Note 14 — Chapter VI · THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

As to the admission of slaves to the Eleusinian initiation ceremonies K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 56, opposes Lobeck (Agl. 19) and suggests a doubt. His main objection is that on the great inscr. dealing with the regulation of the Eleusinia (CIA. i, 1) side by side with μύσται καὶ ἐπόπται there is mention also of ἀκόλουθοι (but not of δοῦλοι, Ziehen, Leg. Sacr. [Diss.], p. 14 f.)—i.e. presumably slaves, not themselves Mystai, belonging to the μύσται. But if slaves were initiated that would not prevent there being other slaves, ἀκόλουθοι of the μύσται, uninitiated and not reckoned among the μύσται. It is definitely stated on the official record of building expenses at Eleusis dating from the year 329/8, CIA. ii, 834, b, col. 2, 71, μύησις δυοῖν τῶν δημοσίων (the state slaves employed in the building operations) Δ Δ Δ (cf. l. 68). Initiation of the δημόσιοι also in CIA. ii, 834 c, 24. On this view, when the comic poet Theophilos (ii, p. 473 K.) makes someone speak of his ἀγαπητὸς δεσπότης by whom he ἐμυήθη θεοῖς, it will not be necessary to suppose that a freedman (as Meineke, Com. 3, 626) is speaking and not a slave.—The generosity implied was all the greater since in many of the most sacred feasts of the gods at Athens slaves were expressly excluded: cf. Philo, Q. omn. Prob. 20, ii, p. 467 M. Casaubon on Ath., vol. 12, p. 495 Schw.