The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

INITIATION IN GREECE. S3
formed by the Athenians at Eleusis, 6 a town in Attica, 7
every fifth year, and were subsequently translated to
Kome by Adrian. 8 The Bacchic mysteries were equally
celebrated, and consisted of the Lenea and the Dionysiaca,
instituted in honour of the Bromian Dionusus ; the former,
so named from Lenos (Arjvosf a wine press, were a preparation
for the latter, which received their designation
from Dionysus, (Jiowaos) one of the names of Bacchus. 10
At Athens they obtained the most distinguished popularity,
and were consequently invested with a proportionate
degree of splendour and magnificence.
tinder the fostering care of Pythagoras and Plato, the
6 " No woman shall go in her chariot to Eleusis," says Plutarch, (In
Lycurg. Rhet) " and whoever commits theft during the feast kept at
that place, shall be fined 6000 drachms."
7 The statue of the Eleusinian Ceres by Phidias is now in the public
library at Cambridge.
8
This festival was of nine days' continuance, and was celebrated
with much imposing splendour, heightened by the charms of music,
both vocal and instrumental. (Diod. Sic., 1. v., c. 3.) The first day
was usually consumed in assembling together, and in making the
requisite preparations for the solemnity ; the second was employed
in ceremonial purifications and ablutions in the sea; the 'third was
appropriated to sacrifice ; the fourth to public processions ; the fifth
to an illumination with torches; the sixth to songs accompanied with
the music of flutes and brazen kettles; the seventh to public games;
the eighth to the solemn purpose of initiation, and the performance of
sacred rites ; and the ninth to the final ceremonies of libation.
(Potter. ArchaBol. Grec., vol. i., p. 383.)
9 Wait (Orient. Ant., p. 210,) thinks it probable that Lenos was
derived from the Sancrit Liriga, the Phallus.
10 The arcane narration of these mysteries is thus related by Mr.
Taylor. (On the Eleus. and Bacch. Mys., in Pamphleteer, vol. viii.)
"Dionysus or Bacchus, while he was yet a boy, was engaged by the
Titans, through the stratagems of Juno, in a variety of sports with
which that period of life is so vehemently allured and ; among the
rest he was particularly captivated with beholding his image in a
mirror ; during his admiration of which he was miserably torn in
pieces by the Titans ; who, not content with this cruelty, first boiled
his members in water, and afterwards roasted them by the fire. But
while they were tasting his flesh, thus dressed, Jupiter, excited by the
steam, and perceiving the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunder at
the Titans; but committed his members to Apollo, the brother of
Bacchus, that they might be properly interred. And this being
properly performed, Dionysus, whose heart, during laceration, was
snatched away by Pallas and preserved, by a new regeneration, again
emerged, and being restored to his pristine life and integrity, he
afterwards filled up the number of the gods. But, in the mean time,
from the exhalations formed from the ashes of the burning bodies of
the Titans, mankind were produced."