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

76 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[062]frequently mentioned in Eleusinian inscriptions, from some ofwhich we gather that it included sacrifices to the two goddessesand a so-called Ancestral Contest, as to the nature of which wehave no information. 204 We may suppose that the festival orsome part of it was celebrated on the Sacred Threshing-floor ofTriptolemus at Eleusis; 205 for as Triptolemus was the hero whois said to have diffused the knowledge of the corn all over theworld, nothing could be more natural than that the Festival ofthe Threshing-floor should be held on the sacred threshing-floorwhich bore his name. As for Demeter, we have already seenhow intimate was her association with the threshing-floor andthe operation of threshing; according to Homer, she is the yellowgoddess who parts the yellow grain from the white chaff atthe threshing, and in Cos her image with the corn-stalks and thepoppies in her hands stood on the threshing-floor. 206 The festivalon Dialog. Meretr. vii. 4).204 Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 2 Nos. 192, 246, 587, 640;Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολογική, 1884, coll. 135 sq. The passages of inscriptions andof ancient authors which refer to the festival are collected by Dr. L. R. Farnell,The Cults of the Greek States, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 315 sq. For a discussionof the evidence see August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum(Leipsic, 1898), pp. 359 sqq.; Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Studyof Greek Religion, Second Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 145 sqq.205 The threshing-floor of Triptolemus at Eleusis (Pausanias, i. 38. 6) isno doubt identical with the Sacred Threshing-floor mentioned in the greatEleusinian inscription of 329 B.C.{FNS (Dittenberger, Sylloge InscriptionumGraecarum, 2 No. 587, line 234). We read of a hierophant who, contraryto ancestral custom, sacrificed a victim on the hearth in the Hall at Eleusisduring the Festival of the Threshing-floor, “it being unlawful to sacrificevictims on that day” (Demosthenes, Contra Neaeram, 116, pp. 1384 sq.), butfrom such an unlawful act no inference can be drawn as to the place wherethe festival was held. That the festival probably had special reference to thethreshing-floor of Triptolemus has already been pointed out by O. Rubensohn(Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake, Berlin, 1892, p. 118).206 See above, pp. 41 sq., 43. Maximus Tyrius observes (Dissertat. xxx. 5) that