This article is about the grain goddess Demeter. For other uses, see Demeter (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology Dêmêtêr /də'miː.tɚ/ (Greek: Δημήτηρ, "mother-earth" or possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth *dheghom *mater, also called simply Δηώ) is the goddess of grain and fertility, the pure nourisher of the youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. She is invoked as the "bringer of seasons" in the Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshipped long before the Olympians arrived. Another story states that she was one of the twelve Olympians. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter has been dated to sometime around the Seventh Century BC.[1] She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the Olympian pantheon.
The Roman equivalent is Ceres, from whom the word "cereal" is derived.
Demeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. The goddess's epithets reveal the span of her functions in Greek life. 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. A connection with the goddess-cults of Minoan Crete is quite possible.
According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, the greatest gifts which Demeter gave were cereal (also known as corn in modern Britain) which made man different from wild animals; and the Mysteries which give man higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.[2]
Titles and functions
)
Colossal Statue of Ceres, Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy. Demeter and Ceres are identified in art as holding a tuft of grain.
- 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
- Achaea, the name by which she was worshipped at Athens by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated from Boeotia.[3][4][5]
- 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.)
- For the Greeks Demeter was still a poppy goddess
- Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii.157
In honor of Demeter of Mysia a seven-day festival was held at Pellené in Arcadia (Pausan. 7. 27, 9). 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. She is the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.
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 Samothrace.
She was associated with the Roman goddess Ceres. When Demeter was given a genealogy, she was the daughter of Cronos and Rhea, and therefore the elder sister of Zeus. Her priestesses were addressed with the title Melissa.
Demeter taught mankind the arts of agriculture: sowing seeds, ploughing, harvesting, etc. She was especially popular with rural folk, partly because they most benefited directly from her assistance, and partly because rural folk are more conservative about keeping to the old ways. Demeter herself was central to the older religion of Greece. Relics unique to her cult, such as votive clay pigs, were being fashioned in the Neolithic. In Roman times, a sow was still sacrificed to Ceres following a death in the family, to purify the household.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. The 'DA' element in each of their names is seemingly connected to an Proto-Indo-European root relating to distribution of land and honors (compare Latin dare "to give"). Poseidon (his name seems to signify "consort of the distributor") once pursued Demeter, in her archaic form as a mare-goddess. She resisted Poseidon, but she could not disguise her divinity among the horses of King Onkios. Poseidon became a stallion and covered her. Demeter was literally furious ("Demeter Erinys") at the assault, but washed away her anger in the River Ladon ("Demeter Lousia"). She bore to Poseidon a Daughter, whose name might not be uttered outside the Eleusinian Mysteries, and a steed named Arion, with a black mane. 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. The image was made in the following fashion: it was seated on a rock, and was like a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and serpents and other beasts grew out of her head. Her chiton reached right to her feet, and she held a dolphin in one hand, a dove in the other. Why they made the xoanon like this should be clear to any intelligent man who is versed in tradition. They say they named her Black because the goddess wore black clothing. However, they cannot remember who made this xoanon or how it caught fire; but when it was destroyed the Phigalians gave no new image to the goddess and largely neglected her festivals and sacrifices, until finally barrenness fell upon the land.
– Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Description of Greece 8.42.1ff.''
Demeter and Persephone
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. In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone became the consort of Hades (Roman Pluto, the underworld god of wealth). Demeter had a large scope of abilities. Besides being the goddess of the harvest, she also controlled the seasons, and because of that she was capable of destroying all life on earth. In fact, her powers were able to influence Zeus into making Hades bring her daughter Persephone up from the underworld. Persephone became the goddess of the underworld when Hades abducted her from the earth and brought her into the underworld. She had been playing with some nymphs, whom Demeter later changed into the Sirens as punishment for having interfered, and the ground split and she was taken in by Hades. Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter searched for her lost daughter..jpg)
The Return of Perspephone by Frederic Leighton, (1891).
Finally, Zeus could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone by sending Hermes to retrieve her. But before she was released, Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return for six months each year. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the earth flourished with vegetation. But for six months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. Summer, autumn, and spring by comparison have heavy rainfall and mild temperatures in which plant life flourishes. It was during her trip to retrieve Persephone from the underworld that she revealed the Eleusinian Mysteries. In an alternate version, Hecate rescued Persephone. In other alternative versions, Persephone was not tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds but chose to eat them herself, or ate them accidentally, that is, not knowing the effect it would have or perhaps even recognize it for what it was. In the latter version it is claimed that Ascalaphus, one of Hades' gardners, claimed to have witnessed her do so, at the moment that she was preparing to return with Hermes. Regardless, the result is the occurrence of the unfruitful seasons of the ancient Greek calendars.
