Secrecy was enjoined because it was regarded as essential that the profane should not be permitted to share the knowledge of the true nature of Demeter and Persephone, as if it were known that these goddesses were only mortal women their worship would become contemptible. Cicero says that it was the humanity of Demeter and Persephone, their places of interment, and several facts of a like nature that were concealed with so much care. Diagoras, the Melian, was accounted an atheist because he revealed the real secret of the Eleusinian. Mysteries. The charge of atheism was the lot of any who communicated a knowledge of the one, only God. Pindar says, referring to the Mysteries: "Happy is he who has seen these things before leaving this world: he realizes the beginning and the end of life, as ordained by Zeus"; and Sophocles wrote: "Oh, thrice blessed the mortals, who, having contemplated these Mysteries, have descended to Hades; for those only will there be a future life of happiness--the others there will find nothing but suffering." BIBLIOGRAPHY Andocides. _De Mysteriis._ _Antiquities of Ionia._ Apollodorus. Aristides. Aristophanes. Aristotle. _Nico. Ethics._ Arnobius. _Disputationes adversus Gentes._ Barthelemy. _Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en Grèce._ _Blackwood's Magazine_, 1853. Chandler. _Travels in Greece._ Cheetham, S. _Mysteries, Pagan and Christian._ Cicero. Clement of Alexandria. _Contemporary Review_,1880. Cornutus. _Theologies Græca Compendium._ _Corpus inscript. Attic._ _Corpus inscript. Gr._ d'Aliviella. _Eleusinia._ Decharme. _Mythologie de la Grèce antique._ Diodorus Siculus. Dion Cassius. Dodwell. _Tour._ Duncan. _Religions of Profane Antiquity._ Dyer. _The Gods in Greece._ _Encyclopædia Britannica._ Eunapius. _Vita Maxim._ Eusebius. _Preparatio Evangelii._ Farnell. _Cults of the Greek States._ Firmicus Maternus. _De errore profanarum religionum._ Foucart. _Les mystères d'Eleusis._ Frazer. _Golden Bough._ Gardner. _New Chapters in Greek History._ Gardner and Jevons. _Manual of Greek Antiquities._ Gibbon. Gregory of Nazianzus. Grote. _History of Greece._ Guerber, H.A. _Myths of Greece and Rome._ Harrison, J.E. _Prolegomena._ Hatch, Edwin. _Hibbert Lectures._ Herodianus. Herodotus. Hippolytus. Horace. International Folk Lore Congress, 1891. _Papers and Transactions._ Isocrates. Lactantius. Lang, Andrew. _Myth, Ritual, and Religion._ Ditto. _Translation of Homeric Hymns._ Lenormant, F. _Eleusis._ Libanius. Livy. Lobeck. _Aglaophamus._ Lucian. _Dialogues of the Dead._ Lysias. _Contra Andocidem._ Mahaffy, J.P. _Rambles and Studies in Greece._ Mannhardt, W. _Mythologische Forschungen._ Meursius. Maury, A. _Les Religions de la Grèce._ Mommsen. _Feste der Stadt Athen in Altertum._ Ditto. _Heortologie._ Nösselt and Hall. _Mythology, Greek and Roman._ Olympiodorus.