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

Chapter II. Demeter And Persephone. 89at Eleusis. 253 If the identification could be proved, we shouldhave another confirmation of the tradition which connects thegames with Demeter and the corn; for according to the prevalenttradition it was to Triptolemus that Demeter first revealed thesecret of the corn, and it was he whom she sent out as an itinerantmissionary to impart the beneficent discovery of the cereals to allmankind and to teach them to sow the seed. 254 On monumentsof art, especially in vase-paintings, he is constantly representedalong with Demeter in this capacity, holding corn-stalks in hishand and sitting in his car, which is sometimes winged andsometimes drawn by dragons, and from which he is said to havesowed the seed down on the whole world as he sped throughthe air. 255 At Eleusis victims bought with the first-fruits of thewheat and barley were sacrificed to him as well as to Demeterand Persephone. 256 In short, if we may judge from the combinedtestimony of Greek literature and art, Triptolemus was the cornatthe Great Eleusinian Games, and a provision is contained in the decreethat the honour should be proclaimed “at the Ancestral Contest of the Festivalof the Threshing-floor.” The same Ancestral Contest at the Festival of theThreshing-floor is mentioned in another Eleusinian inscription, which records253 See above, p. 61.254 Diodorus Siculus, v. 68; Arrian, Indic. 7; Lucian, Somnium, 15; id.,Philopseudes, 3; Plato, Laws, vi. 22, p. 782; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i.5. 2; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium, 28, p. 53, ed. C. Lang;Pausanias, i. 14. 2, vii. 18. 2, viii. 4. 1; Aristides, Eleusin. vol. i. pp. 416 sq.,ed. G. Dindorf; Hyginus, Fabulae, 147, 259, 277; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 549 sqq.;id., Metamorph. v. 645 sqq.; Servius, on Virgil, Georg. i. 19. See also above,p. 54. As to Triptolemus, see L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone (Hamburg,1837), pp. 282 sqq.; id., Griechische Mythologie, 4 i. 769 sqq.255 C. Strube, Studien über den Bilderkreis von Eleusis (Leipsic, 1870), pp.4 sqq.; J. Overbeck, Griechische Kunstmythologie, iii. (Leipsic, 1873-1880),pp. 530 sqq.; A. Baumeister, Denkmäler des classischen Altertums, iii. 1855sqq. That Triptolemus sowed the earth with corn from his car is mentioned byApollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5. 2; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium,28, pp. 53 sq., ed. C. Lang; Hyginus, Fabulae, 147; and Servius, on Virgil,Georg. i. 19.256 Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 2 No. 20, lines 37 sqq.; E.