Persephone is not only the younger self of Demeter, she is in turn also one of three guises of Demeter as the Triple Goddess. The other two guises are Kore (the younger one, signifying green young corn, the maiden) and Hekate (the elder of the three, the harvested corn, the crone) with Demeter in between, signifying the ripe ears, the nymph, waiting to be plucked, which to a certain extent reduces the name and role of Demeter to that of groupname. Before Persephone was abducted by Hades, an event witnessed by the shepherd Eumolpus and the swineherd Eubuleus (they saw a girl being carried of into the earth which had violently opened up, in a black chariot, driven by an invisible driver), she was called Kore. It is when she is taken that she becomes Persephone ('she who brings destruction'). Hekate was also reported to have told Demeter that she had heard Kore scream that she was being raped. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, 24. p 94-95, ISBN 0-14-001026-2Demeter's stay at Eleusis
Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone (also known as Kore). Having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica (and also Phytalus). He asked her to nurse Demophon and Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira.
The Eleusinian trinity: Persephone, Triptolemos and Demeter, on a marble bas-relief from Eleusis, 440-30 BCE.
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. She put him in the fire at night like a firebrand or ember without the knowledge of his parents.
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 in the art of agriculture.
Later, Triptolemus taught Lyncus, King of the Scythians the arts of agriculture but he refused to teach it to his people and then tried to murder Triptolemus. Demeter turned him into a lynx.
Some scholars believe the Demophon story is based on an earlier prototypical folk tale.[6]Children
- Persephone (by Zeus)
- Zagreus (by Zeus)
- Despoina (by Poseidon)
- Arion (by Poseidon)
- Plutus (by Iasion)
- Philomelus (by Iasion)
- Eubolus by (Carmanor)
- Amphitheus I(by Triptolemus)
Portrayals
- Demeter was usually portrayed on a chariot, and frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with Persephone.
- The Black Demeter, a sculpture made by Onatas.
- 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. This was a punishment for cutting down trees in a sacred grove.
Demeter in astronomy
Demeter is a main belt asteroid 26km in diameter, which was discovered in 1929 by K. Reinmuth at Heidelberg.Demeter in popular culture
- In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the sailing ship Demeter is taken over and its crew killed by the Count before running aground on the English coast.
- Demeter appeared in the 1997 Disney movie, Hercules and the based on it, as one of the gods upon Mount Olympus.
- Demeter is also one of the poems in Carol Ann Duffy's collection The World's Wife.
- Demeter (together with Dionysius) was used as an archetype for the character Tori by contemporary artist Tori Amos in her 2007 album American Doll Posse. Amos created five personalities for the album, each representing a different Greek god or goddess.
- In the computer game , Demeter is one of the gods to whom the player can build a temple. The completion of the sanctuary to Demeter provides the city with arable farmland suitable for raising crops or livestock; the goddess provides blessings and sanctification of buildings associated with produce, and can be appealed to for a supply of food.
References
1. ^ Nilsson, p.45: "We have a document concerning the Eleusinian cult which is older and more comprehensive than anything concerning any other Greek cult, namely, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter composed in Attica before Eleusis was incorporated into the Athenian state, not later than the end of the seventh century B.C. We know that the basis of the Eleusinian Mysteries was an old agrarian cult celebrated in the middle of the month Boedromion (about October) and closely akin to the Thesmophoria, a festival of the autumn sowing celebrated by the women not quite a month later. I need not dwell upon this connection, which is established by internal evidence as well as by direct information."
2. ^ Isocrates, Panegyricus4.28: "When Demeter came to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and, being moved to kindness towards our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two gifts, the greatest in the world — the fruits of the earth, which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite, which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity".
3. ^ Herodotus, v. 61
4. ^ Plutarch Isis et Osiris p. 378, d
5. ^ id="CITEREFSmith1867">Smith, William (1867), "Achaea (1)", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, pp. 8
6. ^ Nilsson, p.50: "The Demophon story in Eleusis is based on an older folk-tale motif which has nothing to do with the Eleusinian Cult. It is introduced in order to let Demeter reveal herself in her divine shape".
- Walter Burkert (1985) Greek Religion, Harvard University Press, 1985.
- Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, 1962. An illustrated book of Greek myths retold for children.
- Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1903
- Karl Kerenyi, Eleusis: archetypal image of mother and daughter, 1967.
- Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, 1976
- Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, 1940. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/
- Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.
External links
Greek deities series Primordial deities | Titans | Aquatic deities | Chthonic deities Twelve Olympians Zeus | Hera | Poseidon | Hades | Hestia | Demeter | Aphrodite
Athena | Apollo | Artemis | Ares | Hephaestus | Hermes | DionysusChthonic deities Hades | Persephone | Gaia | Demeter | Hecate | Iacchus | Trophonius | Triptolemus | Erinyes Demeter is usually the Greek grain goddess Demeter. It may also refer to:- Demeter (moon), name formerly used for Lysithea, moon of Jupiter, from 1955 to 1975
- 1108 Demeter, asteroid
- Demeter Fragrance Library, a fragrance company
..... Click the link for more information.Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
..... Click the link for more information.Greek}}}
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
..... Click the link for more information.goddess is a female deity. Many cultures have goddesses. Most often these goddesses are part of a polytheistic system that includes multiple deities. Pantheons in various cultures can include both goddesses and gods, and in some cases also intersex deities.
..... Click the link for more information.Cereal crops or grains are mostly grasses cultivated for their edible grains or seeds (i.e., botanically a type of fruit called a caryopsis). Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore
..... Click the link for more information.This article needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general .
This article has been tagged since April 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.Seasons
Temperate
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
Tropical
Dry
season Cool
Hot
Wet season
A season is one of the major divisions of the year, generally based on yearly periodic changes in weather.
..... Click the link for more information.The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same dactylic hexameter as the Iliad and Odyssey and are couched in the same dialect.
..... Click the link for more information.Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον
..... Click the link for more information.The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same dactylic hexameter as the Iliad and Odyssey and are couched in the same dialect.
..... Click the link for more information.Persephone was the Queen of the Underworld, consort of Hades, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter— and Zeus, in the Olympian version.
Persephone (Greek: Περσεφόνη,
..... Click the link for more information.The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια) were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece.
..... Click the link for more information.Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
..... Click the link for more information.Ceres was the goddess of growing plants (particularly cereals) and of motherly love. Her name derives from the Proto-Indo-European root "ker", meaning "to grow", which is also the root for the words "create" and "increase".
..... Click the link for more information.For other uses, see Gaia.
Gaia (pronounced /'geɪ.ə/ or /'gaɪ.
..... Click the link for more information.Rhea (ancient Greek Ῥέα) was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in classical Greek mythology.
..... Click the link for more information.Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη) was a deification of the Earth Mother who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia (the "Earth") or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and
..... Click the link for more information.An epithet (Greek — επιθετον and Latin — epitheton; literally meaning 'imposed') is a descriptive word or phrase that has become a fixed formula.
..... Click the link for more information.Linear B
Unicode range U+10000–U+1007F syllabic signs
U+10080–U+100FF logograms
ISO 15924 Linb
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.This article is about the ancient syllabary.
..... Click the link for more information.Mycenaean Greece, the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and much other Ancient Greek literature and myth.
..... Click the link for more information.Location
Coordinates Coordinates:
Time zone: EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (center): 3 m (0 ft)
Government
Country: Greece
..... Click the link for more information.Classical Greece, the classical period of Ancient Greece, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. (i.e. from the fall of the Athenian tyranny in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC).
..... Click the link for more information.The Minoan civilization was a bronze age civilization which arose on Crete, an island in the Aegean Sea. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant on Crete.
..... Click the link for more information.Crete (Greek Κρήτη—classical transliteration Krētē, modern Greek transliteration Kríti; Ottoman Turkish گريد (Girit); Classical Latin Crēta, Vulgar Latin Candia
..... Click the link for more information.
..... Click the link for more information.Isocrates (436–338 BC), Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. In his time, he was probably the most influential rhetorician in Greece and made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works.
..... Click the link for more information.Cereal crops or grains are mostly grasses cultivated for their edible grains or seeds (i.e., botanically a type of fruit called a caryopsis). Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore
..... Click the link for more information.The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same dactylic hexameter as the Iliad and Odyssey and are couched in the same dialect.
..... Click the link for more information.In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri, (Cabiri, Kabeiroi, Greek: Κάβειροι) were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshiped in a mystery cult closely associated with that of Hephaestus, centered in the north Aegean
..... Click the link for more information.Location
Coordinates Coordinates:
Time zone: EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (min-max): 70 - 338 m (0 - 0 ft)
Government
Country:
..... Click the link for more information.
.jpg'))
)