Cicero and the Pigs

The Eleusinian Mysteries were centred around a secret. A secret so secret and kept by in initiates so well, that we still don't know exactly what they were about. What we do know however is roughly, what was involved in this great ceremony of Ancient Athens, in particularly the carrying of a pig to the Piraeus port, washing it in the Aegean and then ritually sacrificing it.

The Acropolis

The Eleusinian Mysteries were well kept. Relating to the abduction of Persephone by Hades into the underworld, and her mother Demeter's search for her missing daughter. When Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, goes searching for her missing daughter, it reuslts in the crops dying due to her not being there to pay them due attention. Upon the returning to her of her daughter Demeter is said to have bestowed two gifts,

" Crops, which prevent our living the life of wild beasts, and the holy rite, which brings its initiates fairer hopes about the end of life"

Isocrates Speeches 4.28

The goddess offered her followers some secret that made the afterlife bearable. Aristophanes and Sophocles both make mention of them, so while the secret was imparted by the goddess through the mystery festival, it was clearly known of throughout the demes of Athens.

"How thrice-blessed are those mortals who pass to Hades after seeing these mysteries; for to them alone is it given to have life there, but to others all is evil there"

Sophocles Fragment 229

Secret mysteries on how to obtain ever lasting life might seem odd in our modern Christian religious world (a religion based around the saving of your soul in heaven) and the ancients views of an "afterlife" are wide and varied. But there is one specific part of the Greater Mysteries that I wanted to focus on. The Pigs. 

M Tullius Cicero

The seemingly bizaree inclusion of pigs as part of the mysteries is in honour of a swineherd named Eubouleus, who while grazing his pigs was swallowed up by the same chasm that Hades abducted Persephone into. On the second day of the Greater Mysteries (there were two; initiates completing the  lesser mysteries before moving on the the greater mysteries) the participants took their piglets from Athens down to the sea at the Piraeus, where they promptly washed themselves and their pigs in the sea, before sacrificing their piglets. 

What makes the mysteries remarkable is the people and names it attracted. The title of this piece is Cicero and the Pigs. Cicero wrote that "the most distant nations were initiated into the sacred and august Eleusinia" and also mentions them again in his essays on Law wrote 

"We have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a better hope".

Cicero Laws II 

The use of the word "we" in the sentence strongly suggests that Cicero had himself been initiated into the mysteries and the thought of the self promoting, greatest orator of Rome splashing around in what was no doubt the filth and muck of the Pireaus, trying to wash a pig is one that should bring a smile to the face(and is definitely worth remembering next time you are reading some rather stuffy Cicero). 

Cicero wasn't the only one though. We know that other prominent men, the Emperor's Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus all took part in the ceremony. Suetonius, in his Life of Nero, tell us that the young Emperor on his tour of Greece didn't partake of the cult, due to its warning against people of evil hearts. 

The mysteries are just that, a mystery. However, knowing that some of the greatest men of ancient Greek and Roman history, willingly once carried a piglet to the sea, washed it and themselves among the jetsam and flotsam of the Piraeus, is a good place to start. 

Got anything to add about this mysterious religious ceremony, leave a comment below.  

Thanks for Reading
James