In ancient times also a worship was prevalent at Argos which we will designate by the name of the Triopian Demeter.(1667) All the fables concerning Triopas and his son Erysichthon (from ἐρυσίβη, _robigo_) belong to an agricultural religion, which at the same time refers to the infernal regions. The places where this religion existed in ancient times are the Thessalian plains of Dotium, Argos, and likewise Attica;(1668) and from the first-mentioned place it was transmitted to the south-western coast of Asia Minor by an early national connexion which is indicated in the account of an ancient Pelasgic colony from Dotium to Cnidos, Rhodes, and Syme;(1669) and here it formed the basis of the Triopian worship, on which were afterwards founded the federative festivals of the six Doric cities. In front of Triopium is the small island of Telos, whence a single family joined the Lindian colony that founded Gela in Sicily, and earned with it the _sacra Triopia_. A member of this family named Telines advanced this private worship of the infernal gods so greatly that it was incorporated in the national religion, and he was appointed to administer it as Hierophant; it was from this person that Hiero the king of Syracuse was descended.(1670)
4. By this history of the colonial connexions, well attested from without, and having great internal probability, we have ascertained the origin of one of the branches of the worship of Demeter in Sicily. Another was probably introduced by the clan of the Emmenidæ,(1671) which being originally of Theban origin came into Sicily with the colony of Gela: for it was probably owing to the traditions of this family alone that Agrigentum, as well as ancient Thebes, was called “a gift from Zeus to Persephone at their nuptial festival.”(1672)
But from neither of these two sources can the celebrated worship of Demeter at Syracuse and its colony Enna (which in the eyes both of the inhabitants and of the Romans had made Sicily the native country of Ceres) be derived, since it differed in certain respects from both the above-named worships.(1673) From its importance we may infer that it was one of the most ancient religions of Syracuse, and established at the first foundation of that town; and since of these some came from Olympia,(1674) but the larger part from Corinth, and there is no reason for supposing that it was derived from the former place, it must have been brought over from the parent state. Now it is true that there was at Corinth a temple of Demeter and Cora, the priestesses of which also prophesied by means of dreams;(1675) but the worship of those goddesses was there of far less importance than in Sicily, where its preponderance may perhaps be accounted for by the fertility of the soil, which enabled it to produce wheat, while the Greeks had in their own country been accustomed to eat barley, and therefore stimulated the colonists to be especially thankful to the goddess of corn. When, however, it is remembered that Megara also had a large share in the colonising of Syracuse, it will hardly be doubted that this state was the real source from which the worship in question originated, since Demeter was there an ancient national deity, and was not disturbed in her sanctuary on the citadel of Caria even by the Doric invaders.(1676)