Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Eumolpus.
The gallery
Poseidon and a Young Warrior (Eumolpus) — Lucanian Red-Figure Pelike
Attributed to the Karneia Painter, c. 420–400 BC
On this Lucanian red-figure pelike, found at Heraclea in Lucania and now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Siritide in Policoro (inv. 35304), the sea-god Poseidon rides forward accompanied by a young, beardless warrior who is generally identified as his son Eumolpus; the reverse shows Athena in a chariot, casting the pair as the opposed champions of Poseidon's Eleusis and Athena's Athens. Eumolpus, the Thracian leader and reputed founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries, fell in that war when Erechtheus killed him in battle, whereupon Poseidon avenged his son by striking the Athenian king down with his trident. Standing at his divine father's side, the youthful figure on this vase is the principal ancient image cited for Eumolpus himself, and it heads his own entry in the visual record. The pelike, about 45 cm tall, was excavated at Policoro in 1963.