Hugh Bowden The Eleusinian Mysteries

Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World, Thames and Hudson, London,2 010
 The Eleusinian Mysteries
Chapter 1, p 26
In Attica, every autumn
the Two Goddesses, Demeter and Persephone (Kore the maiden), celebrated for over one thousand years, people al over the Mediterranean came to celebrate.
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter,  written 650-550 BC
at the end of the story
p 27 Demeter then taught the rites of the Mysteries to the rulers of Eleusis

So the whole broad earth grew heavy with leafage and bloom, and she went to the lawgiver kings, Triptolemus and horse goading Diocles, strong Eumolpus and Celeus leader of the hosts, and showed them the conduct of her sacred matters, and taught them solemn rites, which one cannot depart from or enquire about or broadcast, for great awe of the gods restrains us from speaking. Blessed is he if men on earth who has beheld them, whereas he that is uninitiated in the rites, or has no pat in them, never enjoys similar lot down in the musty dark when he is dead
p 28 the Hymn was written at Eleusis probably for recitation there, it explains the cyclical nature of agriculture.

thought- here is evidence of theurgy even though the people did not ask for it, but the common person can have access to the gods and spiritual issues , not just the priest.

p 29 The ruins of the temple and Eleusis
20 klms outside Athens near the border with Megara. There is evidence of Bronze age inhabitation but was abandoned at the end of the Mycenaean civilisation 1200BC to 8th C BC until 395 AD where Alaric the Goth sacked the area.
p 30 The Mysteries
8 days of festival were celebrated.

The Eleusinian Mysteries Bowden

p 26 celebrated every Autumn in honour of the Two Goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone (Kore the maiden)

Chapter 2 The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi ad the Great Gods of Samothrace

p 49

the Kabeiroi Samothrace and Thebes in Boetia ad the island of Lemnos

initiates themselves were ignorant of of basic facts- cults of the nameless gods

Samothrace

4- 3 C BC are the ruins, inscriptions arefacts of the sanctury but some evidence from 7^th C BC

p 50 Herodotus 5 C BC said that the cult came from a pre-Greek inhabitants on the island

the theoroi, sacred embassies fromcities. There were embassies and public buildings- evidnce of an important public role in honouring the great gids- public worship Phillip II of Macedon visited there it is said that he met his wife Olympias here

p 51 Olympias is associated with snakes, Dionysus

She was the daughter of the ruler of Epirus west of Macedon and he built a building at Smothrace as did Ptolemy II ruler of Egypt 265- 246 BC

from 100 BC we have lists of names of initiatesInitiation was part of the cult, Herodotus was an initiates the names, mystai , epoptai

initiation could be at any time of the year

p 52 as it is difficult to get there , probably no large festivals or processions, it was also a quick process, possibly only one night for initiation,

3 buildings are like the Tlelesterion at Eleuseus the Hieron,,, the Anaktoron and the Hall of the Chora Dancers

at the Heiron an inscription The uninitiated may not enter the Hieron

and at the Anaktoron Those who have not ccepted the rites of the gods may not enter

p 53a theatre meant that large numbers of people were expected

the grat gods have been identified with gods known as Kabeiroi and the Corybantes

Herodotus

Samothrce was formerly inhabited by those Pelasgians who came to live among the Athenians and it is from them that the Samothracians take their rites. The Athenians then were the first Greeks to make images of Hermes with the erect phallus a practice which they learned from the Pelasgains The Pelasgians told a certain hieros logos ( sacred tale) about this which is shown in the mysteries of Samothrace

p 53 herms- statues of Hermes with an erect phallus

dedelotaoe-displaying something rather than words

Diodorus Siculus links the myth to the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia. Harmonia lived on Samothrace where Cadmus was searching for his sister Europa which was abducted by Zeus

