It is an altogether sacred character, again,
that he assumes in another precious work, of the severer period of
Greek art, lately discovered at Eleusis, and now preserved in the
museum of Athens, a singularly refined bas-relief, in which he
stands, a firm and serious youth, between Demeter and [108]
Persephone, who places her hand as with some sacred influence, and
consecrating gesture, upon him.
But the house of the prudent countryman will be, of course, a place
of honest manners; and Demeter Thesmophoros is the guardian of
married life, the deity of the discretion of wives. She is therefore
the founder of civilised order. The peaceful homes of men, scattered
about the land, in their security--Demeter represents these fruits of
the earth also, not without a suggestion of the white cities, which
shine upon the hills above the waving fields of corn, seats of
justice and of true kingship. She is also in a certain sense the
patron of travellers, having, in her long wanderings after
Persephone, recorded and handed down those omens, caught from little
things--the birds which crossed her path, the persons who met her on
the way, the words they said, the things they carried in their hands,
einodia symbola+--by noting which, men bring their journeys to a
successful end; so that the simple countryman may pass securely on
his way; and is led by signs from the goddess herself, when he
travels far to visit her, at Hermione or Eleusis.
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