He set up an " intelligence bureau " in Rome, instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis, from which his particular enemies the Christians and Epicureans were alike excluded as " profane," and celebrated a mystic marriage between himself and the moon.
The incident has been assigned to various other localities - Crete, Eleusis, and Enna in Sicily, the last being most generally adopted.
In the form of an old woman named Deo (= the " seeker," or simply a diminutive form), she comes to the house of Celeus at Eleusis, where she is hospitably received.
Demeter then returns to Olympus, but before her final departure from earth, in token of her gratitude, she instructs the rulers of Eleusis in the art of agriculture and in the solemnities and rites whereby she desires in future to be honoured.
At Eleusis, Demeter was venerated as the introducer of all the blessings which agriculture brings in its train - fixed dwelling-places, civil order, marriage and a peaceful life; hence her name Thesmophoros, " the bringer of law and order," and the festival Thesmophoria.
At Eleusis also, Triptolemus, the son of Celeus, who was said to have invented the plough and to have been sent by Demeter round the world to diffuse the knowledge of agriculture, had a temple and threshing-floor.
The influence of Demeter, however, was not limited to corn, but extended to vegetation generally and all the fruits of the earth, with the curious exception of the bean, the use of which was forbidden at Eleusis, and for the protection of which a special patron was invented.
Haloa, obviously connected with aces (" threshing-floor "), begun at Athens and finished at Eleusis, where there was a threshing-floor of Triptolemus, in the month Poseideon (December).
The eurapxai (" first fruits ") were conveyed to Eleusis, where sacrifice was offered by a priestess, men being prohibited from undertaking the duty.
A Texet'ij (" initiatory ceremony ") of women by a woman also took place at Eleusis, characterized by obscene jests and the use of phallic emblems. The sacramental meal on this occasion consisted of the produce of land and sea, certain things (pomegranates, honey, eggs) being forbidden for mystical reasons.
2 This legend was localized in various places, as at Eleusis, Lerna, and "that fair field of Enna" in Sicily.
In that year were excavated dome-tombs, most already rifled but retaining some of their furniture, at Arkina and Eleusis in Attica, at Dimini near Volo in Thessaly, at Kampos on the west of Mount Taygetus, and at Maskarata in Cephalonia.
Other " Mycenaean " landmarks have been laid bare at Eleusis, Thoricus, Halae and Aphidna.
The walls of the city, now built under the direction of Themistocles, embraced a larger area than the previous circuit, with which they seem to have coincided at the Dipylon Gate on the north-west where the Sacred Way to Eleusis was joined by the principal carriage route to the Peiraeus and the roads to the Academy and Colonus.
Important researches at Epidaurus, Eleusis, Mycenae, Amyclae and Rhamnus may be numbered among its principal undertakings, in addition to the complete exploration of the Acropolis and a series of investigations in Athens and Attica.
The first three form together a progressive introduction to Christianity corresponding to the stages through which the Aim7ns passed at Eleusis - purification, initiation, revelation.
In many cases these heroes were purely fictitious; such were the supposed ancestors of the noble and priestly families of Attica and elsewhere (Butadae at Athens, Branchidae at Miletus Ceryces at Eleusis), of the eponymi of the tribes and demes.
Claudius was of a distinctly religious turn of mind, as is shown by the interest he took in sacred buildings (the temple at Eleusis, the sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Oropus).
ELEUSIS, an ancient Greek city in Attica about 14 m.
Tradition carries back the origin of Eleusis to the highest antiquity.
5, 2) Triptolemus was the son of Celeus, king of Eleusis, and Metaneira.
Demeter, during her search for her daughter Persephone, arrived at Eleusis in the form of an old woman.
Celeus endeavoured to kill him on his return, but Demeter intervened and forced him to surrender his country to Triptolemus, who named it Eleusis after his father and instituted the festival of Demeter called Thesmophoria.
In the Homeric hymn to Demeter, Triptolemus is simply one of the nobles of Eleusis, who was instructed by the goddess in her rites and ceremonies.
The Attic legend of Eleusis also represented him as one of the judges of the underworld.
His altar and threshing-floor were shown on the Rarian plain near Eleusis; hence he is sometimes called the son of Rarus.
In Eleusis Theseus wrestled with Cercyon and killed him.
Thus during the Eleusinia they were told off to fetch the sacred objects from Eleusis and to escort the image of Iacchus on the sacred way.
Making Isagoras despot of Athens, but the opposition of the Corinthian allies and of his colleague Demaratus caused the expedition to break up after reaching Eleusis (Herod.
The great procession from Athens to Eleusis, in connexion with the Eleusinia).
The mysteries of Apollo and Eleusis, men were baptized (tinguntur, Tertullian's favourite word for baptism), and, what is more, baptized, as they presumed to think, " unto regeneration and exemption from the guilt of their perjuries."
The eastern portion of the plain of Eleusis was called the Thriasian plain, and the city itself was situated in the recesses of the bay just mentioned.
Next in order to the plain of Eleusis came that of Athens, which is the most extensive of all, reaching from the foot of Parnes to the sea, and bounded on the west by Aegaleos, and on the east by Hymettus.
Three roads lead to Athens from the Boeotian frontier over the intervening mountain barrier - the easternmost over Parnes, from Delium and Oropus by Decelea, which was the usual route of the invading Lacedaemonians during the Peloponnesian War; the westernmost over Cithaeron, by the pass of Dryoscephalae, or the "Oakheads," leading from Thebes by Plataea to Eleusis, and so to Athens, which we hear of in connexion with the battle of Plataea, and with the escape of the Plataeans at the time of the siege of that city in the Peloponnesian War; the third, midway between the two, by the pass of Phyle, near the summit of which, on a rugged height overlooking the Athenian plain, is the fort occupied by Thrasybulus in the days of the Thirty Tyrants.
The place in Attica which has been the chief scene of excava tions (independently of Athens and its vicinty) is Eleusis, where the remains of the sanctuary of Demeter, the home of the Eleusinian Mysteries, together with other buildings in its neighbourhood, were cleared by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1882-1887 and 1895-1896.
Ed., Leipzig, 1908); Karten von Attica, published by the German Archaeological Institute of Athens, with explanatory text, chiefly by Professor Milchhofer (1875-1903); see also ATHENS, ELEUSIS and GREECE: Topography.
It thenes was a day of solemn and happy memories, a day devoted, in the celebration of the Great Mysteries, to sacred joy, - the day on which the glad procession of the Initiated returned from Eleusis to Athens.
Rubensohn, Die Mysterienheiligtumer in Eleusis and Samothrake (1892); W.