s--born, probably,
in the five-eighties--had found it necessary, to obtain that with
which spirituality might be reawakened, to travel and learn what
he could in India, Egypt, Chaldaea, and, according to Porphyry
and tradition, among the Druids in Gaul--and very likely Britain,
their acredited headquarters. From these countries he brought
home Theosophy to Greek Italy; and all this suggests that he--and
the race--needed something that Eleusis could no longer give.
About the same time Buddha and the founder of Jainism in India,
Laotse and Confucius in China, and as we have seen, probably also
Zoroaster in Persia, all broke away from the Official Mysteries,
more or less, to found Theosophical Movements of their own;
--which would indicate that, at least from the Tyrrhenian to the
Yellow Sea, the Mysteries had, in that sixth century, ceased to
be the efficient instrument of the White Lodge. The substance of
the Ancient Wisdom might remain in them; the energy was largely
gone.

Pisistratus did marvels for Athens; lifting her out of obscurity
to a position which should invite great souls to seek birth in
her. He died in 527; two years later a son was born to the
Eupatrid Euphorion at Eleusis; and I have no doubt there was some
such stir over the event, on Olympus or on Parnassus, as happened
over a birth at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, and one in Florence
in the May of 1265. In 510, Hippias, grown cruel since the
assassination of his brother, was driven out from an Athens
already fomenting with the yeast of new things. About that time
this young Eleusinian Eupatrid was set to watch grapes ripening
for the vintage, and fell asleep. In his dream Dionysos, God of
the Mysteries, appeared to him and bade him write tragedies for
the Dionysian Festival. On waking, he found himself endowed with
genius: beset inwardly with tremendous thoughts, and words to
clothe them in; so that the work became as easy to him as if he
had been trained to it for years.

He competed first in 499--against Choerilos and Pratinas, older
poets--and was defeated; and soon afterwards sailed for Sicily,
where he remained for seven years. The dates of Pythagoras are
surmised, not known; Plumptre, with a query, gives 497 for his
death. I wonder whether, in the last years of his life, that
great Teacher met this young Aeschylus from Athens; whether the
years the latter spent in Sicily on this his first visit there,
were the due seven years of his Pythagorea