Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. When there's snow in
Speaker 2: the forecast, many kids hope that school will be canceled.
Speaker 2: Some kids do anything they can to increase the chance
Speaker 2: of snow. They may bang pots and pans, or wear
Speaker 2: their pajamas inside out. Of course, it's unlikely that these
Speaker 2: small rituals will have any effect, but they are a
Speaker 2: fun way to make a wish about the weather. And
Speaker 2: while today it's common for people to wish for enough
Speaker 2: snow to cancel school, these of customs go all the
Speaker 2: way back to ancient times, but back then such customs
Speaker 2: were a bit more trying. Every fall in ancient Greece,
Speaker 2: a strange event took place in the city of Eleusis,
Speaker 2: just outside Athens. The event lasted nine days and consisted
Speaker 2: of a series of rituals to honor Demeter, the goddess
Speaker 2: of harvest, and Earth's fertility Now. According to the myth,
Speaker 2: Demeter's daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and brought to
Speaker 2: the underworld. Demeter embarked on a harrowin search for her daughter,
Speaker 2: and after nine days they were reunited in Eleusis. Thousands
Speaker 2: of people participated in the rituals despite this, though little
Speaker 2: is known about what actually took place there, but here's
Speaker 2: what we do know. On the first day, people gathered
Speaker 2: at the Agora, the marketplace located within the Acropolis and Athens,
Speaker 2: and once there, a magistrate made a welcome speech. In
Speaker 2: this speech, the magistrate explained that only certain people could participate.
Speaker 2: After the Greco Persian Wars, no one who had ever
Speaker 2: committed murder was allowed to join. This was the first
Speaker 2: sign that moral purity was of utmost importance during this event,
Speaker 2: and the theme continued from there, and those who were
Speaker 2: allowed to participate made their way down to the el Eusinian.
Speaker 2: This was a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter and Persephony. The
Speaker 2: el Usinian was comprised of three terraces. It was built
Speaker 2: mainly from limestone, and grand columns stood at the front
Speaker 2: and the back of the building. It was a grand
Speaker 2: site before the participants could enter the sanctuary, though they
Speaker 2: were required to wash their hands. On the second day,
Speaker 2: the participants walked together to the nearby gulf. They brought
Speaker 2: a small pig with them and bathed it in the
Speaker 2: water there. Then they bathed themselves, and afterward they returned
Speaker 2: to the city and sacrificed the pig. They likely sacrificed
Speaker 2: other animals as well. The third and fourth days involved
Speaker 2: more bathing or purification rituals and more sacrifices, and the
Speaker 2: fifth day is when the participants departed Athens and headed
Speaker 2: for Eleusis. This was a fourteen mile trek known as
Speaker 2: the Grand Procession. The route they took was called the
Speaker 2: Sacred Way. Priestesses of Demeter and Persephone led the group
Speaker 2: while carrying sacred baskets. Most people journeyed on foot, but
Speaker 2: the wealthy got to ride in carriages.
Speaker 1: How nice for them, right. One interesting thing is that
Speaker 1: women and enslaved people were allowed to participate in this
Speaker 1: event as long as they adhere to the other rules
Speaker 1: set out. After the participants crossed a particular bridge, they
Speaker 1: paused their travels to adorn themselves with ribbons. At sunset,
Speaker 1: they continued until they reached the river, and there they
Speaker 1: were met by a group of men whose faces were covered.
Speaker 1: The men yelled insults at the people, and they mocked them,
Speaker 1: and the people were expected to humbly endure this. Now
Speaker 1: the sixth, seventh, and eight days mainly involved fasting. Occasionally
Speaker 1: the participants drank certain wines or other libations that were
Speaker 1: significant to Demeter's story, but at some point they were
Speaker 1: ushered into a pitch black temple. This was the temple
Speaker 1: of Demeter, known as the Telestian. The Telesphere was the
Speaker 1: largest inclosed building in all of ancient Greece. It could
Speaker 1: fit thousands of people, and without any fires inside, it
Speaker 1: was pitch black. The participants had to find their way
Speaker 1: to the front of the temple by simply feeling around
Speaker 1: in the dark, and this was no easy task either,
Speaker 1: considering that there was no light and thousands of other
Speaker 1: bodies bumping into each other. And the goal was simple
Speaker 1: to recreate the feelings of disorientation and fear that Demeter
Speaker 1: experienced while searching for her daughter. And when all the
Speaker 1: participants finally found their way, they were given light. To
Speaker 1: their surprise, they stood before a small stage and there
Speaker 1: priests and priestesses performed a pageant about the myth of
Speaker 1: demeonter and persephony. It's possible that maybe the viewers also
Speaker 1: sipped on hallucinogenic cocktails during the performance. On the ninth day,
Speaker 1: the people returned to Athens. By now they were fully
Speaker 1: initiated into a cult of people who had gone through
Speaker 1: the same rituals they had. Only these people knew the
Speaker 1: full truth of what took place during those nine days.
Speaker 1: The event was perhaps the most secret ritual of its time.
Speaker 1: Of course, some people did speak about their experience, though
Speaker 1: just not in great detail. Many claim that the rituals
Speaker 1: completely changed them and even removed any fear of death
Speaker 1: they once had. This is ironic because speaking about what
Speaker 1: happened during the event was punishable by death. Scotlars today
Speaker 1: referred to this mystifying event as the Illusinian mysteries, And
Speaker 1: although it carried on for at least a thousand years,
Speaker 1: we still don't know exactly what drove people's devotion to
Speaker 1: the ritual, other than their need for a good harvest.
