This is the true formula of the Phrygian mysteries; the mention of Attês leaves no doubt as to its character. That of Clemens Alexandrinus and of the scholiast of Platon certainly differs from this latter, although having the first two phrases in common with it; the absence of the name of Attês no longer admits of its being thus formally traced to Phrygia, and, as it also presents very considerable divergences of composition, mentioning other symbols, it is probable that it belonged to other mysteries. Nothing, then, really hinders us from admitting the entire accuracy of the statement of the scholiast when he affirms that it belonged to the Eleusinia, which appears also the most conformable to the mind of Clemens Alexandrinus, whose testimony is so important in a case like this, inasmuch as, before he became a Christian, he had himself been initiated. The similarity of this Eleusinian formula to the Phrygian is naturally explained by the very real analogy which existed between the play of the epopteia and the fundamental conceptions of the mysteries of Sabazios, through the additions directly borrowed from Phrygia which the Orphikoi had introduced into the worship of Eleusis, along with the legend of Zagreus. It is through this analogy, probably, that Arnobius allowed himself to be misled when he attributed to the Phrygian initiations the sacramental words which were in reality pronounced in the Eleusinia of the later period, transformed under the influence of Orphism.

But the difficulty does not end here. From the scene with which the Alexandrian Father connects the formula in question, it would appear to have belonged to the epopteia. Hence it is difficult rot to consider it as the more symbolic and more mysterious analogue of that of the myésis: "I have fasted, I have drunk the kykeón," &c. This was not a password, as we have shown. It becomes more than doubtful, therefore, whether that of the epopteia was one, as Firmicus Maternus affirms of that of the Phrygian mysteries. It is a more probable supposition that the two parallel formulæ, which are both put into the mouth of the initiated, were uttered under similar circumstances, the one at the myésis, the other at the epopteia. Was there, then, in addition to the mystic play, a napádoσic Tv ispov peculiar to the epopteia? This is not an unlikely thing, since this paradosis was an essential act of every initiation. It would even be possible to conclude, from a passage of Athênaios, that it consisted in tasting the symbolic corn contained in the cups of the kernos. And this would completely restore to the Eleusinia the word ikɛpropóρnoa, and consequently the whole formula to which it belongs, such as it is found in Clemens Alexandrinus and in the scholiast of Platon.

*

Nowhere is there any information as to the employment of the days which intervened between the mystic nights. It is probable, indeed, that nothing particular was done on them, and that the mystai, having sat up all night, devoted the daytime to rest.

By the 24th of Boêdromiôn the secret part of the Eleusinia, the

xi. p. 476.

initiations, were ended; the festival again became public and panegyrical as it had begun; banquets, games, and various kinds of rejoicing enlivened the solemnity. As the mystai alone remained at Eleusis for the nights of the initiations, the 22nd and 23rd were working days at Athênai. The 24th was, on the contrary, again a holiday. On this day, in fact, were celebrated the games called Eleusinia or Dêmêtria, which were reckoned in the first rank of those of Attikê. They were said to be the most ancient of the games; and the Chronicle of Paros places their institution a hundred years before the war of Troia, in the reign of Pandiôn, a little less than a century after the establishment of the mysteries by Eumolpos. The prize consisted of a measure of barley reaped during the year, doubtless in the sacred field of Rharos. The ephéboi took part in the contests of the Eleusinian games, and thus it happened that Euripidês was crowned in them when his age precluded his admission to the Olympic Games.

Among the rejoicings on the 24th day we must also reckon, with M. August Mommsen, the sham fight which was called ballétys, a ceremony which had much analogy with the gymnic games, but to which a deep symbolic signification was attached. Allusion is already made to it in the Homeric hymn to Dêmêter.

