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Athens, Eleusis, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

1952; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 45; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0017816000020757

1475-4517

Francis R. Walton,

Historical and Literary Studies

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the earliest and, for us, the single most important literary record of the Eleusinian Mysteries. These Mysteries were for a thousand years one of the crowning glories of Athens, the pride of her statesmen, poets, and orators, a focal point of piety which though intimately civic was at the same time panhellenic. The constant references to the cult in both prose and poetry attest its popularity and singular importance. Yet it remains a curious fact that in all Athenian literature, at least until Hellenistic times, there is no direct mention of the Homeric Hymn and scarcely anything which can reasonably be identified even as a reminiscence or echo of it. Apparently the Hymn was allowed to fall into almost total oblivion. Why this should have happened is a question that seems to merit some consideration. By the very nature of the problem the evidence is inadequate to assure definite conclusions, but it is hoped that the solution proposed, though necessarily tentative, may add somewhat to our understanding of an obscure but interesting period in the religious history of Athens.