The Greek goddess of agriculture, especially corn, so that a basket or an ear of corn is her symbol. She is the mother of Persephone, for whom she searched through the world, and is also connected with the Mysteries at Eleusis.
This article is about the grain goddess Demeter. For other uses, see Demeter (disambiguation).Dêmêtêr (or Demetra) /də'miː.tɚ/ (Greek: Δημήτηρ, "mother-earth" or perhaps "distribution-mother", perhaps from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth *mater) is the Greek goddess of grain and agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter has been dated to sometime around the Seventh Century BC.
Demeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. Demeter and Kore ("the maiden") are usually invoked as to theo ('"The Two Goddesses"), and they appear in that form in Linear B graffiti at Mycenaean Pylos in pre-classical times.
According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, the greatest gifts which Demeter gave were cereal (thus the Latin name for Ceres;
Titles and functions
In various contexts, Demeter is invoked with many epithets:
Potnia ("mistress" in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) Chloe ("the green shoot", Pausanias 1.22.3, for her powers of fertility and eternal youth) Anesidora ("sending up gifts" from the earth Pausanias 1.31.4, as Demeter) Malophoros ("apple-bearer" or "sheep-bearer", Pausanias 1.44.3) Kidaria (Pausanias 8.13.3), Chthonia ("in the ground", Pausanias 3.14.5) Erinys ("implacable", Pausanias 8.25.50) Lusia ("bathing", Pausanias 8.25.8) Thermasia ("warmth", Pausanias 2.34.6) Kabeiraia, a pre-Greek name of uncertain meaning Thesmophoros ("giver of customs" or even "legislator", a role that links her to the even more ancient goddess Themis. This title was connected with the Thesmophoria, a festival of secret women-only rituals in Athens connected with marriage customs.)Theocritus remembered an earlier role of Demeter:
For the Greeks Demeter was still a poppy goddess Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii.157In a clay statuette from Gazi (Heraklion Museum, Kereny 1976 fig 15), the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess, who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis, and it is certain that in the Cretan cult sphere, opium was prepared from poppies" (Kerenyi 1976, p 24).
In honor of Demeter of Mysia a seven-day festival was held at Pellené in Arcadia (Pausan. Pausanias passed the shrine to Demeter at Mysia on the road from Mycenae to Argos but all he could draw out to explain the archaic name was a myth of an eponymous Mysius who venerated Demeter.
Major sites for the cult of Demeter were not confined to any localized part of the Greek world: there were sites at Eleusis, in Sicily, Hermion, in Crete, Megara, Celeae, Lerna, Aegila, Munychia, Corinth, Delos, Priene, Akragas, Iasos, Pergamon, Selinus, Tegea, Thorikos, Dion, Lykosoura, Mesembria, Enna, and Samosthrace. When Demeter was given a genealogy, she was the daughter of Cronos and Rhea, and therefore the elder sister of Zeus.
Demeter taught mankind the arts of agriculture: sowing seeds, ploughing, harvesting, etc. Demeter herself was central to the older religion of Greece.
Demeter and Poseidon
Demeter and Poseidon's names are linked in the earliest scratched notes in Linear B found at Mycenaean Pylos, where they appear as PO-SE-DA-WO-NE and DA-MA-TE in the context of sacralized lot-casting. Poseidon (his name seems to signify "consort of the distributor") once pursued Demeter, in her archaic form as a mare-goddess. Demeter was literally furious ("Demeter Erinys") at the assault, but washed away her anger in the River Ladon ("Demeter Lousia"). In Arcadia, Demeter was worshiped as a horse-headed deity into historical times:
The second mountain, Mt. Elaios, is about 30 stades from Phigaleia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter Melaine ["Black"]... the Phigalians say, they accounted the cave sacred to Demeter, and set up a wooden image in it.
Demeter's (Ceres) Relationship With Persephone (Proserpine)
The central myth of Demeter, which is at the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries is her relationship with Persephone, her daughter and own younger self. She had been playing with some nymphs (or Leucippe) whom Demeter later changed into the Sirens as punishment for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter (goddess of the earth) searched for her lost daughter (resting on the stone, Agelasta). When Demeter and her daughter were together, the earth flourished with vegetation.
Demeter's stay at Eleusis
Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone(also known as Kore).
As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon as a god, by coating and anointing him with Ambrosia, breathing gently upon him while holding him in her arms and bosom, and making him immortal by burning his mortal spirit away in the family hearth every night.
Demeter was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand the concept and ritual.
Instead of making Demophon immortal, Demeter chose to teach Triptolemus the art of agriculture and, from him, the rest of Greece learned to plant and reap crops. He flew across the land on a winged chariot while Demeter and Persephone cared for him, and helped him complete his mission of educating the whole of Greece on the art of agriculture.
Portrayals and Miscellanea
Demeter was usually portrayed on a chariot, and frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain.
Demeter is not generally portrayed with a consort: the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with Demeter in a thrice-ploughed field, and was sacrificed afterwards— by a jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt, Olympian mythography adds, but the Cretan site of the myth is a sign that the Hellenes knew this was an act of the ancient Demeter.
Demeter placed Aethon, the god of famine, in Erysichthon's gut, making him permanently famished.
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