M26 Demeter and Persephone as Greek personifications of the decay and revival of vegetation. M27 The Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_. The rape of Persephone. The wrath of Demeter. The return of Persephone. 134 R. Foerster, _Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone_ (Stuttgart, 1874), pp. 37-39; _The Homeric Hymns_, edited by T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes (London, 1904), pp. 10 _sq._ A later date—the age of the Pisistratids—is assigned to the hymn by A. Baumeister (_Hymni Homerici_, Leipsic, 1860, p. 280). _ 135 Hymn to Demeter_, 1 _sqq._, 302 _sqq._, 330 _sqq._, 349 _sqq._, 414 _sqq._, 450 _sqq._ _ 136 Hymn to Demeter_, 310 _sqq._ With the myth as set forth in the Homeric hymn may be compared the accounts of Apollodorus (_Bibliotheca_, i. 5) and Ovid (_Fasti_, iv. 425-618; _Metamorphoses_, v. 385 _sqq._). M28 The aim of the Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_ is to explain the traditional foundation of the Eleusinian mysteries by Demeter. _ 137 Hymn to Demeter_, 47-50, 191-211, 292-295, with the notes of Messrs. Allen and Sikes in their edition of the Homeric Hymns (London, 1904). As to representations of the candidates for initiation seated on stools draped with sheepskins, see L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 237 _sqq._, with plate xv _a_. On a well-known marble vase there figured the stool is covered with a lion’s skin and one of the candidate’s feet rests on a ram’s skull or horns; but in two other examples of the same scene the ram’s fleece is placed on the seat (Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 240 note a), just as it is said to have been placed on Demeter’s stool in the Homeric hymn. As to the form of communion in the Eleusinian mysteries, see Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ 21, p. 18 ed. Potter; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, v. 26; L. R. Farnell, _op. cit._ iii. 185 _sq._, 195 _sq._ For discussions of the ancient evidence bearing on the Eleusinian mysteries it may suffice to refer to Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 3 _sqq._; G. F. Schoemann, _Griechische Alterthümer_,4 ii. 387 _sqq._; Aug. Mommsen, _Heortologie_ (Leipsic, 1864), pp. 222 _sqq._; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 204 _sqq._; P. Foucart, _Recherches sur l’Origine et la Nature des Mystères d’Eleusis_ (Paris, 1895) (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, xxxv.); _id._, _Les grands Mystères d’Eleusis_ (Paris, 1900) (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, xxxvii.); F. Lenormant and E. Pottier, _s.v._ “Eleusinia,” in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, ii. 544 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 126 _sqq._ M29 Revelation of a reaped ear of corn the crowning act of the mysteries.