent moral influence of the festival: not even Andokides in whose warnings addressed to the college of judges composed of Mystai (Myst. 31) the words ἵνα τιμωρήσητε μὲν τοὺς ἀσεβοῦντας κτλ. are not to be taken with the previous μεμύησθε καὶ ἑωράκατε τοῖν θεοῖν τὰ ἱερά but with οἵτινες ὅρκους μεγάλους κτλ., καὶ ἀρασάμενοι κτλ. He speaks, in fact, of the moral obligation of the jury who have taken the oath, as judges not as Mystai. In Ar., Ran., 455 ff., the words ὅσοι μεμυήμεθα stand loosely side by side with εὐσεβῆ διήγομεν τρόπον περὶ τοὺς ξένους καὶ τοὺς ἰδιώτας. (Of the Samothrakian mysteries Diodoros says, 5, 49, 6: γίνεσθαι δέ φασι καὶ εὐσεβεστέρους καὶ δικαιοτέρους καὶ κατὰ πᾶν βελτίονας ἑαυτῶν τοὺς τῶν μυστηρίων κοινωνήσαντας—as it seems without effort on their part by a pure act of grace.)
[35] Formal or verbal instruction of a theological or moral kind was not supplied at Eleusis; so much may be stated without fear of contradiction since the work of Lobeck. Thus, the three commandments of Triptolemos, which acc. to Xenokrates διαμένουσι Ἐλευσῖνι (Porph., Abs. 4, 22) cannot be regarded as moral precepts proclaimed at the mysteries: indeed, there is nothing to lead one to conclude that they had anything to do with the mystery festival at Eleusis. In character these very simple precepts seem related to the laws of Bouzyges, with whom Triptolemos is sometimes confused (Haupt, Opusc. iii, 505) and were very likely, like them, recited at some agricultural festival. Supposing further that the third “law” of Triptolemos: ζῷα μὴ σίνεσθαι was really (as Xenokr. seems to have understood it) intended to recommend a complete ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων, then it certainly cannot have been proclaimed at the Eleusinia (though this is what Dieterich thinks happened, Nekyia, 165). It is surely unthinkable that the Mystai at Eleusis were, after the Orphic model, absolutely forbidden to eat flesh for the rest of their lives. It remains a possibility that the precept had quite a different meaning—it does not definitely speak of the killing of animals—and that it belongs to some simple farmer’s festival (not to the great festival of Eleusis, but rather, e.g. the Haloa) at which the farmer was recommended to spare his live stock (just as the third of the three laws of Demonassa at Cyprus forbade the farmer μὴ ἀποκτεῖναι βοῦν ἀρότριον, D. Chr. 64, 3 [329 R., 148 Arn.]; Attic law ap. Ael. VH. 5, 14, etc.).—In any case to bring all this into connexion with the mystery festival of Eleusis is absolutely without justification.
CHAPTER VII
IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE
Certain allusions in Plutarch and Lucian[1] would lead us to suppose that the “mystery-drama” of Eleusis included also a visual exhibition of the underworld and its blest, or unblest, inhabitants. But these contemporaries of a final and luxuriant flowering of mystery-religions of every kind can serve as reliable witnesses only for their own period. In their day the Eleusinian festival, in competition it may be with other secret worships which were invading the Greco-Roman world in ever-increasing numbers, seems to have undergone a considerable alteration and extension of its primitive and traditional shape. We may doubt whether in earlier, classical times the Eleusinia can have attempted to bind the imagination with what were always petty details, or confine within formal limits what lay beyond all human experience. Still the solemn promise of future blessedness made in the mystic festival may, at any rate, have stimulated the imagination of its worshippers and given a more definite turn to their own natural efforts to picture the life to come. The ideas cultivated at Eleusis unmistakably contributed to the process by which the picture of Hades acquired colour and distinctness. Even without such stimulus, the natural instinct of the Greeks at all periods to give form even to what was essentially formless, worked in the same direction. The limits set by Homeric beliefs about the future world had made the Odyssean description of a descent to Hades seem a risky experiment only to be undertaken with the greatest caution. Now, however, since the re-establishment of the belief in a conscious after-life of the disembodied soul, such imaginative bodyings-forth of the invisible realm of shadows had become apparently the most natural and innocent employment of poetic fancy.
The story of Odysseus’ journey to Hades and its expansion in conformity with the gradually increasing distinctness with which the life after death was conceived, was followed at an early period in the development of Epic poetry by further accounts of such journeys undertaken by other heroes. A Hesiodic poem described the descent of Theseus and Peirithoös to the underworld.[2] A Nekyia, the details of which are unknown, occurred in the poem of the Return of the heroes [237] from Troy. The epic which went by the name of the “Minyas” seems to have given considerable space to a descent to Hades.[3] The ancient fable of Herakles’ descent to Hades and conflicts in the underworld received embellishment at more than one poet’s hand.[4] As a result of such repeated and rival interpretations of the story the stock of characters and events associated with Hades was gradually and continually being enlarged. Accident has preserved to us the fact about the little-known Minyas that it, too, added to the details of the picture. To what extent popular imagination and mythology, on the one hand, and poetic inventiveness, on the other, may have been responsible for all this we can hardly say. It seems probable that here, as in the development of so many Greek myths, on the whole the balance of invention lay on the side of the poets. Purely poetic visions or pictures like that of the translation of individual heroes to Elysium may have gradually won their way to popular acceptance. “Dearest Harmodios,” said the Athenian Skolion, “thou art not dead indeed, but livest yet, men say, in the Islands of the Blest.” Not that there was anything fixed or dogmatic on the point. In a funeral oration Hyperides represents Leosthenes and his companions in battle as meeting in Hades, among the illustrious dead, the Tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton.[5]
Much that may have been the invention of poets for the filling up or furnishing of the desert region so stamped itself upon the general mind that it almost seemed the natural growth of authentic popular belief. Everyone was familiar with the guardian of the gate of Plouton, the malignant hound of Hades who admits everyone but lets no one out again. He is the same creature, long known from the adventure of Herakles, which is already named Kerberos by Hesiod.[6] Like the gate and the gate-keeper, the waters that divide Erebos from the world of the living are already known to Homer. Now they have a Ferryman added to them, the churlish old man Charon, who, like a second Kerberos, safely transports everyone across the water, but lets no one return.[7] The Minyas is the first to mention him: that he became a real figure of popular belief (as he is still in Greece to this day, though with altered significance) is shown by pictures on the Attic vases that were put into the graves with the dead. These represent the soul as it stands upon the sedgy bank and meets the ferryman who will carry it over to the other side whence no man returns.[8] The custom of burying the dead with a small coin fixed between the teeth was also explained as provision for the passage-money that would have to be paid to Charon.[9] [238]