Initiation into the Lesser Mysteries only permitted the neophyte to go as far as the outer vestibule of the temple. In the following autumn, if of full age and approved by the hierophant, the neophyte could be initiated into the Greater Mysteries, into the second degree, that of Mysta. This, however, did not secure admission to all the ceremonies performed during the celebration of the Greater Mysteries. A further year, at least, had to elapse before the third degree, that of Epopta, was taken, before he could see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, all that took place in the temple during the celebration of the Mysteries. Even then, there was one part of the temple and one portion of the ceremony which could be entered and witnessed only by the hierophant and hierophantide. According to Plutarch, Demetrius, when he was returning to Athens, wrote to the republic that on his arrival he intended to be initiated and to be admitted immediately, not only to the Lesser Mysteries, but to the Greater as well. This was unlawful and unprecedented, though when the letter was read, Pythodorus, a torch-bearer, was the only person who ventured to oppose the demand, and his opposition was entirely ineffectual. Stratocles procured a decree that the month of Munychion should be reputed to be and called the month of Anthesterion, to give Demetrius the opportunity for the initiation into the first degree. This was done, whereupon a second decree was issued by which Munychion was again changed into Boedromion, and Demetrius was admitted to the Mysteries of the next degree. Philippides, the poet, satirized Stratocles in the words: "The man who can contract the whole year into one month," and Demetrius, with reference to his lodging in the Parthenon, in the words: "The man who turns the temples into inns and brings prostitutes into the company of the virgin goddess." The design of initiation, according to Plato, was to restore the soul to that state from which it fell, and Proclus states that initiation into the Mysteries drew the souls of men from a material, sensual, and merely human life and joined them in communion with the gods. "Happy is the man," wrote Euripides, "who hath been initiated into the Greater Mysteries and leads a life of piety and religion," and Aristophanes truly represented public opinion when he wrote in _The Frogs_: "On us only does the sun dispense his blessings; we only receive pleasure from his beams; we, who are initiated, and perform towards citizens and strangers all acts of piety and justice." The initiates sought to imitate the allegorical birth of the god. The epoptæ were supposed to have experienced a certain regeneration and to enter upon a new state of existence, and they were fantastically deemed to have acquired a great increase of light and knowledge. Hitherto they had been exoteric and profane; now they had become esoteric and holy.