Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Celeus.
The gallery
Demeter and Metanira (Eleusinian hydria)
Unknown (Apulian red-figure), c. 340 BC
Berlin hydria of the Eleusinian mysteries: Demeter with Metanira — queen of the household Homeric Hymn names as Celeus' wife. The vase stages the palace where the disguised goddess nursed Demophon and taught the rites.
Demeter, Persephone, and Triptolemus (Eleusis relief)
Unknown (Classical Greek), c. 440–430 BC
The great Eleusis votive (NAMA 126): Triptolemus receives Demeter's wheat — the son traditions give to Celeus, king of Eleusis, as the envoy who carries agriculture from his father's city to the world.
In play
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
The hymn makes Celeus the Eleusinian king who hosts Demeter — husband of Metanira, father of Demophon and the daughters who bring the goddess indoors.
Celeus
Mythical king of Eleusis — host of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn; father of Triptolemus and Demophon in the lineages that fix the Mysteries' founding household.
Eleusinian Mysteries
The rites Demeter taught in Celeus' Eleusis — the king's hospitality rewritten as the origin of Greece's most secret agrarian cult.