_The Thesmophoria._ With the autumn festival of the Thesmophoria[304] we come to a class of rites of capital interest. They were practised by women only and were of immemorial antiquity. Although, for reasons explained at the outset, they are considered after the Anthesteria and Thargelia, their character was even more primitive, and, owing to the conservative character of women and the mixed contempt and superstition with which such rites were regarded by men, they were preserved in pristine purity down to late days. Unlike the Diasia, Anthesteria, Thargelia, they were left almost uncontaminated by Olympian usage, and—a point of supreme interest—under the influence of a new religious impulse, they issued at last in the most widely influential of all Greek ceremonials, the Eleusinian Mysteries. To the primitive character and racial origin of these rites we have the witness of Herodotus[305], though unhappily piety sealed his lips as to details. He says, ‘Concerning the feast of Demeter which the Greeks call Thesmophoria I must preserve an auspicious silence, excepting in so far as every one may speak of it. It was the daughters of Danaus who introduced this rite from Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; but after the upset of the whole of Peloponnesos by the Dorians the rite died down completely, and it was only those of the Peloponnesians who were left, and the Arcadians who did not leave their seats who kept it up.’ Herodotus oddly enough does not mention the Athenians, who were as stable and as untouched as the Arcadians, but his notice is invaluable as fixing the pre-Dorian character of the rites. Knowing that they were of immemorial antiquity, _more suo_ he attributes them to the Egyptians, and as will later be seen (p. 128) there may be some element of probability in his supposition.