Beyond Mysteries: the Local World of Ancient Eleusis

Hans Beck is Professor and Chair of Greek History at the University of Münster. He has published widely on local constellations in Central Greece and the Peloponnese, including Localism and the Ancient Greek City-State (Chicago, 2020). He is the recipient of the Anneliese Maier Research Prize and an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.Sebastian Scharff holds a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Humanities at the University of Trento. He has published extensively on Greek religion, interstate relations and ancient athletics, including Eid und Außenpolitik (Steiner, 2016) and Hellenistic Athletes (CUP, 2024).

• PrefaceList of Figures and TablesContributors1 Beyond Mysteries: Introduction to the Local Horizon of Ancient EleusisHans Beck and Sebastian ScharffPart 1: Settings and Surroundings2 Eleusis in Its Economic and Environmental SettingAnton Bonnier3 Along the Mystery Highway: Eleusis and Thebes in the Archaic AgeHans Beck4 Between Argos and Athens: Eleusis as a Contested SpaceJeremy McInerneyPart 2: Saronic Dimensions5 Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Eleusis in a Saronic Context: Political Geography and Ritual PracticeSarah C. Murray6 Eleusis in the Gulf of Distorting Mirrors: Demeter’s Look-Alikes and Her Saronic ReflectionsIrene Polinskaya7 Between Locality and Diffusion: Εleusis in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the First-Fruits DecreeChristy ConstantakopoulouPart 3: Sites and Cults8 Healing across the Gulf: Eleusis and the Asklepios CultRoy van Wijk9 Between Προσβατήριος and Πατρός: Poseidon at and around EleusisShannon M. Dunn10 The Eleusinian Deities in IoniaJulietta Steinhauer11 Votive Reliefs from Eleusis in a Local, Regional, and Transregional PerspectiveAnja KlöcknerPart 4: Civic Life12 Listmaking, Accountability, and Gender in Eleusinian Myth and HistoryAthena Kirk13 Eleusis as a Place of Competition: the Eleusinian GamesSebastian Scharff14 The Public Enactments of the Deme Eleusis: between Mysteries and MilitaryStephen LambertPart 5: Stories and Myths15 Centrality Reconsidered: Eleusis, Athens, and MythotopographyAngela Ganter16 Eleusis and Athens at War: Myth, Conflict, and IdentityOliver Grote17 Eleusis, Theseus and the Burial of the ‘Seven against Thebes’Christoph Michels18 The Profanation of the Mysteries in the Attic Orators: between Rhetorical Use and Historical EvidencePriscilla Gontijo LeitePart 6: Afterlives19 Sacred Diplomacy: Eleusis as a Mediator between the Athenian Polis and the Roman EmpireMargarita Sardak20 Plutarch’s EleusisChandra Giroux21 Eleusis at the Intersection of Antiquity and Modernity: the mystēria, Altered Consciousness, and the Neuroscience of Transformational ExperienceMichelle Zerba