Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/73

 814 ELEUSI& to desczibe." The Bharum plain is also mentioDed IB the Homeric Hymn to Artemis (450): it ap- pears to have been in the neigbbonrhood of the citj ; bat its site cannot be determined. The present state of the antiqoitles at Elensis is described by the Commission of the Dilettanti, of whose leseuches a brief acconnt is given by Leake. Upon approaching Elensis from Athens, the first oonspicuons object is the remains of a large pave- ment, terminating in some heaps of rains, which are the remains <k a propylaeom, of very nearly the same plan and dimensions as that of the Acropolis of Athens. Before it, near the middle of a platform cat in the rock, are the rains of a small temple, 40 feet long and 20 broad, which was ondoubt^Mliy the temple of Artemis Propylaea. (See plan, 1.) formed the exterior inclosare of the Uierara (plan, a, a, a). At a dbtance of 50 feet from the propy- laeom was the north-eastern angle of the inner indosore (plan, (, 6, 6), which was in shape an irregolar pentagim. Its entrance was at the angle {'nst mentioned, where the rock was cnt away both Lorizontally and yertically to receive another propy- laeom (plui, 3) mach smaller than the former, and which consisted of an opening 32 feet wide between two parallel waUs of 50 feet in length. Towards the mner extremi^ this opening was narrowed by tnmsverse walls to a gateway (^12 feet in width, which was decorated with antae, opposed to two Ionic colomns. Between the inner front of this propylaeom and the site of the great temple lay, until the year 1801, the colossal bast of Pentellc marble, crowned with a basket, which is now d»- poeited m the poblic library at Cambridge. It has been soppoeed to be a fragment of the statae of Demeter which was adored in the temple; but, to jadge from the position in which it was fbond, and from the onfinished appeannce of the sorfaoe in those few parts where any original sarfiu» remains, the statue seems rather to have been that of a Cistophoros, serving for some architectoral deco- ration, like tiie Caryatides of the Erechtheium." The temple of Demeter itself, sometimes called 6 /iMrruchs <niK6s^ or rh rcAeffr^piov, was the largest in all Greece, and is described by Strabo as capable of containing as many persons as a theatre (ix. p. 395). The plan of the building was designed by Ictinos, the arohitect of the Parthencm at Athens; but it was many years before it was completed, and the names of several architects are preserved who were employed in building it Its portico of 12 columns was not built till the time of Demetrius Pbalerens, about B.a 318, by the architect Philo. (Strab. t c.; Pint Per, 13; IHct. ofBiogr, vol. iii. p. 314, a.) When finished, it was considered one of the four finest examples of Grredan architecture in marble. It fisced the south-east. Its site is occu- pied by the centre of the modem village, in conse- quence of which it is difficult to obtain all tiie details of the building. The Commission of the Dilettanti Society supposed the cella to be 166 feet square within; and "comparing the fragments which they found with the description of Plutarch (^Per, 13), they thought themselves warranted in concluding that the roof of the cella was covered with tilee of marble like the temples of Athens; that it was supported by 28 D(nic columns, of a diameter (measured under the capital) of 3 feet 2 inches; tiiat the oolunms were disposed in two double rows •cross the cella, one near the frxmt, the other near ELEUTHEBNA. the back; and that Iftqr were snimonnted bjiangw of smaller columns, as in tftM Parthenon, and as wre still see exemplified in one of te existing temples at Paestum. The cella was frxmted with a magiufieeAi portico of 12 Doric columns, measurbtg 6| feet at the lower diameter of the shaft, but fluted enly tat a narrow ring at the top and bottom. The pTstfciiii at the back of the temple was 20 feet above th* lerel of the pavement of the portico. An aaoent <£ steps led up to this platform on the outside of tiia north-western angle of the temple, not far frtm where another flight of steps ascended from the platform to a pmtal adorned with two odmnna^ which perhaps formed a small propylaeom, com- municating from the Hiemm to the Acropolia." There are no remains which can be safely ascribed to the temple of Triptolemos, or to that of Posddon. is now seen not far firam Uie foot of the mrthcm side of the hill of Eleosis, within the Infureatian cf two roads leading to Hegara and to Eleuthene, fir near it are the foundations of a wall and portico * (plan, 5). Near Eleosis was the monomeDt of Tellus, mentioned by Herodotus (L 30^ The town of Eleusis and its immediate nei^- bourhood were exposed to inundations from the rircr Cephissus, which, though almost dry during tfaa greater part of the year, is sometimes swolbn to such an extent as to spresd itself over a largie part of the plain. Demosthenes aUudes to inundations at Eleusis (c. CalUcL p. 1279); and Hadrian raised some embankments m the plain in consequence of an inundation which occurred while he was spending the winter at Athens (Easeb. CkrotL p*81). In the plain about a mile to the south of Eleusis an the remains of two ancient moonds, which are pro- bably the embankments of Hadrian. To the same emperor most Kkely Eleosis was indebted for a sopply of good water by means of the aqoeduct, the ruins of which are still seen stretching across the plain frx>m Eleusis in a north-easterly directioD. (Leake, Demi of Attica^ p. 154, seq., from which the greater part of the preceding acconnt is taken.) The annexed coin represents on the obverse Demeter in a chariot drawn 1^ winged snakes, and holding m her hand a bunch of com, and on the reverse a sow, the animal usually sacrificed to Demeter. COIN OF SLBUSIS. 2. An ancient town of Boeotia, on the rivef Triton, and near the UJce Copais, which, together with the neighbouring town of Athenae, was d»- stroyed by an inundation. (Strab. ix. p. 407 ; Pans, ix. 24. § S; Leake, Norihem Greece^ vol iL pfi 136, 293.) ELEU'THERAE. [Attica, p. 329.] ELEUTHE'RION. [ARooa, p. 201, a.] ELEUTHERNA {'Ltve4pya, Ptol. iiL 17. § 10; Scyl.), a town of great importance in Crete, sitaated on tlie NW. slopes of Mt. Ida, at a distance of 50 stadia from the harbour of Astale (Sta^atm,^ and 8 M. P. from Sybritia (Petit Tab.), Its origin was ascribed to the legendary Curetes (Steph. B. a. ff.X and it was here that Ametor or Amiton (oomp. Diet, of Biogr, #. v.) first accompanied his lovi^
 * The peribolas, which abatted on the Propylaeom,
 * The well Callichorum may have been that wbidi