DOI chapter:
Division A: The Agora and adjacent buildings lying to the west and north of the Acropolis, from the city gate to the Prytaneion
DOI chapter:Section V
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0269
SEC. V
OF ANCIENT ATHENS
9Ί
Ion, the son of Xuthus, who had been chosen leader by the
Athenians when they fought against the Eleusinians. This state-
ment I cannot agree to. . . . But it is possible, from some other
cause, Dysaules went to Keleai, and not for the cause that the
Phliasians say. It seems to me the only connection he had with
the chiefs of Eleusis was that he was brother of Keleos, for other-
wise Homer, in his hymn to Demeter, would not have omitted
him. In his enumeration of those to whom the goddess taught the
mysteries he does not name Dysaules. These are the lines : —
ζ To Triptolemos, and Diokles the horse-tamer, and mighty
Eumolpos, and Keleos, leader of the people, she showed the due
performance of her rites and mysteries.’ However, according to
the Phliasian tradition, Dysaules instituted the mysteries here, and
gave the name Keleai to the place. There is here also, as I said,
a tomb of Dysaules, but later than the date of the tomb of Aras,
for according to their account Dysaules came later than the time
when Aras was king.” This account is instructive, because it
helps to show how the interminable web of local mythology gets
woven. Given a place called Keleai and the worship of a god of
ploughing, nothing so easy as for a priest who knew of the Keleos
legend at Eleusis to connect the two. He is perhaps afraid to
call his local god actually the son of the great Keleos of Eleusis,
or perhaps too proud to borrow an alien hero direct, so he makes
his local god of the plough son of the double-furrow, Dysaules,
the brother of Keleos.
The tradition given in the Alope has already been touched
upon. It shows the attempt to weld Eleusis, Athens, and the
interlying district together, and also, as before said, to attach
Theseus to another cycle of legends. Raros is here said to be
the father of Triptolemos; Raros is, of course, merely the
eponym of the Rarian plain. It was to this Rarian plain that,
by command of Zeus, Rhea came to persuade Demeter to remit
the famine her wrath had brought upon the earth.180 “ And Rhea
disobeyed not, but made haste down from the summits of
Olympus, and came to the Rarian plain, where crops plenteously
sucked life of yore ; but life at this time it yielded none ; nay, it
stood idle, without one blade, and left the white barley buried,
according to the intents of the fair-ankled Demeter ; nevertheless,
the hour was at hand when it would wave once again all at once
with spikes of corn.” Pausanias, when he comes to Eleusis,181
says—“And the Eleusinians have a temple to Triptolemos, and to
Propylaean Artemis; and to Poseidon the Father a well, called Kahi-
li
OF ANCIENT ATHENS
9Ί
Ion, the son of Xuthus, who had been chosen leader by the
Athenians when they fought against the Eleusinians. This state-
ment I cannot agree to. . . . But it is possible, from some other
cause, Dysaules went to Keleai, and not for the cause that the
Phliasians say. It seems to me the only connection he had with
the chiefs of Eleusis was that he was brother of Keleos, for other-
wise Homer, in his hymn to Demeter, would not have omitted
him. In his enumeration of those to whom the goddess taught the
mysteries he does not name Dysaules. These are the lines : —
ζ To Triptolemos, and Diokles the horse-tamer, and mighty
Eumolpos, and Keleos, leader of the people, she showed the due
performance of her rites and mysteries.’ However, according to
the Phliasian tradition, Dysaules instituted the mysteries here, and
gave the name Keleai to the place. There is here also, as I said,
a tomb of Dysaules, but later than the date of the tomb of Aras,
for according to their account Dysaules came later than the time
when Aras was king.” This account is instructive, because it
helps to show how the interminable web of local mythology gets
woven. Given a place called Keleai and the worship of a god of
ploughing, nothing so easy as for a priest who knew of the Keleos
legend at Eleusis to connect the two. He is perhaps afraid to
call his local god actually the son of the great Keleos of Eleusis,
or perhaps too proud to borrow an alien hero direct, so he makes
his local god of the plough son of the double-furrow, Dysaules,
the brother of Keleos.
The tradition given in the Alope has already been touched
upon. It shows the attempt to weld Eleusis, Athens, and the
interlying district together, and also, as before said, to attach
Theseus to another cycle of legends. Raros is here said to be
the father of Triptolemos; Raros is, of course, merely the
eponym of the Rarian plain. It was to this Rarian plain that,
by command of Zeus, Rhea came to persuade Demeter to remit
the famine her wrath had brought upon the earth.180 “ And Rhea
disobeyed not, but made haste down from the summits of
Olympus, and came to the Rarian plain, where crops plenteously
sucked life of yore ; but life at this time it yielded none ; nay, it
stood idle, without one blade, and left the white barley buried,
according to the intents of the fair-ankled Demeter ; nevertheless,
the hour was at hand when it would wave once again all at once
with spikes of corn.” Pausanias, when he comes to Eleusis,181
says—“And the Eleusinians have a temple to Triptolemos, and to
Propylaean Artemis; and to Poseidon the Father a well, called Kahi-
li