During the seven years that the Lakedaimonian garrison occupied the fort of Dekeleia, and ravaged the lands of Attika, it had not been safe to go beyond the city gates. Even the initiated dared not approach the sacred spot by the customary road. Some, indeed, had gone by sea, but for the most part the maimed rites, for these years, were but scantily attended. The sixth day’s solemn procession, the great event of the whole festival, had been abandoned altogether. Alkibiades determined to restore the festival to its wonted grandeur. So the ‘spodophoroi,’ the sacred heralds, were sent out to announce the coming celebration, as of old, defying the Spartans to interfere or stop them. When the time arrived, he posted his hoplites all along the sacred way, and through the mystic defile, and the valley of Eleusis. Thus, the initiated could repair this year, as of old, to the first five days’ performance of the holy rites. On the sixth day, at the head of his cavalry, the Strategos Autokrator marched from the foot of the Akropolis through the Agora, and, passing on his right the new temple of Theseus, took up his station at the outer Keramik gate, at the entrance of the sacred road, there to await the coming of the priests and people. Presently the procession, headed by the priests bearing the holy image, was seen slowly wending its way towards them. Then all along the sacred route, lined and defended by his soldiers, the general, on his white Thrakian charger, and in resplendent armour, led the way. The people of all ranks, following the priests, made the air resound with their ecstatic cries of ‘Iakchos! Iakchos!’ The long road was flanked by tombs and altars of the great departed, carrying men’s thoughts back to the immemorial past, the heroic mythic times; and here many of his renowned ancestors lay, objects still of reverence and veneration. At three points on the road the river Kephisos was crossed by bridges. At each of these the bearers of the hierarchic image stopped to do the customary rites. Thence they entered the mysterious defile which, by degrees, opened into the pleasant valley of Eleusis. The hills on either side echoed to the constantly repeated cries, ‘Iakchos! Iakchos!’ till the Eleusinian plain spread out before them, rich and lovely, bathed by the blue sea on the left, the Eleusinian mountains skirting it upon the right; and straight ahead of them, its white marble walls glittering against the setting sun, shone the Akropolis of Eleusis and the temples of the goddesses.