[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.).