First mentioned in 1263, the site anciently occupied by a temple of Apollo.
as the rites of Eleusis and the Olympian games.” These two institutions may be said to have been in some respects the counterpart of one another, the one being the celebration of what is commonly called life, the other of what is known as death; the one sacred to the god who rules in heaven, the other to the infernal or Chthonian deities.
Of the myth on which the Eleusinian rites were based the earliest account is to be found in what is called the Homeric hymn to Demeter, though it is known to be the work of a later writer. According to this tale, Cora, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (“Earth-Mother”)—otherwise called Persephone or Proserpine—was carried off by Hades while she was playing with her companions in a flowery meadow. Her mother sought her for nine days and nights with the aid of torches, but without success. Overcome with grief and deeply offended that Zeus should have permitted such an outrage, she withdrew from the society of the gods of Olympus. In her wanderings she came, in the guise of an old woman, to Eleusis, where she was kindly received by the ruler Celeus and his family. For a time she acted as nurse to his infant son Demophoon, and would have conferred upon him immortality, had not his mother, Metaneira, been terrified one night to see her plunging him in fire, as she was in the habit of doing to purify him from the elements of corruption. The goddess, incensed at the mother’s interference, revealed her divine rank, and commanded the family to build a temple for her on the hill, which they did; and there she dwelt for a year, during which the earth was visited with barrenness. At length Zeus consented to restore Cora to her mother, on condition that she should return to Hades every year and remain with her husband in the underworld for four months while the seed was in the ground. Before leaving Eleusis, Demeter revealed to Celeus and three others, in whose families they were to remain, the secret rites which she wished to be celebrated every year in her temple.
According to a later addition to the tale, the goddess also taught Triptolemus how to grow corn, an art which had hitherto been unknown among men, and was first practised in the Thriasian plain. This version was current among the Athenians, who, although not mentioned in the hymn, ultimately assumed the chief responsibility for the celebration of the rites, and introduced various modifications, in which Dionysus and Iacchus had a prominent place. For hundreds of years before, the “Mysteries” were entirely in the hands of the people of Eleusis, which was then as independent of Athens on the east as it was of Megara on the west.
The rites were of a mystical nature, and consisted largely of a dramatic representation of the myth above referred to. They grew in popularity and importance as faith in the traditional theology declined; and even the philosopher found in them an aid to natural religion. So great, indeed, was the importance attached to them that, at a later time, the Christian apologists (to whom we are chiefly indebted for information
