But Virgil’s sixth book contains much more than the eschatological views of philosophic schools; it reflects to an extraordinary degree popular ideas and practices. I have already referred to the fact that it represents a mystic initiation of Virgil’s hero as preparation for his holy task. Now we know that at all times the convictions of the majority of men are founded not on the arguments which thinkers can supply, but on hopes, intuitions, and emotional experiences. Such were the grounds on which the Orphic built his hope of the purified soul’s ultimate happiness. More popular than Orphism were the Greek mysteries, of which the most important were those celebrated annually at Eleusis in Attica. There the story of the rape of Proserpina, of Demeter’s search for her daughter, and of the daughter’s recovery, formed the center of a mystic ceremonial. Originally these mysteries were no doubt agricultural rites intended to call to life the dead grain in the spring. But before the seventh century, B.C., the festival had been transformed; the miracle of the reviving vegetation, of the grain which dies and lives again, here, as so many times elsewhere, had become the symbol and assurance of human immortality.[23] Before admission to the annual celebration the would-be initiate was duly purified. During the celebration the initiated, by their own acts, recalled Demeter’s hunt for her daughter, roaming the shore with lighted torches; like the goddess, they fasted and then broke their fast by drinking a holy potion of meal and water; in the great hall of initiation they witnessed a mystic drama, perhaps saw holy objects exhibited and explained. In any case they underwent an emotional experience which so confirmed their intuitional belief in immortality, that they were confident of peace and happiness in this life and of blessedness in the life to come, where they would join in the sacred dance, while the uninitiated would be wretched. Many are the expressions of this ecclesiastical confidence. The Homeric hymn of Demeter promised: “Blessed is he among mortal men who has seen these rites.”[24] Pindar, early in the fifth century, wrote: “Happy he who has seen these things and then goes beneath the earth, for he knows the end of life and its Zeus-given beginning.”[25] Sophocles said: “Thrice blessed are they who have seen these rites, and then go to the house of Hades, for they alone have life there, but all others have only woe.”[26] At the close of the fifth century Aristophanes made his chorus of mystae sing: “For we alone have a sun and a holy light, we who have been initiated, and who live honorably toward friends and strangers, reverencing the gods.”[27] In the third century of the Christian era, an official of the mysteries set up an inscription which declares: “Verily glorious is that mystery vouchsafed by the blessed gods, for death is no ill for mortals, but rather a good.”[28]