Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SAMOTHBACIAN WINGS; TEON BINGS, ETC. 33 It has already been observed, that the old natural historians, who appear to have been initiated into the temple mysteries, carefully passed over the philosophical secrets; yes, were compelled to be silent on what, for instance, was unanimously testified by the Samothracian mysteries. In the temple of Demeter and Persephone at Athens, in the front of which was the statue of the sower of seed, Trip- tolemus, the mysteries were celebrated, which, in later times, Pausanias did not dare to unveil, and who was warned by a dream not to do it (Attic. i. 14). People would, therefore, have pressed too close upon the sanctuary of the priests had they allowed the real nature of the magnet and the wonderful action of the iron to become known. At the same time it was not forbidden to make known everything; some things were explained to the uninitiated; but it came to pass that in the course of time many facts made their way to the public. For instance, the uninitiated were made acquainted with amber, and with its property when rubbed; and those iron wings were not withdrawn from the eyes of all. If some things thus lay open, and if the public arrived at the knowledge of the aims and effects of the mysterious mythic circles in another manner; if similar physical science was gained by their own experience, in such a combination things before unknown assumed a high importance, and the mysteries thus more and more were made clear to the general eye. Now this was the fact with the Samothracian wings, which already in the time of Pliny were worn by the Lacedemonians, who adhered fast and perseveringly to the Samothracian traditions, and were in a high degree worshippers of the Dioscuri; so that Callimachus even called the Dioscuri, Lacedemonian stones. I...