This feast, the most celebrated of profane antiquity, was of nine days' continuance. It began the fifteenth of the month Boëdromion. After some previous ceremonies and sacrifices on the first three days, upon the fourth in the evening began the procession of "the Basket;" which was laid upon an open chariot slowly drawn by oxen,(75) and followed by a long train of the Athenian women. They all carried mysterious baskets in their hands, filled with several things, which they took great care to conceal, and covered with a veil of purple. This ceremony represented the basket into which Proserpine put the flowers she was gathering when Pluto seized and carried her off.
The fifth day was called the day of "the Torches:" because at night the men and women ran about with them in imitation of Ceres, who having lighted a torch at the fire at mount Ætna, wandered about from place to place in search of her daughter.
The sixth was the most famous day of all. It was called Iacchus, which is the same as Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Ceres, whose statue was then brought out with great ceremony, crowned with myrtle, and holding a torch in its hand. The procession began at the Ceramicus, and passing through the principal places of the city, continued to Eleusis. The way leading to it was called "the sacred way," and lay across a bridge over the river Cephisus. This procession was very numerous, and generally consisted of thirty thousand persons.(76) The temple of Eleusis, where it ended, was large enough to contain the whole of this multitude; and Strabo says, its extent was equal to that of the theatres, which every body knows were capable of holding a much greater number of people.(77) The whole way reechoed with the sound of trumpets, clarions, and other musical instruments. Hymns were sung in honour of the goddesses, accompanied with dancing, and other extraordinary marks of rejoicing. The route before mentioned, through the sacred way, and over the Cephisus, was the usual one: but after the Lacedæmonians, in the Peloponnesian war, had fortified Decelia, the Athenians were obliged to make their procession by sea, till Alcibiades reestablished the ancient custom.
The seventh day was solemnized by games, and the gymnastic combats, in which the victor was rewarded with a measure of barley; without doubt because it was at Eleusis the goddess first taught the method of raising that grain, and the use of it. The two following days were employed in some particular ceremonies, neither important nor remarkable.