Note 8 — Chapter VI · THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

It is doubtful what part the goddess Daeira played in the Eleusinia: that she played some part must be regarded as certain from the fact that among the official priesthoods of the festival a δαειρίτης is expressly mentioned (Poll. i, 35). She stands in a certain opposition to Demeter: but though she is nevertheless identified by Aesch. and others with Persephone (K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 288) the most we may deduce from this is that she also was a chthonic deity. (Acc. to the sacrificial calendar of the Attic Tetrapolis, Leg. Sacr. i, p. 48, B. 12. Δαίρᾳ οἷς κυοῦσα was offered. This does not point to the identity of this goddess with Persephone—as the editor, p. 52, points out. Pregnant animals were by preference offered to Demeter, though occasionally to Artemis and Athene too.) Daeira seems from all the indications to belong to the χθόνιοι. (Meaning of the name uncertain: ? “the knowing one” or “the (torch) burning one”: cf. Lobeck, Pathol. prol. 263.) In Eust. on Ζ 378, p. 648, 24, among the notices collected from the lexicographers there is one in which Pherekydes makes her the sister of Styx (it is not Pherekydes but the over-subtle scholar to whom Eust. owes his note, who thinks that Daeira signified the ὑγρὰ φύσις to the ancients; so also Ael. Dionys. quoting οἱ περὶ τελετὰς καὶ μυστήρια in his Lexicon, ap. Eust. 648, 41. This is a worthless allegorical interpretation).—For which reason some made her the daughter of Okeanos (Müller, pp. 244, 288)—τινὲς δὲ φύλακα Περσεφόνης ὑπὸ Πλούτωνος ἀποδειχθῆναί φασι τὴν Δάειραν (648, 40). According to this she would be a Hades-daimon keeping guard over the wife of Aidoneus (cf. the guardian Κωκυτοῦ περίδρομοι κύνες in Ar., Ran. 472, quoting Eurip.). In this case we can see the origin of Demeter’s hostility. Did this Daeira also play a part (as a character) in the Eleusinian δρᾶμα μυστικόν? Ap. Rh. makes her the same as Hekate, who, however, in the h. Cer. (and on vase-paintings) is the helper rather than the enemy of Demeter.