199. The Eleusinia.—Our first festival is the Eleusinia, the festival of the Eleusinian mysteries. It is September, the “19th of Boēdromiōn,” the Athenians will say. Four days have been spent by the “initiates” and the “candidates” in symbolic sacrifices and purifications.[*] On one of these days the arch priest, the “Hierophant,” has preached a manner of sermon at the Painted Porch in the Agora setting forth the awfulness and spiritual efficacy of these Mysteries, sacred to Demeter the Earth Mother, to her daughter Persephone, and also to the young Iacchus, one of the many incarnations of Dionysus, and who is always associated at Elusis with the divine “Mother and Daughter.” The great cry has gone forth to the Initiates—“To the Sea, ye Mystæ!” and the whole vast multitude has gone down to bathe in the purifying brine. [*] Not all Athenians were among the “initiated,” but it does not seem to have been hard to be admitted to the oaths and examination which gave one participation in the mysteries. About all a candidate had to prove was blameless character. Women could be initiated as well as men. Now on this fifth day comes the sacred procession from Athens across the mountain pass to Eleusis. The participates, by thousands, of both sexes and of all ages, are drawn up in the Agora ere starting. The Hierophant, the “Torchbearer,” the “Sacred Herald,” and the other priests wear long flowing raiment and high mitres like Orientals. They also, as well as the company, wear myrtle and ivy chaplets and bear ears of corn and reapers’ sickles. The holy image of Iacchus is borne in a car, the high priests marching beside it; and forth with pealing shout and chant they go,—down the Ceramicus, through the Dipylon gate, and over the hill to Eleusis, twelve miles away. 200. The Holy Procession to Eleusis.—Very sacred is the procession, but not silent and reverential. It is an hour when the untamed animal spirits of the Greeks, who after all are a young race and who are gripped fast by natural instinct, seem uncurbed. Loud rings the “orgiastic” cry, “_Iacchë! Iacchë! evoë!_” There are wild shouts, dances, jests, songs,[*] postures. As the marchers pass the several sanctuaries along the road there are halts for symbolic sacrifices. So the multitude slowly mounts the long heights of Mount Ægaleos, until—close to the temple of Aphrodite near the summit of the pass—the view opens of the broad blue bay of Eleusis, shut in by the isle of Salamis, while to the northward are seen the green Thrasian plain, with the white houses of Eleusis town[+] near the center, and the long line of outer hills stretching away to Megara and Bœotia. [*] We do not possess the official chant of the Mystæ used on their march to Eleusia. Very possibly it was of a swift riotous nature like the Bacchinals’ song in Euripides’s _Bacchinals_ (well translated by Way or by Murray). [+] This was about the only considerable town in Attica outside of Athens.