257 Arrian, _Epicteti Dissertationes_, i. 4. 30. 258 Scholiast on Homer, _Iliad_, xviii. 483; L. Preller, _Demeter und Persephone_, p. 286; F. A. Paley on Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 460. The custom of ploughing the land thrice is alluded to by Homer (_Iliad_, xviii. 542, _Odyssey_, v. 127) and Hesiod (_Theogony_, 971), and is expressly mentioned by Theophrastus (_Historia Plantarum_, vii. 13. 6). 259 So I am informed by my learned friend the Rev. Professor J. H. Moulton. 260 J. Toepffer, _Attische Genealogie_ (Berlin, 1889), pp. 138 _sq._ However, the Eleusinian Torchbearer Callias apparently claimed to be descended from Triptolemus, for in a speech addressed to the Lacedaemonians he is said by Xenophon (_Hellenica_, vi. 3. 6) to have spoken of Triptolemus as “our ancestor” (ὁ ἡμέτερος πρόγονος). See above, p. 54. But it is possible that Callias was here speaking, not as a direct descendant of Triptolemus, but merely as an Athenian, who naturally ranked Triptolemus among the most illustrious of the ancestral heroes of his people. Even if he intended to claim actual descent from the hero, this would prove nothing as to the historical character of Triptolemus, for many Greek families boasted of being descended from gods. M52 Prizes of barley given to victors in the Eleusinian games. 261 The prize of barley is mentioned by the Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ ix. 150. The Scholiast on Aristides (vol. iii. pp. 55, 56, ed. G. Dindorf) mentions ears of corn as the prize without specifying the kind of corn. In the official Athenian inscription of 329 B.C., though the amount of corn distributed in prizes both at the quadriennial and at the biennial games is stated, we are not told whether the corn was barley or wheat. See Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 587, lines 259 _sqq._ According to Aristides (_Eleusin._ vol. i. p. 417, ed. G. Dindorf, compare p. 168) the prize consisted of the corn which had first appeared at Eleusis. _ 262 Marmor Parium_, in _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, i. 544. That the Rarian plain was the first to be sown and the first to bear crops is affirmed by Pausanias (i. 38. 6). 263 Pausanias, i. 38. 6. 264 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 587, lines 119 _sq._ In the same inscription, a few lines lower down, mention is made of two pigs which were used in purifying the sanctuary at Eleusis. On the pig in Greek purificatory rites, see my notes on Pausanias, ii. 31. 8 and v. 16. 8. M53 The Eleusinian games primarily concerned with Demeter and Persephone. The Ancestral Contest in the games may have been originally a contest between the reapers to finish reaping. 265 See below, pp. 140 _sqq._, 155 _sqq._, 164 _sqq._, compare 218 _sqq._