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#0276
104 MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS div. a
included in it is equally certain. Lobeck,196 quoting from Epi-
phanius, says—“Among the Greeks what a number of mysteries
and rites there are ! For example, there are the ceremonies of
the megara and of the Thesmophoria which the women perform,
and which differ from each other, and then there are as many
mysteries at Eleusis.”
It is a point of no small interest that the scholiast and Clement
both identify in the main the rites of the Thesmophoria and the
Arrephoria. The question of the significance of the Arrephoria
has already been treated.
Whatever else may remain obscure in this curious and dis-
gusting ceremony of the megara, it at once explains the story of
Eubouleus, which is otherwise a foolish and unmeaning appendage
to that of the rape of Kore. To propitiate the god of the lower
world, to make Hades into Eubouleus, the women at the Thesmo-
phoria buried the pigs and sowed the putrid flesh upon the fields.
“ Though the rite is magical in character, perhaps the decaying
flesh might act as manure and be of real service to the farmer.”
The Khonds, Mr. Lang197 says, do the like in India, and the
Pawnees in America. The Khonds sacrifice a pig and a human
victim, the Pawnees a girl of a foreign tribe. The pieces of flesh
are buried in the borders of the fields. This rite of the Thesmo-
phoria went on, no doubt, to Christian times, but bit by bit its real
significance as a magical means of procuring fertility both for the
earth and man was lost, and men cast about for a story to ex-
plain a ceremony so offensive. Then Eubouleus the under-world
god became Eubouleus the swineherd.
A beautiful head of a youth (fig. 24) found at Eleusis in the
small temple of Pluto has been shown to represent Eubouleus.198
The head is in the Central Museum at Athens. It is of great
mythological interest, as showing that Eubouleus was, in the
times of Praxiteles, neither the august lower-world god nor the
rough swineherd, but like a young Dionysos, brother to or double
of Triptolemos. The figure of Triptolemos is indeed throughout
the product of a later, more graceful, and more rational imagina-
tion. He came to be when men sought for fertility in their
lands, not by magical rites, but by diligent sowing and ploughing.
There is about the fair young hero’s whole legend a simplicity and
sobriety that contrasts at once with the obscure uncleanness of
Eubouleus and the mystic exaltation of lacchus.
As Aristophanes 199 took for the subject of one of his most
included in it is equally certain. Lobeck,196 quoting from Epi-
phanius, says—“Among the Greeks what a number of mysteries
and rites there are ! For example, there are the ceremonies of
the megara and of the Thesmophoria which the women perform,
and which differ from each other, and then there are as many
mysteries at Eleusis.”
It is a point of no small interest that the scholiast and Clement
both identify in the main the rites of the Thesmophoria and the
Arrephoria. The question of the significance of the Arrephoria
has already been treated.
Whatever else may remain obscure in this curious and dis-
gusting ceremony of the megara, it at once explains the story of
Eubouleus, which is otherwise a foolish and unmeaning appendage
to that of the rape of Kore. To propitiate the god of the lower
world, to make Hades into Eubouleus, the women at the Thesmo-
phoria buried the pigs and sowed the putrid flesh upon the fields.
“ Though the rite is magical in character, perhaps the decaying
flesh might act as manure and be of real service to the farmer.”
The Khonds, Mr. Lang197 says, do the like in India, and the
Pawnees in America. The Khonds sacrifice a pig and a human
victim, the Pawnees a girl of a foreign tribe. The pieces of flesh
are buried in the borders of the fields. This rite of the Thesmo-
phoria went on, no doubt, to Christian times, but bit by bit its real
significance as a magical means of procuring fertility both for the
earth and man was lost, and men cast about for a story to ex-
plain a ceremony so offensive. Then Eubouleus the under-world
god became Eubouleus the swineherd.
A beautiful head of a youth (fig. 24) found at Eleusis in the
small temple of Pluto has been shown to represent Eubouleus.198
The head is in the Central Museum at Athens. It is of great
mythological interest, as showing that Eubouleus was, in the
times of Praxiteles, neither the august lower-world god nor the
rough swineherd, but like a young Dionysos, brother to or double
of Triptolemos. The figure of Triptolemos is indeed throughout
the product of a later, more graceful, and more rational imagina-
tion. He came to be when men sought for fertility in their
lands, not by magical rites, but by diligent sowing and ploughing.
There is about the fair young hero’s whole legend a simplicity and
sobriety that contrasts at once with the obscure uncleanness of
Eubouleus and the mystic exaltation of lacchus.
As Aristophanes 199 took for the subject of one of his most