DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.791#0046
19
CHAPTER III
THE INNER VESTIBULES.
The most singular of all the buildings at Eleusis is the gateway affording access to the interior
peribolus of the great temple. The pavement of this building remains nearly perfect; a portion
of it was an inclined plane, and from the circumstance of grooves having been worked in it, which
were considerably worn by wheels or trucks, the artists of the mission conjectured that there must
have been originally another approach to the outer peribolus, for the purpose of admitting
carriages ; the traces of whose wheels they imagined they had discovered in the pavement of this
building.
There are, however, two objections to this supposition, one of which appears unanswerable.
In the first place, no traces of another entrance could be discovered, and in the second, the level
pavement and the two steps in the front of the building are perfectly smooth: that portion of the
floor extending from the columns to the door-jambs, sloping from the door-way towards the level
pavement, alone was grooved and worn by the action of wheels. From this circumstance, it must
be evident that the machine, the action of whose wheels is thus exhibited, had a limited movement
over the area thus prepared for it.
When we reflect upon the nature of the Eleusinian mysteries, such as the notices afforded by
ancient writers describe them, and the ordeals the initiated, as they relate, were obliged to undergo,
we are prepared to expect that some of the appalling circumstances practised upon the aspirants
would present themselves at this entrance into the more sacred boundary.
The description of the ceremonies of initiation into the rites of Isis which were practised in
Egypt, and from which those instituted at Eleusis took their rise *, although related in a work of
* " Les mysteres de Ceres, suivant Lactance, sont presque semblables a ceux cTIsis; la Ceres attique est la meme divinite
que Tlsis egyptierme (Herodot. ii. 59.), et cette derniere etoit la seule en Egypte que, du terns d'Herodote, eut eu des mysteres.
C'est done de ces mysteres d'Isis que Ton doit deduire en partie ceux de Ceres." Essai sur les Myst. d'Eleusis, p. 9.
CHAPTER III
THE INNER VESTIBULES.
The most singular of all the buildings at Eleusis is the gateway affording access to the interior
peribolus of the great temple. The pavement of this building remains nearly perfect; a portion
of it was an inclined plane, and from the circumstance of grooves having been worked in it, which
were considerably worn by wheels or trucks, the artists of the mission conjectured that there must
have been originally another approach to the outer peribolus, for the purpose of admitting
carriages ; the traces of whose wheels they imagined they had discovered in the pavement of this
building.
There are, however, two objections to this supposition, one of which appears unanswerable.
In the first place, no traces of another entrance could be discovered, and in the second, the level
pavement and the two steps in the front of the building are perfectly smooth: that portion of the
floor extending from the columns to the door-jambs, sloping from the door-way towards the level
pavement, alone was grooved and worn by the action of wheels. From this circumstance, it must
be evident that the machine, the action of whose wheels is thus exhibited, had a limited movement
over the area thus prepared for it.
When we reflect upon the nature of the Eleusinian mysteries, such as the notices afforded by
ancient writers describe them, and the ordeals the initiated, as they relate, were obliged to undergo,
we are prepared to expect that some of the appalling circumstances practised upon the aspirants
would present themselves at this entrance into the more sacred boundary.
The description of the ceremonies of initiation into the rites of Isis which were practised in
Egypt, and from which those instituted at Eleusis took their rise *, although related in a work of
* " Les mysteres de Ceres, suivant Lactance, sont presque semblables a ceux cTIsis; la Ceres attique est la meme divinite
que Tlsis egyptierme (Herodot. ii. 59.), et cette derniere etoit la seule en Egypte que, du terns d'Herodote, eut eu des mysteres.
C'est done de ces mysteres d'Isis que Ton doit deduire en partie ceux de Ceres." Essai sur les Myst. d'Eleusis, p. 9.