[5] According to the mythographer Apollodorus,[6][7] Chione, daughter of Boreas and the heroine Oreithyia, pregnant in secret with Eumolpus by Poseidon, was frightened of her father's reaction so she threw the baby into the ocean after giving birth to him.
Later on, Eumolpus was discovered in a plot to overthrow King Tegyrios and was obliged to take flight and fled to Eleusis where he formed a friendship with the Eleusinians.
Eleusis lost the battle with Athens but the Eumolpides and Kerykes, two families of priests to Demeter, continued the Eleusinian mysteries.
Mythology regards Eumolpus as the founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, and as the first priest of Demeter and Dionysus; the goddess herself taught him, Triptolemus, Diocles, and Celeus, the sacred rites, and he is therefore sometimes described as having himself invented the cultivation of the vine and of fruit-trees in general.
Eumolpus was regarded as an ancient priestly bard, poems and writings on the mysteries were fabricated and circulated at a later time under his name.
[24][25][26] Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann have identified a 5th-century bronze statue called Riace B as being a representation of Eumolpus.
[27] The fingers of the well-preserved statue indicate that the figure was originally carrying a bow and arrow, typical of Thracian warriors.