In the time of Demosthenês there was at this stage of the Eleusinia only one day of fêtes and games, and from the 25th of Boêdromiôn the affairs of civil life resumed their ordinary course, doubtless while the initiated returned processionally to Athênai. In the Makedonian epoch we have a decree dated on the 26th. Perhaps when this was delivered it had already become a custom to make the 25th a second day of rejoicing devoted to theatrical representations. These representations were given by the corporation of the Dionysiakoi Technitai, whose scat was at Athênai, and who possessed a private sanctuary at Eleusis. They took place in the theatre of which the remains can still be seen on the side of the Akropolis which looks towards the sea; the stadium of Eleusis was between this theatre and the shore. We know that the tragedies of Aischylos were played there by preference on account of their eminently religious character. There were similar representations at Andania in Messênia, at the time of the mysteries, and there the theatre was purified by sprinkling the benches with the blood of three young pigs which were sacrificed. It is probable that the same thing was done at Eleusis, the more so as it was in this manner that, at Athênai, the benches of the popular assembly on the Pnyx were purified. Later, at the period to which belongs an inscription at Eleusis, the date of which is unfortunately doubtful, but, for serious reasons, appears to be referable to the years which immediately followed the taking of Athênai by Sylla, two more days were added for games and plays, namely, the 26th and the 27th. The festival thenceforth continued to be celebrated with this extension. We have a decree of this period delivered on the 28th of Boêdromiôn, at Eleusis, by a ẞovλn ispà which has generally been taken for the Senate of Five Hundred, but which perhaps is none

other than the iɛpa yepovoía of the Eleusinian sacerdotal families. However this may be, it follows from this document that at that time there was on the 28th a session of a Senate, political or sacerdotal, at Eleusis itself, doubtless in the buleutérion which was close to the sacred enclosures of that town. Thus the morning of that day also was spent there, and the return to Athênai did not take place till later in the day.

It was preceded by the ceremony of the prochairétéria, the rites belonging to which are unknown, but which had the character of an adieu to Korê quitting her mother at that moment by order of Zeus, to return to her husband's gloomy empire in the infernal regions.

The initiated returned to Athênai in procession, with the priests. But this return, which took place originally on the 25th, and in later times on the 28th, was, at least in one part of its progress, disorderly and clamorous. The populace coming out from Athênai went, with masks on their faces, to wait for the procession at the passage of the bridge of the Athenian Kêphissos, where they received it with taunts and coarse jests. The initiated replied with vigour, and then there commenced droll contests of banter, varied with comic interludes, in which the conqueror received a bandlet as a prize. These are what were called the gephyrismoi. While the initiated halted for these carnival scenes, the priests grouped themselves at the Echô and sounded the mystic cymbals.

But on arriving at the gates of Athênai, yet another religious ceremony took place, of a character at once melancholy and agrarian, which brought back the mystic festival of the Eleusinia, in its last act, to the original gravity of its institution. Two vessels of the plémochoé form were filled with water (the meaning of the word λnua shows this in a positive manner), vessels with feet, and with the body in the form of a top; they were placed on the ground, one on the eastern side, the other on the western, for the gods of the living and the dead; then they were emptied on the earth by way of libation, a mystic formula being pronounced at the same time, which appears to have been vɛ, Kúɛ, "fertilize, bring forth," or, in a more complete form, vɛ, Kúɛ, vπɛρкúɛ. This formula has been found engraved on the curb of a sacred well in front of the Dipylon. This appears to us to fix the spot at which the rite of the plémochoai took place. Being the final act of the return procession, and thus of the whole of the mysteries, it formed at the gate of Athênai the analogue of what the prochairétéria had been before quitting Eleusis. The cycle of the legend of Dêmêter and her daughter was closed, to be reopened at Agrai the following spring.

The session of the Senate of the Five Hundred in the Eleusinion at Athênai, to hear the report of the archón-basileus as to the celebration of the mysteries, which session was instituted by Solôn, took place the next day, that is to say, originally on the 26th and afterwards on the 29th. FRANÇOIS LENORMANT.

(To le continued.)

