The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

Chapter II. Demeter And Persephone. 97and accordingly, if I am right in interpreting them as essentiallya dramatic representation of the annual vicissitudes of the cornperformed for the purpose of quickening the seed, it becomesprobable that in some form or another they were annually heldat Eleusis long before the practice arose of celebrating gamesthere every fourth or every second year. In short, the Eleusinianmysteries were in all probability far older than the Eleusinian [079]games. How old they were we cannot even guess. But when weconsider that the cultivation of barley and wheat, the two cerealsspecially associated with Demeter, appears to have been practisedin prehistoric Europe from the Stone Age onwards, 274 we shallbe disposed to admit that the annual performance of religiousor magical rites at Eleusis for the purpose of ensuring goodcrops, whether by propitiating the Corn Goddess with offeringsof first-fruits or by dramatically representing the sowing and thegrowth of the corn in mythical form, probably dates from anextremely remote antiquity.But in order to clear our ideas on this subject it is desirableto ascertain, if possible, the reason for holding the Eleusiniangames at intervals of two or four years. The reason for holding aharvest festival and thanksgiving every year is obvious enough;but why hold games only every second or every fourth year?The reason for such limitations is by no means obvious on theface of them, especially if the growth of the crops is deemeddependent on the celebration. In order to find an answer to thisquestion it may be well at the outset to confine our attention tothe Great Eleusinian Games, which were celebrated only every274 A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (London, 1884), pp. 354 sq., 367sqq.; R. Munro, The Lake-dwellings of Europe (London, Paris, and Melbourne,1890), pp. 497 sqq.; O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischenAltertumskunde (Strasburg, 1901), pp. 8 sqq.; id., Sprachvergleichung undUrgeschichte (Jena, 1906-1907), ii. 185 sqq.; H. Hirt, Die Indogermanen(Strasburg, 1905-1907), i. 254 sqq., 273 sq., 276 sqq., ii. 640 sqq.; M. Much,Die Heimat der Indogermanen (Jena and Berlin, 1904), pp. 221 sqq.; T. E.Peet, The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy and Sicily (Oxford, 1909), p. 362.Quadriennialperiod of many ofthe great gamesof Greece. Oldoctennial periodof the Pythian andprobably of theOlympian games.The octennial cyclewas instituted bythe Greeks at avery early era forthe purpose ofharmonising solarand lunar time.