Speaker 1: So the next time you harbor a secret desire for
Speaker 1: the weather to cooperate with your hopes and dreams, be
Speaker 1: thankful that our culture leans on a groundhog's shadow and
Speaker 1: not a pitch black temple to deliver a bit of hope.
Speaker 1: History is full of memorable pranks, but one practical joke
Speaker 1: in particular stands out for bringing about the collapse of
Speaker 1: the world's oldest democracy. You see, on the morning of
Speaker 1: June seventh of four point fifteen BCE, Athenian citizens woke
Speaker 1: up to a startling discovery. During the night, someone had
Speaker 1: gone throughout the city defacing statues of the god Hermes.
Speaker 1: The vandal had smashed their stone faces in and hacked
Speaker 1: off their formerly prominent Genitalia panic, of course spread. The
Speaker 1: mass castration was a terribly unlucky omen, partly because the
Speaker 1: statues were supposed to ward off evil, then partly because
Speaker 1: Hermes was celebrated as the patron of travelers. The Athenian
Speaker 1: fleet was getting ready to set sail for Sicily, where
Speaker 1: they planned to attack the city of Syracuse. By mutilating
Speaker 1: the statues, the perpetrators spooked the superstitious Athenian soldiers, undermining
Speaker 1: their resolve at a critical moment. But who was behind
Speaker 1: the attack, Well, Victually, everyone thought the work was done
Speaker 1: by spies trying to sabotage Athens. On the eve of
Speaker 1: its military campaign. But soon enough, suspicion fell on a
Speaker 1: figure much closer to home. His name was Alcibiades, a
Speaker 1: young politician and general who was supposed to lead the
Speaker 1: expedition to Sicily. He was handsome, charming, brilliant, and obscenely wealthy,
Speaker 1: not to mention a notorious philanderer and a party animal.
Speaker 1: As a young man, he'd been a favorite student of Socrates,
Speaker 1: and people still told stories about the philosopher dragging this
Speaker 1: pupil away from brothels. More recently, though, Alcibiades had developed
Speaker 1: a reputation for drunkenly interrupting sacred religious rights. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the big question is was
Speaker 1: he actually guilty of vandalizing those statues, and centuries later,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to say for sure. Maybe he did it
Speaker 1: out of a misguided hope that the expedition would be postponed,
Speaker 1: or maybe his political rivals did it just trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of him. Whatever the case, he never got
Speaker 1: the chance to defend himself. His enemies just waited until
Speaker 1: his fleet departed, and then they tried him without himself
Speaker 1: being present. They quickly found him guilty and sentenced him
Speaker 1: to be executed upon his return. Unsurprisingly, the news made
Speaker 1: Alcibides a lot less excited about carrying through with his mission.
Speaker 1: He deserted his post and fled to the enemy city
Speaker 1: of Sparta, trading military secrets in exchange for sanctuary. He
Speaker 1: even advised the Spartans to intervene in the attack on Syracuse,
Speaker 1: thwarting the expedition that he had once been in charge of.
Speaker 1: It seemed like Alcibides had come out on top, but
Speaker 1: his mischievous nature soon got him in a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble again. He was exposed for having an affair with
Speaker 1: the Spartan queen and promptly ran out of the city.
Speaker 1: By this point, though, he had made enemies with two
Speaker 1: of the greatest powers in Greece, so he fled to
Speaker 1: Asia Minor, taking refuge in a Persian outpost. The Persian
Speaker 1: governor there hated virtually all Greeks, but Alcibides somehow managed
Speaker 1: to charm him and even helped broker a tenuous peace
Speaker 1: deal between Persia and Athens. He probably could have lived
Speaker 1: there comfortably forever, but the trickster was homesick. He longed
Speaker 1: to return to Athens and decided that the swiftest way
Speaker 1: to do so would be to get rid of the
Speaker 1: government that had once condemned him to death, and so,
Speaker 1: through some savvy political maneuvering, al Sabides masterminded a coup
Speaker 1: against the Athenian government, replacing its democratic assembly with a
Speaker 1: council of four hundred oligarchs. All charges against him were dropped.
Speaker 1: He returned to Athens, where he was lauded as a
Speaker 1: hero and given absolute control over the army. His revenge
Speaker 1: could only have been more complete if he had ruled
Speaker 1: the city himself, and he almost did. You see, Alcabides
Speaker 1: became so popular that the Athenian citizens wanted to see
Speaker 1: him installed as a dictator. His rivals managed to avoid
Speaker 1: this by sending him off to battle once again, but
Speaker 1: he shirked off his duties, leaving the army in the
Speaker 1: hands of yet another general while he was visiting some brothels.
Speaker 1: This got him kicked out of Athens for a second time, and,
Speaker 1: just like before, he fled to Persia, where he was
Speaker 1: finally tracked down and killed by Spartan assassins. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: anti democratic government that he helped put in place was
Speaker 1: soon overthrown allowing democracy to return to the city once again.
Speaker 1: The trickster Sins had finally caught up with him, and
Speaker 1: ultimately little had changed. But for this brief moment, Alcibides
Speaker 1: interrupted a system of popular government that had lasted for
Speaker 1: almost two centuries. Most scholars today think that he was
Speaker 1: the very first man in history to bring down a democracy,
Speaker 1: and that makes him a worthy study for anyone interested
Speaker 1: in preserving our own At the very least, he's a
Speaker 1: great reminder that sometimes liberty dies in the sound of
Speaker 1: thunderous laughter. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manke
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.