POSTAL NOTES, MONEY ORDERS, AND

BANK CHEQUES.

TH

HERE can be little doubt as to the need felt by the public for more convenient means of remitting small sums of money by post. The increase of correspondence between different parts of the country is constantly multiplying the number of small debts, debts which cannot be paid by passing coin from hand to hand. The practice is rapidly growing up of buying supplies of draperies, teas, books, and numberless other commodities from well-known firms, situated in a few of the larger towns. Only a well arranged system of parcel posts, as pointed out in a previous article in this REVIEW (January, 1879, vol. xxxiv. p. 209) is needed to develop this mode of traffic immensely. But even with the present vexatious charges on small goods traffic, the number of parcels distributed must be very large, and each parcel, as a general rule, necessitates a postal payment. The facility of railway travelling, again, leads people to reside further from their friends than in former days, and multitudes of domestic servants, workmen away from home in search of work, commercial travellers and tourists, require either to receive or remit small sums of money.

The Postal Money Order System is older than is generally supposed, having existed in one form or other since 1792. In its present form, however, the system dates only from the year 1859, and extensions and improvements are frequently announced. In safety and eventual certainty of acquittance, money orders leave little to be desired. The payer has only to walk to the nearest Money Order Office; wait five or ten minutes while other customers are being served; fill up a small application form; decide, after mature deliberation with the postmaster, and reference to a private official list, upon the Money Order Office most convenient to the payee; then wait until the order is duly filled up, counterfoiled, stamped, &c.; and finally hand over his money, and his

work is done, with the exception of enclosing the order in the properly addressed letter. The payee, too, may be sure of getting his money, if all goes well. He need only walk to the Money Order Office named, sign the order, give the name of the remitter, and then the postmaster, if satisfied that all is right, and if furnished with the indispensable advice note from the remitting office will presently hand over the cash. But sometimes the advice note has not arrived, and the applicant must call again; not uncommonly the payer, with the kindest intentions, has made the order payable at a distant office, imagining, for instance, that Hampstead Road Post-Office must be very convenient to a resident of Hampstead. The payee must then make a tour in search of the required office unless indeed he or his friend happens to have a banking account, when all goes smoothly in a moment, and the banker instantly relieves him of further labour in obtaining the seven shillings and sixpence or other small sum which the Postmaster-General holds for his benefit. But, seriously speaking, time is too valuable to allow us to deal with many money orders. Business men must long ago have demanded a complete reform of the system, were it not that the bankers came to the rescue of the Department, by agreeing to collect the orders, and the post-office people soon discovered that the banker was the safest and easiest medium of collection.

Within the last six or seven years, however, an interesting attempt has been made to replace money orders by bankers' cheques. There used to be a tradition that it was illegal to draw a cheque for less than twenty shillings, and many people still have an uneasy feeling about drawing a cheque on Lombard Street for half-a-guinea. But the Cheque Bank established by the late Mr. James Hertz has helped to change all this. Not only do people now draw very small cheques in their own cheque books, but, if they happen not to possess that luxury, they walk into a neighbouring stationer's or draper's shop, and ask for a Cheque Bank Cheque, which is simply filled up and handed over in exchange for the money without more ado. This cheque may be posted to almost any part of the habitable world, and will be worth its inscribed value, for which most bankers, hotel-keepers, and other business people will cash it, irrespective of advice notes and localities. About six years ago, when preparing my book on "Money" for the International Scientific Series, I inquired minutely into the working of Mr. Hertz's scheme, which seemed to form the downward completion of the banking system, and after six years of subsequent experience, I see no reason to alter the opinions I then expressed about the new kind of bank. The Cheque Bank has met with but one real check, and that is the penny stamp duty, in respect of which the Bank must already have earned a large revenue for the Government, while the Money Order system has occasionally been losing revenue.

The Post-Office authorities, not unnaturally moved by this state of things, have now produced a scheme for the issue of Postal Notes, which, if