Pausanias then mentions the Eleusinian Cephissus. This river was more violent than the former. By it Theseus slew Procrustes; and, as they related, Pluto descended into hell with Proserpine. A flood happening while the emperor Hadrian was at Athens, he ordered the building of a bridge for passengers.

Wheler came to the seaside in less than half an hour from the monastery, and to a small salt lake running into the bay by a little stream. A town, perhaps Thria, had stood on a hill to the north of it. Soon after he passed another little stream. He travelled over a plain, seven or eight miles long westward, and three or four broad from the sea northward. It was then, in the month of February, beautified with anemonies. The causey was paved with large stones. Along it were many ruins of churches or temples; one with a pannel of wall standing, of a grayish stone. The two streams were the Rhiti, but he has called the latter the Cephissus. The water was confined, when I saw it, by a low wall intended to make a head sufficient to turn a mill. The Cephissus, it is probable, was an occasional torrent from the mountains. Pococke did not observe any river in the way to Eleusis.

In the plain beyond the Rhiti, an hour from the village, is a small heap of ruins, probably of one of the sepulchres seen by Pausanias, on which a church has been erected; some traces remaining. A long piece of marble, fixed as a side jamb for the doorway of the latter edifice, is inscribed in large cha

z At Thria was a temple of Venus Phile erected by the flatterers of king Demetrius in honour of his mother, whose name was Phile. The place was called Philæum.

racters, and informs us, that the lofty monument belonged to an hierophant exceedingly renowned for his wisdom; who, by his intrepidity, had preserved the mystic rites from hostile violence, an exploit, for which he had been honoured with a crown by the people. The hierophants were greatly revered, and styled divine, and godlike.

A way led from Eleusis into Boeotia and the Platæis, or territory of Platea. The Lacedæmonians in the Peloponnesian war made an incursion into Attica from this quarter at the season of the harvest. They endeavoured to reduce Enoe on the confines, marched to Eleusis, laid waste the Thriasian plain, defeated a party of horsemen near the Rhiti, and proceeded, with Ægaleos on their right hand, through Cecropia as far as Acharnæ, the most considerable town of Attica, and distant only sixty stadia, or seven miles and a half, from Athens, which it supplied with charcoal. The city-gate toward it was called the Acharnensian. After tarrying there, they destroyed some towns between Parnes and Brilessus, and passing by Oropus re-entered Bootia. The same enemy distressed Athens by fortifying and keeping a garrison in Deceleia. The pomp of Iacchus was then transported to Eleusis by sea, with many omissions in the ceremony; but, one year, Alcibiades resolved to conduct it by land. He communicated his design to the Eumolpidæ and heralds, placed spies on the eminences, surrounded the priests, the mystæ, and mystagogues with soldiers, and conveyed them along the sacred way with silence and regularity; exhibiting a religious spectacle singularly striking and solemn. It is remarkable, that the celebration of the mysteries was only

once interrupted during the very long period of their existence. Alexander the Great took Thebes on the sixth day, and the Athenians then desisted, that their acclamations to Iacchus might not re-echo to the cries of the captives.

CHAP. XLII.

EXTINCTION OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES-OF ELEUSIS OF THE MYSTIC TEMPLE, &c.-OTHER REMAINS-ROAD TO MEGARA.

A PRINCIPAL ingredient in the character of the Athenians was piety in the extreme. This, as it disposed them readily to admit the knowledge of any unknown god, so it preserved them in general unalienated from old opinions, and rigid observers of established ceremonials. Though St. Paul had preached and an Areopagite been converted, the perfume of incense ascended, as before, to the idol; the victim was offered; the procession made; and the public attention engaged in fulfilling the ritual of Ceres and Proserpine, Minerva, and Bacchus, and the like divinities. Eleusis still maintained an extensive reputation, and appeared the common property of all nations; so many pilgrims from various and remote parts of the world continued to visit it at the season of the mysteries. The sectaries increasing, the old formulary," Begone ye profane," was changed; and the herald proclaimed, "If any "Atheist, or Christian, or Epicurean is come a spy

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on the orgies, let him instantly retire; but let "those who believe be initiated, with good fortune."

The Christians, while the emperor Hadrian resided at Athens, were persecuteda; and Quadratus, a disciple of the apostles, and the third bishop, presented to him an apology for their profession. At length a law prohibiting nocturnal rites was published by Valentinian b; but Prætextatus, whom Julian had constituted governor of Achaia, prevailed on him to revoke it, urging, that the lives of the Greeks would be rendered utterly insupportable, if he deprived them of this most holy and comprehensive festival. Its extinction was reserved for a foreign foe; and the fatal era now approached. Alaric with his host rushed suddenly through the strait of Thermopylæ, and a general ruin of universal Greece accompanied the catastrophe of Ceres and Eleusis.

Eleusis, on the overthrow of its goddess and the cessation of its gainful traffic, probably became soon an obscure place, without character or riches. For some ages, however, it was not entirely forsaken, as is evident from the vast consumption of the ancient materials, and from the present remains. The port was small and of a circular form. The stones of one pier are seen above water, and the corresponding side may be traced. About half a mile from the shore is a long hill, which divides the plain. In the side next the sea are traces of a theatre, and on the top are cisterns cut in the rock. In the way to it, some masses of wall and rubbish, partly ancient, are standing; with ruined churches; and beyond, a long broken aqueduct crosses to the mountains. The Christian pirates had infested the place so

* In the year of Christ 125.

In the year of Christ 364.

much, that in 1676 it was abandoned. It is now a small village at the eastern extremity of the rocky brow, on which was once a castle; and is inhabited by a few Albanian families, employed in the culture of the plain, and superintended by a Turk, who resides in an old square tower. The proprietor was Achmet Aga, the primate or principal person of Athens.

The mystic temple at Eleusis was planned by Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon. Pericles was overseer of the building. It was of the Doric order, the cell so large as to admit the company of a theatre. The columns on the pavement within, and their capitals, were raised by Coroebus. Metagenes of Xypete added the architraves and the pillars above them, which sustained the roof. Another completed the edifice. This was a temple in antis, or without exterior columns c, which would have occupied the room required for the victims. The aspect was changed to prostylos under Demetrius the Phalerean; Philo, a famous architect, erecting a portico, which gave dignity to the fabric, and rendered the entrance more commodious. The site was beneath the brow, at the east end, and encompassed by the fortress. Some marbles, which are uncommonly massive, and some pieces of the columns, remain on the spot. The breadth of the cell is about one hundred and fifty feet; the length, including the pronaos and portico, is two hundred and sixteen feet; the diameter of the columns, which are fluted six inches from the bottom of the shafts, is six feet and more than six inches. The temple was a decastyle, or had ten columns in the

< without exterior columns] without a portico. R.