Eleusis is a shrine common to the whole earth and, of all the divine things that exist among men, it is both the most awe-inspiring and the most luminous. In what place in the world have more miraculous tales been sung, where have the rites called forth greater emotion, where has there been a greater rivalry between seeing and hearing? (Aelius Aristides, Panathenaic Oration (Oration 13), Section 187, in Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works, Volume II, translated by Charles A. Behr.)
