The ' Hiera Orgas' ( Ancient Greek : ἱερὰ ὀργάς ), meaning ‘sacred meadow’, was a site which featured in at least two conflicts between Athens and Megara .
83-638: The Hiera Orgas was a circular, fertile area of land sacred to the Eleusinian goddesses, Demeter and Persephone . It was probably situated on the Megarian side of the Northern reaches of the Iapis River in the borderland between Athens and Megara. As no boundary markers ( ὅρος|ὅροι ) have survived, it is not possible to be more specific. Its location between the two states meant that control of
166-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
249-510: A belief that there was a hope for life after death for those who were initiated. Such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things including the seed of life in a stalk of grain. The central myth of the Mysteries was Demeter's quest for her lost daughter (Kore the Maiden, or Persephone ) who had been abducted by Hades . It
332-529: A dream forbade me to describe. Under the Romans Eleusis enjoyed great prosperity, as initiation into its mysteries became fashionable among the Roman nobles. Hadrian was initiated into the Mysteries in about 125 and raised embankments in the plain of the river in consequence of a flood which occurred while he was spending the winter at Athens. To the same emperor most likely Eleusis was indebted for
415-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
498-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
581-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
664-633: A late tradition in which the Spartan king , Cleomenes , was said to have defiled the Orgas . According to the tradition, for his act of impiety, Cleomenes was punished by the gods with madness. Thucydides (1.139.2) and Plutarch ( Pericles , 30.2) record that the cultivation of the Hiera Orgas by a number of Megarians was one of the complaints cited by the Athenians to justify the implementation of
747-753: A privilege possessed by no other town in Attica, except Athens. The history of Eleusis is part of the history of Athens. Once a year the great Eleusinian procession travelled from Athens to Eleusis, along the Sacred Way . Eleusis was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries , or the Mysteries of Demeter and Kore , which became popular in the Greek-speaking world as early as 600 BC, and attracted initiates during Roman Empire before declining mid-late 4th century AD. These Mysteries revolved around
830-535: A sacred precinct ( temenos ), which deserved to be kept inviolate and protected under religious law. This view does not seem to have been shared by the Megarians. The Athenians, at least, deemed the cultivation of the Hiera Orgas as a distinct religious pollution ( miasma ), which, if left unresolved, would anger the gods and, therefore, compromise the ongoing fertility and wellbeing of the state itself. The geographer and antiquarian, Pausanias (3.4.5-6), reported
913-565: A supply of good water by means of the aqueduct, completed in about 160 AD. Apart from satisfying the need for drinking water, it also enabled the construction of public fountains and baths. It was fed by springs in Mount Parnitha and used mainly underground tunnels. It crossed the Thriasian Plain and turned abruptly towards the south at the outskirts of Eleusis. The best visible remains are on the east side of Dimitros Street. It
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#1732773285243996-604: Is a suburban city and municipality in Athens metropolitan area. It belongs to West Attica regional unit of Greece . It is located in the Thriasio Plain , at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf . North of Elefsina are Mandra and Magoula , while Aspropyrgos is to the northeast. It is the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the birthplace of Aeschylus . Today, Elefsina is a major industrial centre, with
1079-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
1162-594: Is also mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Artemis ; it appears to have been in the neighbourhood of the city; but its site cannot be determined. It appears to have derived its name from the supposed advent (ἔλευσις) of Demeter, though some traced its name from an eponymous hero Eleusis. It was one of the 12 independent states into which Attica was said to have been originally divided. "When Athens had only just become Athens, it went to war with another city built thirteen miles away: Eleusis," Roberto Calasso wrote of
1245-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1328-466: Is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki ,
1411-583: Is organized in honor of Aeschylus , who was born in Eleusis, from whom it derives its name. It includes stage productions, art exhibitions and installations, concerts, and dance events. Elefsina has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Csa ), bordering on a hot semi-arid climate ( BSh ) for the 1958-2010 period, according to the meteorological station operated by the Hellenic National Meteorological Service . Elefsina
1494-467: Is particularly hot during the summer, with an average July maximum of 33.2 °C (91.8 °F). According to Kassomenos and Katsoulis (2006), based on 12 years of data (1990–2001), the industrialization of west Attica , where at least 40% of the industrial activity of the country is concentrated, could be the cause of the warm climate of the zone. On June 4, 2024 the WMO station in the port of Elefsina broke
1577-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
