Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

X. The Sacred Way.—Having completed his description of the Attic islands, Pausanias returns to Athens and sets out thence for Eleusis along the Sacred Way. This was the road by which the initiated went from Athens to Eleusis: the antiquary Polemo devoted a whole book to a description of the route. The present highroad from Athens to Eleusis follows very closely the line of the Sacred Way. This road, running in a north-westerly direction, soon passes on the left the Botanic Garden, conspicuous by its tall and stately poplars, and enters the broad belt of olive-wood which still extends, as it doubtless extended in antiquity, along both sides of the Cephisus for mile after mile. Through this wood of ancient olives, with their massive gnarled trunks and pale green foliage, the road runs for more than a mile, crossing several arms of the Cephisus, which are generally dry and dusty, the water being diverted in many petty rivulets to feed the olive-yards and gardens. Beyond the olive-wood the road at first gradually ascends through a bare stony tract where nothing grows but thistles; then it climbs more steeply the arid and rocky slopes of Mount Aegaleus, which it crosses by a narrow but easy pass, enclosed on both sides by low and desolate heights. Near the summit of the pass a round isolated hill, crowned by a church of St. Elias, rises conspicuously on the right. From this point of the road there is a famous view backward over the Athenian plain. The scene is especially striking at sunset, when the acropolis, rising high above the olive-woods, with its temples lit up by the dying splendour of the sun, stands out against a background of purple mountains. A little farther on the road turns and begins to descend, and Athens is lost to sight.

About a mile farther on we pass the deserted monastery of Daphni, which probably occupies the site of the sanctuary of Apollo mentioned by Pausanias. It stands on the left of the road enclosed by a high battlemented wall above which rises the dome of its Byzantine church. Beyond the monastery the road descends rapidly towards the shore. Here the ancient road may be traced for a long way on the north side of the pass, running parallel to the modern highway on the left bank of a dry water-course which descends from the monastery. The road was partly cut in the rock, partly supported by a wall of rough stones on the side of the water-course. As the road descends the sea appears at the farther end of it, framed between the stony slopes of the hills which enclose the pass. Farther on, the pass opening out, we see stretched below us, like a lake, the deep blue waters of the landlocked Gulf of Salamis, shut in on the south by the bare but beautifully outlined hills of Salamis, on the north by a graceful sweep of the Attic coast, and backed by the distant heights of Cithaeron and the mountains of Megara on the west. Through a dip between the hills of Salamis and the mainland may be seen in clear weather the far conspicuous peak of Cyllene in Arcadia with its crown of snow.

A mile or so after passing the monastery we see on the right of the road some ancient masonry and large blocks of stone at the foot of a rugged wall of rock, in the face of which many niches are cut. This is the sanctuary of Aphrodite mentioned by Pausanias. Soon after this point the hills retire on both sides and the pass ends in a little plain, barren and waterless but partially planted with olives, beside the shore. Here the road turns sharply to the right and, following the shore, runs northward, hemmed in between the sea on the one side and the grey arid slopes of Mount Aegaleus on the other. Soon, however, the hills trend inland a little, leaving between the foot of their declivities and the road a small lake or large pond of clear salt-water, fed by a number of copious salt-springs, the ancient Rhiti. The pond is formed by damming up the water of these springs by means of a stone dyke or embankment, beside which the modern road runs on a narrow strip of sand between the pond on the right and the sea on the left. Fiedler observed flying-fish of the size of herrings rising from the surface of the pool: he says their flesh is white and succulent, better than that of the sea fish in the neighbouring bay. In antiquity, as Pausanias tells us, the right of fishing here was strictly preserved by the priests of Eleusis. A strong stream, turning a mill, flows out of the pool into the sea. At the farther end of the pond Mount Aegaleus sends down its last spur close to the road; after passing it the road skirts on the right another salt-pool and enters the Thriasian plain. The stream which issues from the second of the two salt-ponds turns, or rather used to turn, another mill. Opinions have differed as to whether the ancient road ran, like the modern highway, between the salt-pools and the sea, or skirted the foot of the hills, making a circuit round the pools. In any case it seems probable that in antiquity the water of the salt-springs was not dammed up as at present so as to form pools, but was allowed to flow directly into the sea in brooks which hence received the name of Rhiti (‘streams’).

After entering the Thriasian plain the road continues to skirt the shore. As the ground is here low and marshy, the road is raised on a causeway, which consists of ancient materials mixed with those of later ages. This causeway therefore marks the line of the Sacred Way. On the right of it, about half a mile beyond the salt-pools, where the road to Kalyvia branches off across the plain to the right, there are remains of an ancient monument, which appears to have consisted originally of a cubical mass of earth, cased with white marble and supporting a tombstone. An inscription proves that the monument marked the tomb of one Strato, his wife Polla (Paula) Munatia, and his son Isidotus. This sepulchre, one of the many sepulchres which lined the Sacred Way in antiquity, is not mentioned by Pausanias.

The Thriasian plain, through which the Sacred Way led to Eleusis, is surrounded by mountains and hills except on the south, where it is bounded by the Gulf of Salamis. It is about nine miles long from east to west, and five miles wide at the broadest part, from north to south. The northern and western parts of the plain are stony and barren. Nearer the sea there is a tract of fertile cornland, but it does not extend much to the north of Eleusis itself. The monotony of the otherwise treeless expanse is broken here and there by some scattered olive-trees and oaks. In spring and early summer the plain is gaily carpeted in places with anemones, red, purple, and blue.

