United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As well as the festivities, there were the various mysteries, such as the Eleusinia, the Dionysia and the Bacchanalia. These were conducted by the priests who moulded religious beliefs and guarded their secrets. The mysteries were of the utmost importance and the most sacred of religious conceptions were here dramatized.
But Aristides sending to Delphi, the god answered, that the Athenians should overcome their enemies, in case they made supplication to Jupiter and Juno of Cithaeron, Pan, and the nymphs Sphragitides, and sacrificed to the heroes Androcrates, Leucon, Pisander, Damocrates, Hypsion, Actaeon, and Polyidus; and if they fought within their own territories in the plain of Ceres Eleusinia and Proserpine.
What was it, then, which saved the Eleusinia from this defeat, which kept the movement of the Dionysiac procession from the ruin inevitably consequent upon all intemperate joy? It was the presence of our Lady, the sorrowing Achtheia, who was the inseparable companion of the joyous conqueror, who subdued the joy of victory, and preserved the strength and holy purity of the great Festival.
Word Of The Day