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Updated: June 25, 2025
But the great temple of the mystic goddesses Demeter and Persephone, at Eleusis, was burned down by the irreverent barbarians; Megara, the next place on their southward route, fell; then Corinth, Argos, and Sparta. But when they reached Elis they were confronted by an unexpected opponent. Stilicho had returned from Italy, by way of Salona, which he reached by sea, to stay the hand of the invader.
On receiving these tidings, Pericles re-embarked his forces and returned home. Soon appeared the Peloponnesian forces, commanded by the young Pleistoanax, king of Sparta, who, being yet a minor, was placed under the guardianship of Cleandridas; the lands by the western frontier of Attica, some of the most fertile of that territory, were devastated, and the enemy penetrated to Eleusis and Thria.
Half a mile or more to the south-east, on the banks of the Ilissus, stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian Zeus one of the four largest temples of Greece, ranking with that of Demeter at Eleusis and that of Diana at Ephesus. Its foundations remain, and sixteen of the huge Corinthian columns belonging to its majestic triple colonnade. One of these is fallen.
Around the islet of Psyttaleia in the strait the brown fisher-boats were gliding. Beyond the strait opened the blue hill-girdled bay of Eleusis, now turning to fire in the evening sun. Everything was peaceful, silent, beautiful. Again Glaucon rested on his oars and let his eyes wander.
This, according to the inscription, was the kernel of the mysteries, the innermost secret revealed to the initiated. So in the rites of Demeter at Eleusis a reaped ear of corn was exhibited to the worshippers as the central mystery of their religion.
It stands at the present day in the precinct of Hermes, on the road from Athens to Eleusis, and cannot have cost anything like thirty talents, which sum is said to have been paid to Charikles by Harpalus for its construction. Besides this, after his death, his daughter was adopted by Charikles and Phokion, and received every attention from them.
Judging from the analogy of Eleusis, the Bora, the Red Indian initiations, and so on, we may expect this to be the belief; but Mr. Macdonald knows very little about the matter. The legendary tales say 'all things in this world were made by "God." 'At first there were not people, but "God" and beasts. 'God' here, is Mlungu.
On the north, were Megara, Eleusis, and the cynosure of Marathon; in the south, numerous islands, like a flock of birds, reposed on the bright bosom of the Aegean; to the west, was the broad Piraeus with its thousand ships, and Athens in all her magnificence of beauty; while the stately buildings of distant Corinth mingled with the cloudless sky.
They could open the gates with more security, as four thousand Athenian heavy infantry from Eleusis, and six hundred horse, had marched all night, according to agreement, and were now close at hand.
On the ninth day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so, because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say, We make hogs of ourselves.
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