[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.