1660-480: Is sometimes swollen to such an extent as to spread itself over a large part of the plain. Demosthenes (384 – 322 BC) alludes to inundations at Eleusis; Pausanias ( c. 110 – c. 180 AD ) has left us only a very brief description of Eleusis; The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus , another of Artemis Propylaea, and a third of Poseidon the Father, and a well called Callichorum, where
1743-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
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#17327732852431826-674: The Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from
1909-624: The Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are
1992-627: The Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of
2075-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
2158-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
2241-599: The Megarian exclusion decree , which, in turn, became one of the main causes of the Peloponnesian War . There has been considerable debate over the etiology of the war and the genuineness, or otherwise, of the Athenian response to protect the integrity of the Hiera Orgas by excluding Megarians from all ports and markets under Athenian control in 432 BC. The Megarians, themselves, are not recorded as having denied
2324-657: The Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of
2407-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
2490-575: The Eleusinian women first instituted a dance and sang in honour of the goddess. They say that the Rharian plain was the first place in which corn was sown and first produced a harvest, and that hence barley from this plain is employed for making sacrificial cakes. There the so-called threshing-floor and altar of Triptolemus are shown. The things within the wall of the Hierum [i.e., the temple of Demeter]
2573-512: The Grecian mysteries down to the fall of paganism. Eleusis stood upon a height at a short distance from the sea, and opposite the island of Salamis . Its situation possessed three natural advantages. It was on the road from Athens to the Isthmus of Corinth ; it was in a very fertile plain; and it was at the head of an extensive bay, formed on three sides by the coast of Attica, and shut in on
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2656-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
2739-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
2822-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
2905-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
2988-526: The Hellenistic and mainly Roman eras the road was used for the exhibition of wealth and social power, with costly burial monuments being erected all along it. The road was in use until at least the 6th century AD. It is indicative that writers of the Byzantine era refer to it as a "small village", and shortly before the Ottoman domination the area was deserted by wars, raids and captives. During this period
3071-620: The Thriassio General Hospital, located 3.9 km north of the city centre. Elefsina hosts the multi-sport club Panelefsiniakos with successful sections in football and basketball. Another historical club of Elefsina is Iraklis Eleusis , founded in 1928. Elefsina is twinned with: [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William , ed. (1854–1857). "Eleusis". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography . London: John Murray. *Not included
3154-566: The accusation, but their ambassadors did complain of the severity of the Athenian response. It is possible that Pericles used the dispute for his own political purposes, but the success of his public stance in protecting the Hiera Orgas , serves to demonstrate the significance of the religious considerations at play in the dispute. Athens and Megara came into conflict over the Hiera Orgas again in 350/49 BC. This time, there appeared to be no clear political context to bring into question Athenian motives. The orator, Demosthenes (13.32) provided
3237-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
3320-525: The ancient Sacred Way over the Kephissus river is visible about 1 km from the Sanctuary of Demeter. The bridge is in very good condition and is an outstanding example of ancient bridge building. It consists of a central 30 m-long main bridge with 4 arches and 10 m-long sloping access on either side. The Sacred Way was the main road from Athens and led to Demeter's sanctuary, and was also the road used by
3403-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
Hiera Orgas - Misplaced Pages Continue
3486-495: The ancient provenance of the relationship between temple-city and the Attic seat of power. "It was a war usually described as mythical, since it has no date. And it was a theological war, since Athens belonged to Athena and Eleusis to Poseidon . Eumolpus and Erechtheus , the founding kings of the two cities, both died in it." It is related that in the reign of Eumolpus , king of Eleusis, and Erechtheus , king of Athens, there
3569-430: The annual Aeschylia Festival is held in honor of the great tragic poet Aeschylus. Elefsis Shipyards is located here. There is a military airport a few kilometers east of Elefsina. Elefsina Airfield played a crucial role in the final British evacuation during the 1941 Battle of Greece , as recounted by Roald Dahl in his autobiography Going Solo . Elefsina is home to the football club Panelefsiniakos F.C. , and
3652-611: The basketball club Panelefsiniakos B.C. Established in 1975, the Aeschylia Festival in Eleusis in Western Attica is the currently the longest standing cultural event organized by an Attica Municipality . It is held annually at Palaio Elaiourgeio, a former soap factory by the seafront that functions as an open theatre. The festival usually is running at the end of August and during all of the September. The event
