“O happy mystic chorus,
The blessed sunshine o’er us
On us alone is smiling,
In its soft sweet light;
On us who strive forever
With holy, pure endeavour
Alike by friend and stranger
To guide our steps aright.”[[22]]
The impulse that was derived from Eleusis to lead the earthly life aright must have had as many different results as there were temperaments among the initiates. Andocides, merchant and orator, reminded the Athenian judges that they had contemplated the sacred rites in order that they might punish the guilty and save the innocent. Plato felt that he whose memory of initiation was still fresh and who at Eleusis had been the spectator of “many glories in the other world” must see in every beautiful face or form that he encountered an imitation of divine or absolute beauty toward which his spirit would go out in reverential love.
The excavated remains of ancient Eleusis consist of ground foundations or even fainter traces of buildings and porticoes dating from the “Mycenæan” period to the age of the Antonines. Pisistratus, Cimon, Pericles and Hadrian have left fragmentary records in stone of their interest in this religious centre. The Temple of the Mysteries, which was a great hall rather than a sanctuary, saw many changes in the course of the centuries. The older structure of Pisistratus’s day, destroyed by the Persians, was replaced by Pericles, perhaps according to plans by Ictinus. Left unfinished by him, it was added to by Greek and Roman until its boastful splendour aroused the anger of the Gothic monks who came south with Alaric and compassed its final ruin.