Editing Greco-Roman mysteries (section)

===Initiation===

Unlike at Eleusis, initiation at Samothrace was not restricted to a narrow few days of the year and lasted from April to November (the sailing season) with a large event likely taking place in June but may have taken place over two nights. Like in Samothrace, the future initiates would enter the sanctuary of Samothrace from the east where they would have entered into a 9-meter in diameter circular space with flagstones and a grandstand of five steps now called the Theatral Circle. [[Livy]] records that here, the initiates would listen to a proclamation concerning the absence of crime and bloodshed. Near the beginning of the rituals, like at Eleusis, sacrifices and libations were likely made, where the prospective animal for the sacrifice would have been a ram. The initiates would have moved to a building where the actual initiation took place at night with torches, though archaeologists are unsure of which building it was considering the abundance of possibilities including the Hall of Choral Dancers, the Hieron, the Anaktoron and the Rotunda of Arsinoe II. In the 3rd century, [[Hippolytus of Rome]] in his ''Refutation of All Heresies'' quotes a [[Gnostic]] author who provides a summary of some of the images here;

<blockquote>There stand two statues of naked men in the Anaktoron of the Samothracians, with both hands stretched up toward heaven and their pudenda turned up, just as the statue of Hermes at Kyllene. The aforesaid statues are images of the primal man and of the regenerated, spiritual man who is in every respect consubstantial with that man.</blockquote>

The scarcity of information precludes understanding what went on during the initiation, though there may have been dancing such as at Eleusis associated with the mythology of the search for [[Harmonia]]. At the end of the initiation, the initiates were given a purple [[fillet (clothing)|fillet]]. There was also a second night of initiation, the ''epopteia'' where the "usual preliminary lustration rites and sacrifices" took place though not much else can be known besides that it may have been similar to the ''epopteia'' at Eleusis and would have climaxed with the showing of a great light.{{sfn|Bremmer|2014|pp=1-20}}