Iakkhos SongIacchos Song

A song, cry or chant that was associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The worshipers of the Mother and Daughter goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, would sing as part of the secret rites performed in the goddesses’ honor; the Mysteries were sponsored by the city of Athens but all Greeks were eligible for initiation into the cult.

When the Persian army of king Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 BCE, he conquered Attika (Attica) and was laying siege to the retreating Greek army and navy; two exiled Greeks, Dikaeus (Dicaeus) and Theokydes (Theocydes), an Athenian and Spartan respectively, saw a great dust cloud coming from the city of Eleusis and presumed that it was made by thousands of marching men; they then heard a loud cry that sounded to Dikaeus like the Iakkhos Cry; he informed his Spartan friend that, since Attika was deserted, the cry was of divine origin and signaled the defeat of the Persians; the two men did not tell Xerxes of this incident and left the matter in the hands of the Immortals; Dikaeus was correct in his prediction and the Persians suffered defeat on land and sea.

• Histories, book 8, chapter 65)