Nonnus (5^th C AD) poem Dionoysiaca Zeus tells Electra , Harmonia' s foster mother , that Harmonia must marry Cadmus, after some reluctance Harmonia agrees

the great gods of Lemnos, Thebes and the island of Imbros, Delos and the reat gods image is on coins

p 55 Lemnos- the Kabeiron at Lemnos from 600 BC but thebuilding of a Telesterion was 200 BC. People gather inside the buildings where they can not be seen but initiations predte the bsuilding

the assemblyof the initiates oversaw the annual festival. There were vases dedicted to the great gods there

p 56 Boeotia, in the hills around Thebes dedications from the 6^th C BC

small buildings, circular, with seating for dining and a rectablgeular busilding for reclining

p57 a theatre

an ex[posed rock formation at the top of a cavea where the speactators sat according to their sociall hierarchy

Pausanias I I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep the silence as to who the Kabeiroi are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honour of them and of the Mother

Ovid The place was hallowed by ancient worship and filled with the numerous wooden statues of the old gods that the priests had left there

p 59 dedications- bull statuettes in lead and bronze and later terracotta

glass beads

Kabirion ware- pots in black and white, caricaturisation of human forms, involving alcohol

a donkey cart, mystic marriage , perhaps actors in padded costumes, a blindfolded initiate

p 61 the Kabeiron here seem to be a male bearded reclining figure with a cup of wine in his hand, Kabiros and a young man Pais, the son, maybe Hermes and Pan

Pausanius I the inhabitants called Kabeieroi Demeter came to know Prometheus one of the kabeieroi and Etnaeus his son the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Kabeieroi

p 65 Appollonius of Rhodes The initiation at Samothrace is into the cult f the Kabeieroi, asMnauseas says and the names of the gods , four in number, are Axiems Axiokersa, Axiokersos. Axieros is Demeter, Axiokersa is Persephone and Axiokerson Hades. Kasmilos who is added as a fourth is Hermes, as Dionysodorous relates

At Samothrace however the great gods, Megaloi Theoi were never called the Kabeiroi

p 65 there were many gods worshipped throughout Greece. These gods do not have myths, were invisible and did not communicate directly with mortals, they found the gods in the places they inhabited

p 67 there does not seem to be an agricultural meaning to the great gods, maybe to protect those at sea, no evidence of eschatological themes

Chapter 4 the Mother of the GODS

P 83 – viewed with suspicion Mother of the Gods, greek Magna Mater latin

traced back to Anatolia, via Anaenus from Troy

p 84 she is depicted sitting on a throne, with a phiade a shallow dish for libations, a tympanium tambourine with a lion beside her. It could be Gaea or Ge

p 85 in a poem by Solon, the black earth, the great mother of the Olympian gods.

Could also be Rhea sister and wife of Cronus, mother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, Hestia

In Euripedes Bacchae, Dionysius tells the chorus to take your drums native instruments of the city of the phyrigians the invention of mother Rhea and myself.

Demter is also the Meter, mother,

gold tablet found in a tomb in Thessaly Demeter as the Mountain mother

Cybele is the mothers mostly named, Thephyrigian cult of the Mother of the Mountains, Matar Kubileya

NeoHittite goddess Kubaba, which became Cybebe

Euripedes in Baccae great mother Cybele

Derveni Papyrus 4^th C BC Earth and the mother and Rhea and Hera are the same.

P 86 Homeric Hymns

Sing to me, clear-toned Muse, daughter of great Zeus, of the Mother of all gods and all human beings she takes pleasure in the resounding of castanets and tympana and the roar of the flutes the cry of the wolves and bright eyed lions the echoing mountains and the wooded glens, And so I salute you in song and all the goddesses togeher.

Cyzicurus, the cult centre of the Mother of the Gods which came from Mount Dindymon in Anatolia

via Jason and the Argonauts.

P 87The cult in Cyzicus lasted for a thousand years

Pausnis say that the cult statue there was made of gold and hippopotamus ivory

The whole community took part, not just the initiates, near the sanctuary on Mount Dindymon

with animal sacrifice, young men dancing in armour, Loud racous music,

Pindar wrote of the gils singing in the night to the Mothr and Pan,

the cult was widespread across Greece and Asia Minor

naiskoi small reliefs depicting a female figures in a shrine. City cults if the goddess at Chios, Clazomenae, Colophon, Cyme, Erythrae, Miletus, Phocaea

