Eleusis

Eleusis, next to Athens the most important town of ancient Attica, on the Bay of Eleusis, opposite Salamis, was connected with the capital by the Sacred Road. It was famous as the chief seat of the worship of Ceres, whose mystic rites were here performed with great pomp and solemnity from the earliest authentic times till the era of Alaric, by whom the second and famous temple of the goddess, designed by Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, was destroyed. For the Eleusinian mysteries, see MYSTERIES. The site of the old Eleusis is now occupied by the little village of Lefsinia, 16½ miles WNW. of Athens by rail.