The Eleusinian Mysteries were sacredrites anciently observed in Greece at the annual festival of Demeter or Ceres, so named from their original seat Eleusis. As a preparation for the greater mysteries celebrated at Athens and Eleusis, lesser Eleusinia were celebrated at Agras on the Ilissus. The greater Eleusinia were celebrated in the month Boedromion (September-October), beginning on the 15th of the month and lasting nine days. The celebrations, which were varied each day, consisted in processions between Athens and Eleusis, torch-bearing and mystic ceremonies attended with oaths of secrecy. They appear to have symbolized the old conceptions of death and reproduction, and to have been allied to the orgiastic worship of Dionysus (Bacchus). They are supposed to have continued down to the time of Theodosius I. Research Eleusinian Mysteries
Cercyon was a son of Hephaestus. He was king of Eleusis. He challenged all travellers and wrestled them to death until he challenged and was killed by Theseus, who subsequently acquired the kingdom. Research Cercyon
In Greek mythology, Triptolemus was a son of Celeus, king of Eleusis. In gratitude for the hospitality shown to her by Celeus when she was wandering over the earth in search of her daughter Persephone, the goddess Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot with winged dragons with which to visit the whole world and give mankind seeds of corn. On his return Triptolemus instituted the festival of the Thesmophoria, one of the two great festivals to Demeter. Research Triptolemus
The Battle of Salamis during the Persian Wars, was a Greek naval victory over the Persians in 480 BC in the Strait of Salamis south-west of Athens. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Greeks inflicted a crushing defeat on the invading Persians which effectively destroyed their fleet. After the sack of Athens by the Persians, the commanders of some 370 Greek war galleys then lying off the island of Salamis debated what action they could take; their debate was ended by the appearance of the Persian fleet in the Bay of Phalerum.
Themistocles, the Athenian commander of the Greek fleet, sent a fake message, ostensibly from a spy, to the Persians warning that the Greek fleet was about to withdraw and that the Persians should blockade the entrance to the Bay of Eleusis. The Persians fell for the ruse and spread their 1,000 ships thinly across the bay. The Persians were so confident they could deal with a mere 370 vessels that they had a throne prepared for their king, Xerxes, on nearby Mount Aegaleus so that he would have a grandstand view from which to watch the anticipated crushing of the Greek fleet. Unfortunately, the Greeks came out into the bay at full speed, broke the Persian line, and then sowed mayhem in all directions, sinking over 500 Persian ships for the loss of only about 40 of their own. Xerxes, disgusted at this humiliation, returned to Asia, leaving a subordinate; Mardonius, to continue the land campaign. Research Battle of Salamis
Eleusis technically belongs to the eights group, in that players try to get rid of their cards by playing them to a discard pile. However, the unique feature of this game is that the rule governing which cards can legally be played is initially unknown to the players. The dealer (sometimes known as God) secretly invents and writes down the rule governing play. The other players try to guess the rule by observing which plays are legal. The original version of Eleusis was invented by Robert Abbott in 1956, and was published in Martin Gardner's column in the Scientific American in June 1959. It subsequently appeared in Gardner's 2nd Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions and in Robert Abbott's book Abbott's New Card Games (published by Stein & Day in 1963). In the 1970's Robbert Abbott made some major improvements to Eleusis, including the option for a player to become a prophet and try to predict whether each play would be called legal or illegal. This current version The New Eleusis was published in the
Scientific American in October 1977. Research Eleusis
Attica was a state of ancient Greece, the capital of which, Athens, was once the first city in the world. The territory was triangular in shape, with Cape Sunium (Colonna) as its apex and the ranges of Mounts Cithasron and Parnes as its base. On the north these ranges separated it from Boeotia;
on the west it was bounded by Megaris and the Saronic Gulf; on the east by the AEgean. Its most marked physical divisions consisted of the highlands, midland district, and coast district, with the two famous plains of Eleusis and of Athens. The Cephissus and Ilissus, though small, were its chief streams; its principal hills, Cithseron, Parnes, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and Laurium. Its soil has probably undergone considerable deterioration, but was fertile in fruits, and especially of the olive and fig. These are still cultivated as well as the vine and cereals, but Attica is better suited for pasture than tillage. According to tradition the earliest inhabitants of Attica lived in a savage manner until the time of Cecrops, who came, in 1550 BC, with a colony from Egypt, taught them all the essentials of civilization, and founded Athens. One of Cecrops' descendants founded eleven other cities in the regions round, and there followed a period of mutual hostility. To Theseus is assigned the honour of uniting these cities in a confederacy, with Athens as the capital, thus forming the Attic state. After the death of Codrus, in 1068 BC, the monarchy was abolished, and the government vested in archons elected by the nobility, at first for life, in 752 BC for ten years, and in 683 BC for one year only. The severe constitution of Draco was succeeded in 594 by the milder code of Solon, the democratic elements of which, after the brief tyranny of the Pisistratids, were emphasized and developed by Clisthenes. He divided the people into ten classes, and made the senate consist of 500 persons, establishing as the government an oligarchy modified by popular control. Then came the splendid era of the Persian War, which elevated Athens to the summit of fame.
Miltiades at Marathon and Themistocles at Salamis conquered the Persians by land and by sea. The chief external danger being removed the rights of the people were enlarged; the archons and other magistrates were chosen from all classes without distinction. The period from the Persian War to the time of Alexander (500 BC to 336 BC) was most remarkable for the development of the Athenian constitution. Attica appears to have contained a territory of nearly 850 square miles, with some 500,000 inhabitants, 360,000 of whom were slaves, while the inhabitants of the city numbered 180,000. Cimon and Pericles (444 BC) raised Athens to its point of greatest splendour, though under the latter began the Peloponnesian War, which ended with the conquest of Athens by the Lacedaemonians. The succeeding tyranny of the Thirty, under the protection of a Spartan garrison, was overthrown by Thrasybulus, with a temporary partial restoration of the power of Athens; but the battle of Cheronaea (338 BC) made Attica, in common with the rest of Greece, a dependency of Macedon. The attempts at revolt after the death of Alexander were crushed, and in 260 BC Attica was still under the sway of Antigonus Gonatas, the Macedonian king. A period of freedom under the shelter of the Achaean League then ensued, but their support of Mithridates led in 146 BC to the subjugation of the Grecian states by Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire Attica belonged to the empire of the East until in 396 AD it was conquered by Alaric the Goth and the country devastated. Attica is now a region of Greece comprising Athens and the district around it.
Abbreviations
Research Eleusinian Mysteries
