THE EtEUSlNIAN MYSTEBKS. 207 But the comfort arising out of these disclosures respecting the Ilermce, though genuine and inestimable at the moment, was soon again disturbed. There still remained the various alleged profanations of the Eleusinian mysteries, which had not yet been investigated or brought to atonement ; and these were the more sui'e to be pressed home, and worked with a factitious exaggera- tion of pious zeal, since the enemies of Alkibiades were bent upon turning them to his ruin. Among all the ceremonies of Attic religion, there was none more profoundly or universally reverenced than the mysteries of Eleusis, originally enjoined by the goddess Demeter herself, in her visit to that place, to Eumol- polus and the other Eleusinian patriarch, and transmitted as a precious hereditary privilege in their families. 1 Celebrated an- nually in the month of August or September, under ilin special care of the basileus, or second archon, these mysteries were at- tended by vast crowds from Athens as well as from other parts of Greece, presenting to the eye a solemn and imposing spectacle, and striking the imagination still more powerfully by the special initiation which they conferred, under pledge of secrecy, upon pious and predisposed communicants. Even the divulgation in words to the uninitiated, of that which was exhibited to the eye and ear of the assembly in the interior of the Eleusinian temple, was accounted highly criminal : much more the actual mimicry of these ceremonies for the amusement of a convivial party. Moreover, the individuals who held the great sacred offices at Eleusis, the hierophant,thedaduch (torch-bearer), and the keryx, or herald, which were transmitted by inheritance in the Eu- molpidse and other great families of antiquity and importance, were personally insulted by such proceedings, and vindicated their own dignity at the same time that they invoked punishment on the offenders in the name of Demeter and Persephone. The most appalling legends were current among the Athenian public, and repeated on proper occasions even by the hierophant i)f Andokides, the three Orations : Andokides de Mysteriis, Andokides do I'cditu Suo. and Lysias contra Andokidem. 1 Homer, Hynn. Cerer. 475 Compare the Epigram cited in Lobect
Elcusinia, p. 47
