[43] Twenty thousand, according to the Cronique de St. Denys.
[44] June 16
[45] Mitford, chap. viii., sect. 4.
[46] All Grecian colonies held the metropolis, or mother city, whence they were derived, in deep veneration. The Ionian states were founded by a great migration from Attica, and therefore looked up to the Athenians as the head of their tribe.
[47] A similar event is related to have occurred at Thebes, before the battle of Leuctra.
[48] Herod. viii. 37 and 38.
[49] History of Greece, p. 166.
[50] Herod. viii. 60, 62.
[51] Æacus, son of Jupiter and Ægina, was king of the island to which he gave his mother’s name. From him sprung Peleus and Telamon, with their descendants Achilles, Pyrrhus, Ajax, &c.
[52] Eleusis was famed for the celebration of mysteries, as they were called; which consisted in leading the aspirant through various terrific scenes and representations; after which, if his courage remained unshaken, he was instructed in a purer and more exalted system of religion than was openly taught in Greece. Secrecy on the part of the initiated was most strictly enforced. The immortality of the soul appears to have been the leading doctrine inculcated in these ceremonies; which seem traceable to the earliest periods of Grecian history, and were probably derived from Egypt. The initiated went yearly in solemn procession from Athens to Eleusis, and chaunted on these occasions the hymns alluded to.