3735-470: The earliest record of the recurrence of the dispute. He describes the Megarians as ‘accursed’ ( karatoi ) for their impious encroachment upon the Orgas . Shortly afterwards, the Athenian Assembly voted to settle the matter by seeking independent arbitration from Apollo’s oracle at Delphi . The Athenians stipulated complex and expensive arrangements for determining the will of Apollo concerning
3818-400: The fire in order to endow him with immortality, until Metaneira found out and insulted her. Demeter arose insulted, and casting off her disguise, and, in all her glory, instructed Meteneira to build a temple to her. Keleos, informed the next morning by Metaneira, ordered the citizens to build a rich shrine to Demeter, where she sat in her temple until the lot of the world prayed to Zeus to make
3901-409: The industries in the region. Industrial activity, however, developed anarchically on the antiquities and next to the residential area. Environmental pollution has taken on large dimensions. During the 20th century, at the time of sustainable development, archaeological discoveries and industrial formation shaped the image of contemporary Eleusis. In 1962, a large house of priests from the Roman era
3984-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
4067-772: The largest oil refinery in Greece as well as the home of the Aeschylia Festival , the longest-lived arts event in the Attica Region. On 11 November 2016, Elefsina was named the European Capital of Culture for 2021, which became effective in 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic postponement. The word Eleusis first appears in the Orphic Hymn to Eleusinian Demeter : «Δήμητρος Ελευσινίας, θυμίαμα στύρακα ». Also Hesychius of Alexandria reports that
4150-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
4233-560: The main industrial centers of the Modern Greek state with concrete factory TITAN , Charilaou Soap Factory as well as the distilleries of Botrys and Kronos being established in the area. Arvanitika is still spoken in the village, with the locals qualifying their dialect more "noble" and "refined" than those of rural Arvanites. Many Greek families of Asia Minor settled in Elefsina after the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe and created
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#17327732852434316-576: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
4399-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
4482-584: The most parts of Athens urban area Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of
4565-466: The municipal unit has an area of 18.455 km (7.126 sq mi). Eleusis was a deme of ancient Attica , belonging to the phyle Hippothoöntis . It owed its celebrity to its being the chief seat of the worship of Demeter and Persephone , and to the mysteries celebrated in honour of these goddesses, which were called the Eleusinia , and continued to be regarded as the most sacred of all
4648-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
4731-463: The older name for Eleusis was Saesara (Σαισάρια). Saesara was the mythic daughter of Celeus (king of Eleusis when Demeter arrived for the first time) and granddaughter of Eleusinus, the first settler of Eleusis. The municipality of Elefsina was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following two former municipalities, that became municipal units: The municipality has an area of 36.589 km (14.127 sq mi), and
4814-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
4897-541: The predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation
4980-501: The procession every year of the celebration of the Great Mysteries escorting the sacred objects back to Eleusis. Its course is visible in some places and has been accurately traced by rescue excavations and ran parallel to its namesake in the modern city only a few metres to the south. Roadside cemeteries from different periods throughout antiquity are found next to it and prehistoric graves witness its existence by 1600 BC. During
5063-710: The record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Greece for the first 10 days of June from the National Observatory of Athens network. Until 2021, Elefsina was one of the areas in the Athens Metropolitan Area (the other one was Tatoi ) which held the record of the highest ever officially recorded temperature in Europe for 44 years with a reading of 48.0 °C (118.4 °F) on 10 July 1977. Elefsina has only one general hospital
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#17327732852435146-438: The right Persephone, clad in chiton and mantle and holding a torch, blesses Triptolemos with her right hand. The original marble relief was found at the sanctuary of Demeter, the site of the Eleusinian mysteries. A number of Roman copies also survive. During the Greco-Persian Wars , the ancient temple of Demeter was burnt down by the Persians in 484 BC; and it was not until the administration of Pericles that an attempt
5229-440: The settlement of Upper Elefsina, doubling its total population and enriching the region culturally and economically. During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–1945), strong resistance developed within the city, the factories and the military airport, which once stationed Squadron 80, the squadron that Roald Dahl was assigned to in the RAF. After World War II , workers from all parts of Greece moved to Elefsina to work in
