Great Mysteries of Eleusis 14 Boedromion

The first act of the Great Eleusinian Mysteries (14 Boedromion) was the transport of the sacred objects from Eleusis to Eleusinion, a temple at the foot of the Acropolis of Athens.

On the 15th of Boedromion, a day called the Gathering (Agyrmos), the priests (hierophants, those who show the sacred) declared the beginning of the rites (prorrhesis), and performed the sacrifice (hiereía deúro, here the victims).

The initiates (halade mystai) began in Athens on 16 Boedromion with the celebrants washing in the sea at Phaleron.

On the 17th, the participants began the Epidauria, a festival for Asklepios named after his main sanctuary at Epidauros. This festival celebrated the healer's arrival in Athens with his daughter Hygieia, and consisted of a procession to the Eleusinion, during which the mystai apparently remained at home, performing a great sacrifice and an all-night feast (pannykhís).

The procession to Eleusis began at Kerameikos (the Athenian cemetery) on the 18th, and from there people walked to Eleusis, along the Sacred Way (Ἱερὰ Ὁδός, Hierá Hodós), swinging branches called bacchoi.

At one point along the way they were shouting obscenities in commemoration of Iambe (or Baubo), an old woman who, by telling dirty jokes, had made people smile Demeter mourning the loss of his daughter.

Upon arriving at Eleusis, there was a night vigil (pannychis) perhaps commemorating Demeter's search for Persephone. The initiates had a special drink (kykeon), of barley and pennyroyal, which has led to speculation that its chemicals may have had the psychotropic effects of ergot (a fungus that grows on barley, containing psychedelic alkaloids similar to LSD).

On the 19th Boedromion of the Great Mysteries of Eleusis, the initiates entered a large hall called Telesterion; in the center stood the Palace (Anaktoron), where only the hierophants could enter, and where the sacred objects were stored.

Before the mystai could enter the Telesterion, they recited: "I fasted, I drank the kykeon, I took it from the kiste (box) and after working it, I put it back in the calathus (open basket).

It is widely accepted that the rites within the Telesterion for the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries included three elements:

• dromena (things done), a dramatic reconstruction of the myth Demeter/Persephone
• deiknumena (things shown), exhibited sacred objects, in which the hierophant played an essential role
• legomena (things said), commentaries which accompanied the deiknumena.

Combined, these three elements were known as aporrheta ("unrepeatable"); the penalty for disclosing them was death.

Athenagoras of Athens, Cicero and other ancient writers cite that it was for this crime (among others) that Diagoras was condemned to death in Athens; the tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have been tried for revealing the secrets of the Mysteries in some of his plays, but was acquitted. The ban on divulging the essentials of the ritual of the Mysteries was therefore absolute, which probably explains why we know almost nothing about what happened there.