XI. The Hall of Initiation at Eleusis.—The great Hall of Initiation, to which the paved road leads from the smaller portal, is a vast single chamber about a hundred and seventy feet square, the sides of which face north, south, east, and west. The whole of the west side, together with the western parts of the northern and southern sides, are bounded by the rock of the acropolis, which has been cut away perpendicularly to make room for the hall. The roof was supported by six rows of columns, seven columns in each row: the bases of all these columns except one are still to be seen in their places. Eight tiers of steps, partly cut in the rock, partly built, ran all round the chamber except at the entrances, of which there were six, namely, two on the north, two on the east, and two on the south. On these tiers of steps the initiated probably sat watching the performance of the mysteries which took place in the body of the hall. It is calculated that about three thousand people could find room on them. The steps, originally narrow, were widened at a later date by a casing of marble. That this marble casing of the steps is a late work appears from the use of mortar to fasten it on.

There are passages of ancient writers which seem to imply that besides the place to which the initiated had access there was an inner Holy of Holies called the anaktoron or megaron, which none but the high-priest of the mysteries might enter, and which, being suddenly thrown open, disclosed to the view of the awestruck beholders the most sacred objects of their religious veneration lit up by a blaze of dazzling light. But no trace of any inner chamber or enclosure has been discovered in the great Hall of Initiation. It may therefore be suggested that the anaktoron or megaron was perhaps nothing but the body of the hall, which may have been screened by curtains from the spectators sitting in darkness on the tiers of seats that ran all round it, till suddenly the curtain rose and revealed the vast hall brilliantly illuminated, with the gorgeously attired actors in the sacred drama moving mazily in solemn procession or giddy dance out and in amongst the forest of columns that rose from the floor of the hall, while the strains of grave or voluptuous music filled the air. Then, when all was over, the curtain would as suddenly descend, leaving the spectators in darkness and silence, with nothing but the memory of the splendid pageant that had burst upon them and vanished like a dream.

XII. Eleutherae.—From Eleusis the road to Eleutherae, which is at the same time the highway from Athens to Thebes, goes north-west across the plain. The olive-trees begin to appear soon after we have left Eleusis, and the road runs for three miles through thick groves of them to the large village of Mandra situated on a small height at the entrance to a valley; for here the mountains which bound the plain of Eleusis begin. The native rock crops up among the houses and streets of the village. The hills that rise on both sides of the valley are wooded with pine. Beyond the village the valley contracts, and the road ascends for a long time through the stillness and solitude of the pine-forest. A little wayside inn (the khan of Palaio-Koundoura) is passed in a lonely dale; and then, after a further ascent, the prospect opens up somewhat, and the tops of Hymettus and Pentelicus are seen away to the east, appearing above a nearer range of hills. Soon afterwards the road descends into a cultivated and fertile little plain or valley watered by the chief arm of the Eleusinian Cephisus, and bounded on the north by the principal range of Cithaeron, on the south by the lower outlying chain which we have just crossed. This no doubt is the plain in which stood the temple of Dionysus mentioned by Pausanias. At the northern end of the valley or plain there is now a police-barrack on the right of the road, and near it a public-house, the khan of Kasa. Here the pass over Cithaeron, in the strict sense, begins. It is a narrow rocky defile, up which the road winds tortuously between high pine-clad slopes on either hand. In the very mouth of the pass, immediately beyond the barrack, a steep, conical, nearly isolated hill rises up as if to bar the road. Its summit is crowned with the grey walls and towers of Eleutherae.

The ruins of Eleutherae, now called Gyphtokastro or ‘Gypsy-castle,’ form one of the finest extant specimens of Greek fortification. The circuit of the walls, which is but small, encloses the summit and part of the southern slope of the hill. The north wall, strengthened with eight square projecting towers, is nearly complete. It is about eight feet thick, and is built of blocks laid in regular courses, with a core of rubble. As the ground falls away to the north, the wall is higher on the outside than on the inside. The towers are about thirty paces apart. Most of them entered from the ramparts by two doors, one on each side of the tower. These doors are still to be seen, though the floors of the upper stories, having been of wood, have of course perished. Each tower has three small windows or loopholes, one in each of the sides which project outward beyond the curtain. Traces of the wall and towers on the other and lower sides of the hill can still be seen, but they are far less perfect than on the north side. The chief gate was on the south. The whole place is now an utter solitude. When I first visited it, on a day in May, the ground was carpeted with yellow flowers; goats were balancing themselves on the grey ruins; and the goatherd was sleeping in the shadow of one of the towers. On either hand the mountains, clothed in their sombre mantle of dark pine-forests, towered into the bright sky.

If from the ruins of Eleutherae we return to the highroad which winds along the western foot of the hill, and follow it for a few miles to the top of the pass, we obtain a commanding view over the wide plain of Boeotia stretching away to the line of far blue mountains which bounds it on all sides. Below us, but a little to the west, at the foot of the long uniform slope of Cithaeron, the red village of Kokla marks the site of Plataea. Thebes is hidden from view behind the dip of a low intervening ridge. The sharp double-peaked mountain on the west, beyond the nearer fir-clad declivities of Cithaeron, is Helicon. The grand mountain mass which, capped with snow, looms on the north-west, is Parnassus. The mountains on the north-east are in Euboea, but the strait which divides them from Boeotia is not visible.