Encyclopedia
Dêmêtêr is the
Greek goddess of
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. She is invoked as the "bringer of
seasons" in the Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshiped long before the Olympians arrived. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter has been dated to sometime around the Seventh Century BC. She and her daughter
Persephone were the central figures of the
Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the Olympian pantheon.
The
Roman equivalent is Ceres.
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 are usually invoked as
to theo , 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 which made man different from wild animals, and the Mysteries which give man higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.
Titles and functions
In various contexts, Demeter is invoked with many epithets:
- Potnia
- Chloe
- Anesidora
- Malophoros
- Kidaria ,
- Chthonia
- Erinys
- Lusia
- Thermasia
- Kabeiraia, a pre-Greek name of uncertain meaning
- Thesmophoros
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.157
In a clay statuette from Gazi , 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" .
In honor of Demeter of Mysia a seven-day festival was held at Pellené in
Arcadia . 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.
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.
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Demeter's Relationship With 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 . 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 changed into the
Sirens as punishment for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter searched for her lost daughter . 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. The six months when the earth is barren are the summer months, since in Greece this is when all vegetation dies from heat and lack of rainfall. The winter by comparison has 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. Some versions say that she ate four seeds rather than six. Regardless, the end result is the occurrence of summer, spring, winter, and autumn.
Demeter's stay at Eleusis
Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone. Having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica . He asked her to nurse Demophon and
Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira.
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 on 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 kill Triptolemus. Demeter turned him into a
lynx.
Some scholars believe the Demophon story is based on an earlier prototypical folk tale.
Portrayals and Miscellanea
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.
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.
Notes
