So great, then, are the gifts which were ours from the beginning and which fortune has
 bestowed upon us. But how many good things we have contributed to the rest of the world we
 could estimate to best advantage if we should recount the history of our city from the
 beginning and go through all her achievements in detail; for we should find that not only
 was she the leader in the hazards of war, but that the social order in general in which we
 dwell, with which we share the rights of citizenship and through which we are able to live, is
 almost wholly due to her. It is, however, necessary to single out from the number of her
 benefactions, not those which because of their slight importance have escaped attention
 and been pased over in silence, but those which because of their great importance have
 been and still are on the lips and in the memory of all men everywhere. Now, first of all, that which was the first necessity of man’s nature was provided by
 our city; for even though the story For the story of
 Demeter and Persephone (here called Kore, “the maiden”) see HH
 Dem. ; Ovid, Fasti iv. 393-620, and Metamorphoses 
 v. 385 ff.; Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae, and Walter Pater, “Demeter
 and Persephone” in his Greek Studies. 
 has taken the form of a myth, yet it deserves to be told again. When Demeter came
 to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and, being moved to kindness towards
 our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two
 gifts, the greatest in the world—the fruits of the earth, Cf. Plat. Menex. 237e ; Lucret. vi. 1 ff. 
 which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite For the Eleusinian Mysteries see Lobeck,
 Aglaophamus, vol. i; Gardner 
 and Jevons, Manual of Greek Antiquities, pp. 274 ff.; Gardner ’s New Chapters in Greek History, 
 xiii; Diehl, Excursions in Greece viii. which inspires in those who partake of it
 sweeter hopes Quoted in Isoc.
 8.34 . For the blessedness of the Mystics see HH Dem. 480
 ff. ; Pindar, Fr. 102; Sophocles, Fr. 753 Nauck. regarding both the end
 of life and all eternity, —our city was not only so beloved of the gods but also so devoted to mankind that, having
 been endowed with these great blessings, she did not begrudge them to the rest of the
 world, but shared with all men what she had received. So
 Plat. Menex. 238a . Cf. Cicero,
 Flaccus 62, “adsunt Athenienses unde humanitas, doctrina, religio,
 frugeres, iura, leges ortae atque in omnes terras distributae putantur.” The
 mystic rite we continue even now, each year, In the month
 Boëdromion (August). to reveal to the initiates; and as for the fruits of the
 earth, our city has, in a word, instructed the world in their uses, their cultivation, and
 the benefits derived from them. This statement, when I have added a few further proofs, no one could venture to
 discredit. In the first place, the very ground on which we might disparage the story,
 namely that it is ancient, would naturally lead us to believe that the events actually
 came to pass; for because many have told and all have heard the story which describes
 them, it is reasonable to regard this not, to be sure, as recent, yet withal as worthy of
 our faith. In the next place, we are not obliged to take refuge in the mere fact that we
 have received the account and the report from remote times; on the contrary, we are able
 to adduce even greater proofs than this regarding what took place.