Eleusis

Mythology and Proto-history

It appears to have derived its name from the supposed advent (ἔλευσις) of Demeter, though some traced its name from an eponymous hero Eleusis.^[6] It was one of the 12 independent states into which Attica was said to have been originally divided.^[7] It was related that in the reign of Eumolpus, king of Eleusis, and Erechtheus, king of Athens, there was a war between the two states, in which the Eleusinians were defeated, whereupon they agreed to acknowledge the supremacy of Athens in every thing except the celebration of the mysteries, of which they were to continue to have the management.^[8][9] Eleusis afterwards became an Attic deme, but in consequence of its sacred character it was allowed to retain the title of polis (πόλις)^[10][11] and to coin its own money, a privilege possessed by no other town in Attica, except Athens. The history of Eleusis is part of the history of Athens. Once a year the great Eleusinian procession travelled from Athens to Eleusis, along the Sacred Way.

Eleusinian Mysteries

Room inside the Archeological museum of Eleusis.

Eleusis was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the Mysteries of Demeter and Kore, which became popular in the Greek speaking world as early as 600 BC, attracted initiates during Roman Empire before declining mid-late 4th century AD.^[12] These Mysteries revolved around a belief that there was a hope for life after death for those who were initiated. Such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things including the seed of life in a stalk of grain. The central myth of the Mysteries was Demeter's quest for her lost daughter (Kore the Maiden, or Persephone) who had been abducted by Hades. It was here that Demeter, disguised as an old lady who was abducted by pirates in Crete, came to an old well where the four daughters of the local king Keleos and his queen Metaneira (Kallidike, Kleisidike, Demo and Kallithoe) found her and took her to their palace to nurse the son of Keleos and Metaneira, Demophoon. Demeter raised Demophoon, anointing him with nectar and ambrosia, until Metaneira found out and insulted her. Demeter arose insulted, and casting off her disguise, and, in all her glory, instructed Meteneira to build a temple to her. Keleos, informed the next morning by Metaneira, ordered the citizens to build a rich shrine to Demeter, where she sat in her temple until the lot of the world prayed to Zeus to make the world provide food again.

Secular history

During the Greco-Persian Wars, the ancient temple of Demeter at Eleusis was burnt by the Persians in 484 BC;^[13] and it was not till the administration of Pericles that an attempt was made to rebuild it. When the power of the Thirty Tyrants was overthrown after the Peloponnesian War, they retired to Eleusis, which they had secured beforehand, but where they maintained themselves for only a short time.^[14] Under the Romans Eleusis enjoyed great prosperity, as initiation into its mysteries became fashionable among the Roman nobles. It was destroyed by Alaric I in 396 CE, and from that time disappears from history.

Pausanias has left us only a very brief description of Eleusis;^[15] "The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, another of Artemis Propylaea, and a third of Poseidon the Father, and a well called Callichorum, where the Eleusinian women first instituted a dance and sang in honour of the goddess. They say that the Rharian plain was the first place in which corn was sown and first produced a harvest, and that hence barley from this plain is employed for making sacrificial cakes. There the so-called threshing-floor and altar of Triptolemus are shown. The things within the wall of the Hierum [i.e., the temple of Demeter] a dream forbade me to describe." The Rharian plain is also mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Artemis;^[16] it appears to have been in the neighbourhood of the city; but its site cannot be determined.

The temple of Demeter itself, sometimes called δ μυστικὸς σηκός, or τὸ τελεστήριον, was the largest in all Greece, and is described by Strabo as capable of containing as many persons as a theatre.^[17] The plan of the building was designed by Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon at Athens; but it was many years before it was completed, and the names of several architects are preserved who were employed in building it. Its portico of 12 columns was not built till the time of Demetrius Phalereus, about 318 BC, by the architect Philo.^[17][18] When finished, it was considered one of the four finest examples of Grecian architecture in marble. It faced the southeast.

The town of Eleusis and its immediate neighbourhood were exposed to inundations from the river Cephissus, which, though almost dry during the greater part of the year, is sometimes swollen to such an extent as to spread itself over a large part of the plain. Demosthenes alludes to inundations at Eleusis;^[19] and Hadrian raised some embankments in the plain in consequence of an inundation which occurred while he was spending the winter at Athens.^[20] To the same emperor most likely Eleusis was indebted for a supply of good water by means of the aqueduct, the ruins of which are still seen stretching across the plain from Eleusis in a north-easterly direction.