§ i  This speech is a reponse to the sacking of the telesterion at Eleusis by a band of Costoboci in 170/1 CE. (Jebb page numbers)

§ 256  THE ELEUSINIAN ORATION "O Eleusis, of old it was more pleasant for me to sing of you! Is there an Orpheus or Thamyris or Musaeus, he who dwelled in Eleusis, who will be adequate for so great a calamity? With what harp or lyre will he bewail the common ruin, the common assembly of the earth? What is this subject you have proposed, o Zeus? As I come to speak, I grow numb, and turn back, and I am compelled to speak for this one reason, because I cannot keep silent. Is there any Greek or barbarian who was so stupid or ignorant, or is there anyone who dwelled so far apart from the earth or the Gods, or in sum, who was so insensitive to beauty — except those who will perish most horribly, the perpetrators of these acts — who did not regard Eleusis as a shrine common to the whole Earth, and of all the divine things that exist among men, both the most awesome and the most luminous? Of what other place or myth were more wonderful tales told, or where did the sacred ritual cause greater awe, or the sights more compete with what one had heard?

§ 257  As for the spectacles, they have been seen in the secret apparitions by numerous generations of blessed men and women.As for what is public knowledge, this is celebrated by all the poets, writers of myths and historians: that for a time the daughter of Demeter vanished, and Demeter wandered over all the earth and sea in search of Her daughter. Meanwhile, She was unable to find Her, but, having come to Eleusis, She created a name for the place, and when She had found Her daughter, She created the Mysteries. And the Two Goddesses gave wheat to the city of Athens and the City in turn gave it to all the Hellenes and barbarians. And Celeus, Metaneira and Triptolemus are referred to in connection with these acts, and winged chariots of dragons borne over every land and sea.
And the first foreigners to be initiated were Heracles and the Dioscuri, and the first gymnastic contest took place at Eleusis in Attica, and the prize consisted of the grain which had just now appeared, while men made trial of how strong they had grown from cultivated nourishment. The Hellenes brought the first fruits of their crops each year to the city of Athens as it was their mother city and the mother of the crops. The Eumolpidai and the Kerykes, who trace themselves back to Poseidon and Hermes, have provided, the one Hierophants and the other Dadouchoi (Torch-Bearers).
And such are the things which go back to the myth. Later, some time after the Heraclidae had returned to the Peloponnesus, the Dorians campaigned against Athens. But when they had reached Eleusis, whether we should say out of shame or fear, they departed by the same road. The unrest caused by the Dorians then colonized our part of Ionia. When the Persian expedition took place and not only Hellas

§ 258  but also everything outside of the Persian Empire was faced by the greatest peril and danger, many of the shrines in Hellas were burned and in addition, the summit of Hellas, the city of Athens; but Eleusis was so favored that not only survived, one might say, unsacked, but also at the naval battle Iacchus came forth to fight as an ally, and a cloud arose from Eleusis, crested, and fell upon the ships to the accompaniment of the initiate's song. Xerxes fled in terror, and the empire of the Medes perished. When the Hellenes engaged in a great war against one another and everything was topsy-turvy, Eleusis alone in a way remained untouched. And neither the cavalry of the Boeotians nor the invasions of the Lacedaemonians and the Peloponnesians violated its precinct; they did not behold the temple with other than proper eyes. When Sphodrias later attacked from Thebes, the appearance of the torches was sufficient to extinguish his daring. All the other truces were transgressed. In the course of the Pythian festival, the Cadmea was seized, and the Argives and the Corinthians conducted the same sacred procession to the Isthmian Games, when the one conquered the other by force of arms. I omit mention of the battle at the Alpheus, except that even here the daring and victory of those deprived of their rights was no bad sign on the part of Zeus.
The truce of the Mysteries alone has preserved its name, and during the Eleusinian celebrations alone was Hellas' behaviour sound, and this festival was most clearly a purge for madness and every unnatural misfortune. And why must I recount each single event? The Philips, Alexanders, Antipaters, and the whole catalogue of later dynasts, although they caused much unrest in Hellas, regarded Eleusis alone as something truly inviolate and above them. And I omit the Gauls who finally burst riotously into Hellas, and all such things that one might add. Always the sanctuary escaped unscathed.

§ 259  To the city and to Hellas alone was left this monument of ancient felicity and dignity. The naval battles, land battles, laws, constitutions, pride, dialects, everything, one might say, are gone. But the Mysteries have endured. The other festivals are celebrated either every fourth or every other year, but only the festival of the Mysteries has prevailed to be annual. Yet what is greatest and most divine is that only this festival was contained and held in a single building, and the full complement of citizens and of the Eleusinion was the same. Who would not have rejoiced to see the statues, paintings, the general adornment, even that at the crossways, not to mention the appendages of the more solemn rites? But the gain from the festival lay not only in present joy and the release and liberation from the troubles of the past, but also in men having fairer hopes about death, that they will have a better existence and will not be in the darkness and mud which await the uninitiated. At least up to that terrible day.
But that which the God of Fortune has now given us to witness and to tell of, is there an Argive dirge, is there a singer of the Egyptians or Phrygians who will fill its measure? Is there an Eleusinian Aeschylus who will sing it to his chorus? Are there any "fiery snares of Nauplius", as Sophocles expressed it, to be compared with this conflagration? O torches! By what sort of men have you been extinguished? O dread and lightless day, which took away the torch-bearing nights! O fire, what was your appearance at Eleusis, what in place of what! O mist and gloom, which now hold Hellas! O Demeter, who of old found your daughter here, now it is left for You to seek your Temple. And the Mysteries are approaching, o Earth and Gods! This month of Boedromion now requires a different kind of cry, not such as when Ion ran with a battle cry to Athens. O the proclamation! O the catalogue of the sacred days and nights!

§ 260  In what sort of day have you ended? Who should grieve more, the uninitiated or the initiated? The one group has been deprived of the fairest sights which they have seen, the other of what they could have seen. O you who have evilly betrayed the Mysteries, who have revealed what was hidden, common enemies of the Gods beneath and above the earth! O you Hellenes, who were children of old, and now are truly children, who stood idly by at the approach of so great an evil! Will you not now, dear sirs, at all events get control of yourselves? Will you not even save Athens?"