Themistius represents initiation in the following words:-- "Entering now the mystic dome, he is filled with horror and amazement. He is seized with solicitude and a total perplexity. He is unable to move a step forward; and he is at a loss to find the entrance to that road which is to lead him to the place he aspires to. But now, in the midst of his perplexity, the prophet (hierophant) suddenly lays open to him the space before the portals of the temple. Having thoroughly purified him, the hierophant now discloses to the initiated a region all over illuminated and shining with a divine splendour. The cloud and thick darkness are dispersed; and the mind, which before was full of disconsolate obscurity, now emerges, as it were, into day, replete with light and cheerfulness, out of the profound depth into which it had been plunged." The fee for initiation was a minimum sum of fifteen drachmas (a drachma being of the value of 7 3/4d.), in addition to which there were the usual honoraria to be bestowed upon the various officials, to which reference has already been made. Presumably, also, gifts in kind were made to the principal officials, for an inscription of the fifth century B.C., found at Eleusis, reads:-- "Let the Hierophant and the Torch-bearer command that at the Mysteries the Hellenes shall offer first-fruits of their crops in accordance with ancestral usage.... To those who do these things there shall be many good things, both good and abundant crops, whoever of them do not injure the Athenians, nor the city of Athens, nor the two goddesses." The Telestrion or Hall of Initiation, sometimes called "The Mystic Temple," was surrounded on all sides by steps, which presumably served as seats for the initiated while the sacred dramas and processions took place on the floor of the hall. These steps were partly built in and partly cut in the solid rock; in later times they appear to have been covered with marble. There were two doors on each side of the hall with the exception of the north-west, where the entrance was cut out of the solid rock, a rock terrace at a higher level adjoining it. This was probably the station of those not yet admitted to full initiation. The roof of the hall was carried by rows of columns which were more than once renewed. The Hall itself did not accommodate more than four thousand people. The building was perhaps more accurately described by Aristophanes, who called it: "The House that welcomed the Mystæ," and he carefully distinguished it from the Temple of Demeter. It was not the dwelling-place of any god, and it, therefore, did not contain any holy image. It was built for the celebration of a definite ritual, and the Eleusinian Hall of Initiation was therefore the only known _church_ of antiquity, if by that term we mean the meeting-place of the congregation.