p 88 Illium ( Troy) and Pergamon honoured the cult and it came to Rome

The Metroon , in the agora in Athens and at Collopon,

the cult statue depicts the goddess seated

The festival to honour the mother of the gods in Athens was the Galaxia named after the porridge eaten in the festival, ( other festivals that honour vegetarian food and not sacrifical meat, were Pyanopsia in honour of Apollo, Diasia in honour of Zeus Meilichios ( the Gracious) )

p 90 a vase celebrating the festival with 2 thrones, the Mother and Dionysius with snakes aroun him

a sacrifical fire, flute players and a woman carrying a basket on her head. Suggests ecstatic worshipped

p 91 Corybantic Mysteries

ecstatic worship, from Athns, associateed with the Mother of the Gods, the Corybantics were the attendants of the Mother, In Erythrae the Kyrbantes was a formal cult

Plato They are doing the same things as in the teletai of the Corybantesm when they perform the thronesis ( entrhonment) arounf ht person who is initiated For there is dancing and playing as you know if you have been initiated, And now these two are simply performing a choral dance around you, and as it were they are dancing in play, so that afterwards they can initiate you.

It is associated with madness o the cure of madness

• a therapeutic purpose? Or wild dancing, music with curative power
• a private rather than publicationp 92 hellenistic Greece, at Pergamon, the Eleusinian, cult of Demeter, and the Mother of the gods,
• The Great Mother, Meter egale, - the Megalesion
• At Ilium a sanctuary , Mt Ida the Meter Idaia

p. 93 Rome

Livy About this time 205 BC a sudden wave of religious concerns

so the stone representing the mother was brought from Anatolia and a temple was built in the middle of Rome to honour the Magna Mater.

P 96 Eunuch priests served in the temple, Galli, As Attis castrated himself in honour of the Mother Cybele. The evidence for eunuchs is questionable. The metragyte were travelling devotees, or beggars for the Mother, most seemed to be eunuchs

p 102 The male god may be a personification of ecstasy, like Attis and Cybele- the ecstasy of devotion to the Mother, Attis castrated himself, and the name of the male god Iacchus is called out in the Eluesinian ecstasy.

Chapter 5 Dionysus

p 105. the Bacchic frenzy, maenids, satyrs, carrying wild animals they have killed or tamed.

Orpheus – who was torn apart by the Maenids

p 106 the cult of Dionysius came late in the ancient workd from the east, Asian followers

but linear B fragments suggest his name from the Bronze Age Mycenaean

associated with wine and drama

2 main festivals – the City Dionysia and Lenaea , tragedies and comedies were played at the theate on the slopes of the acropolis

The city Dionysia had a procession when th ult statue was brought from Elutherae . Presentation of armour to war orphans who were wards of the State, displays of tribute brought to Athens. :arge numbers of animals were sacrificed in the theatre.

P 107The procession in Alexandria to celebrate the accession of Ptolemy II which had a procession to honour many gods, a series of decorated carts with the statues, a wine skin made from leopard skins, holding over 100000 litres of wine, men dressed as satyrs, woe called Mimallones, Bassarai Lydai ( names associated with maenids). Alexander the Great was associated with this cult, as he wished to emulate the God who travelled to the east, Alexander wore an elephant headress a symbol of Dionysus.

Smaller groups also worshipped Dionysus outside the State festivals.

There was dancing singing, revelry,

p 108 Euripedes play Baccae gives us insight into the cult. Dionysus comes to the city of Thebes where his mother Semele lived before she was killed by his father Zeus. He was accompanied by his maenads from Phrygia

p 109 Blessed is he who being fortunate and knowing the teletai of the gods keeps his life pure and joins his soul to the thiasos, dancing in Bacchis revels over the mountins with holy purifications and who revering the orgia of the great mother Cybele brandishing the thyrsus , garlanded with ivy, serve Dionysus

from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

p 112 meetings, dinners, formal processions, women and men,

p 123 transported from civilised to wild, ate raw meat, wore animal skins instead of woven cloth and went outdoors rather than in houses.

As per the Athenian festival of Brauronia where pre pubescent gils spent time in the sanctuary of Artemis, the goddess of wild animals, a period between the wildness of childhood and marriage in a male dominated society.