First page Back Continue Last page Overview Graphics


Notes:

The Profanation of the Mysteries had to do with the charge that Alcibiades and his friends had staged some ancient version of a Black Mass and had mocked the sacred rites of Demeter, which were celebrated annually at a major panhellenic festival in Eleusis, 13 miles west of Athens. This 4th c, Athenian pinax purports to show some scenes from the Eleusinian Mysteries, but it’s more likely that the depictions merely hint at the Mysteries, because they were, well, Mysteries.