5312-543: The site was always going to be controversial. Megara and Athens had a history of territorial conflict dating back to the sixth century BC, including armed conflict over the island of Salamis . Prohibitions on the use of sacred land outside the cities, similar to the Orgas , were common in Greek states ( poleis ) throughout the Classical period. A range of laws and customs protected the integrity of many country sites from deliberate or accidental contamination by people and livestock. The Athenians seem to have considered it to be
5395-404: The site. According to the inscription (pictured), which recorded the process, Apollo was given the choice between two inscribed tin sheets concerning the question of the cultivation of the Hiera Orgas . These sheets were rolled and wrapped in wool before being placed into a bronze ballot-urn. The two identical sealed packages were then placed into separate pitchers; one gold, one silver. The Pythia
5478-432: The south by the island of Salamis. The town itself dates from the most ancient times. The caves on the coast of Eleusis are home to a mythological place for the Greek world. There is a cave said to be the very spot where Persephone was abducted by Hades himself and the cave was considered a gateway to Tartarus. At the spot of this abduction was a sanctuary ( Ploutonion ) dedicated to Hades and Persephone. The Rharian plain
5561-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
5644-436: The temple underwent subsequent building phases. Much of that visible today is of the Classical era (5th century BC). Its portico of 12 columns was added in the time of Demetrius Phalereus , about 318 BC, by the architect Philo . When finished, it was considered one of the four finest examples of Grecian architecture in marble. Modifications were also carried out in Roman times (2nd c. AD). The Roman bridge that carried
5727-447: The various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
5810-529: The vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between
5893-454: The world provide food again. The Great Eleusian relief which was famous in antiquity and was copied in the Roman period, is the largest and most important votive relief found and dates to 440-430 BC. It represents the Eleusinian deities in a scene depicting a mysterious ritual. On the left Demeter, clad in a peplos and holding a sceptre in her left hand, offers ears of wheat to Triptolemos, son of Eleusinian king Keleos, to bestow on mankind. On
5976-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
6059-475: Was a war between the two states, in which the Eleusinians were defeated, whereupon they agreed to acknowledge the supremacy of Athens in everything except the celebration of the mysteries, of which they were to continue to have the management. Eleusis afterwards became an Attic deme, but in consequence of its sacred character it was allowed to retain the title of polis (πόλις) and to coin its own money,
6142-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
6225-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
6308-556: Was destroyed by Alaric I in 396 AD, and from that time disappears from history. The Telesterion , or temple of Demeter, was the largest in all Greece, and is described by Strabo as capable of containing as many persons as a theatre. The building was initially designed by Ictinus , the architect of the Parthenon at Athens; but it was many years before it was completed, and the names of several architects are preserved who were employed in building it. During its long history,
6391-455: Was discovered. Pollution thanks to citizens' struggles gradually has fallen. Today, the city has become a suburb of Athens , to which it is linked by the A6 motorway and Greek National Road 8 . Eleusis is nowadays a major industrial area, and the place where the majority of crude oil in Greece is imported and refined. The largest refinery is located on the west side of town, right beside where
6474-475: Was here that Demeter, disguised as an old lady who was abducted by pirates in Crete , came to an old well where the four daughters of the local king Keleos and his queen Metaneira ( Kallidike , Kleisidike , Demo and Kallithoe ) found her and took her to their palace to nurse the son of Keleos and Metaneira, Demophoon . Demeter raised Demophoon, anointing him with nectar and ambrosia and placing him at night in
6557-464: Was made to rebuild it. When the power of the Thirty Tyrants was overthrown after the Peloponnesian War , they retired to Eleusis, which they had secured beforehand, but where they maintained themselves for only a short time. The town of Eleusis and its immediate neighbourhood were exposed to inundations from the river Cephissus , which, though almost dry during the greater part of the year,
6640-524: Was settled by Arvanites . European travelers during the Ottoman domination described Eleusis as having few inhabitants and many ancient ruins. In 1829, after the Greek War of Independence , Elefsina was a small settlement of about 250 inhabitants. By the late 19th century Elefsina changed drastically as new buildings were erected by the new merchant settlers. Also during that period Eleusis became one of
6723-628: Was then asked to choose between them on behalf of the god. Apollo’s decision would then be inscribed on a stele . As it turned out, Delphi decided that no cultivation be permitted. The Megarians seem to have been unimpressed and persisted with their encroachments. The Athenians sent a force under the general, Ephialtes, to delimit the site and its hinterland and to enforce the god’s decision. Eleusis Elefsina ( Greek : Ελευσίνα , romanized : Elefsína ) or Eleusis ( / ɪ ˈ l j uː s ɪ s / ih- LEW -siss ; Ancient Greek : Ἐλευσίς , romanized : Eleusís )
6806-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
6889-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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