Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

On this lake they enact by night the story of the god's sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries. I could say more about this, for I know the truth, but let me preserve a discreet silence.

Let me preserve a discreet silence, too, concerning that rite of Demeter which the Greeks call Thesmophoria [*](A festival celebrated by Athenian women in autumn.) , except as much of it as I am not forbidden to mention.

The daughters of Danaus were those who brought this rite out of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; afterwards, when the people of the +Peloponnese [22,37.5] (region), Greece, Europe Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, it was lost, except in so far as it was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in its home.