How that guide pitied our ignorance.
Eleusis is to-day a miserable village, whose inhabitants look as if they ought to be grateful to anybody who would drown them in the adjoining bay. They crowded around us to beg for money and to sell relics of the place; I bought several coins of the time of Hadrian, paying about a cent apiece for the lot. Somewhat to my surprise they were pronounced genuine by a coin-sharp to whom I showed them in Athens. I remarked by the way that you can buy any quantity of antique coins in Athens and no end of statuettes and other articles of terra-cotta. To obtain the genuine you must exercise considerable caution and be careful about trading with doubtful personages.
There are several shops that have a good reputation and are said to take great pains to have none but genuine coins. Sometimes they have large stocks on hand and some of these coins will be very rare; persons interested in making collections for public and private museums arrive there from time to time and almost exhaust the supplies of the dealers. Consequently you can never tell whether you are likely to find a large, medium, or small stock of antique coins on hand in the shops at Athens.
Eleusis was anciently one of the most celebrated cities of Greece, and its foundation dates in the ages of mythology. It was famous for the temple of Ceres and Proserpine, and for the mysteries which were celebrated there in honor of these two goddesses and considered the most sacred of all Greece during the time that paganism flourished.
It was one of the original twelve states of Attica, and was several times at war with Athens. In the last of these wars the Athenians were victorious and Eleusis became a province of Athens with the condition that its religion was to be respected and the worship of Ceres and Proserpine continued as before. Once a year the grand procession went to Athens by the sacred way to celebrate the Eleusinian mysteries, which were maintained for many years.
The Persians destroyed the temple and the city but they were afterwards reconstructed only to be destroyed again.
We wandered among the ruins where the immense and carefully hewn blocks of marble contrasted strangely with the rude huts of the present dwellers on the spot. The destruction was so complete that one sees little more than the outline of one of the temples enclosing a space covered with masses of hewn stone tumbled together in the most complete confusion.
The ruins have been only partially excavated, and there was no work in progress at the time of my visit. Judging by the remains that were visible the temples must have been among the finest of ancient Greece.
From the hill that formed the Acropolis of Eleusis, we looked over the bay, and saw the locality where was fought the famous battle of Salamis, between the Greeks and Persians. The site of the silver throne of Xerxes was pointed out, but we were somewhat dubious about it as we could not see the throne though looking repeatedly and intently. The guide could not tell where it could be found and seemed rather disgusted when we requested him to ask the natives if they had seen anything of it lying around loose.
He persisted that the battle was fought more than two thousand years ago; we listened to his explanation and shook our heads as if we were not convinced.