Hecate and Helius tell her that Hades kidnapped Persephone with Zeus’s permission. Demeter hears Persephone cry out and looks for her in vain. Sources: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (a closer look) Persephone is picking flowers with her friends (a traditional image of a marriageable young girl) Hades bursts out of the earth in a four-horse chariot and kidnaps her: As long as the goddess could behold the earth, starry heaven, the deep flowing sea full of fish, the rays of the sun, and still hoped to see her dear mother and the race of everlasting gods, hope soothed her great heart. Persephone spends part of the year with her, part with her husband Hades Demeter insists that Persephone be restored to her. She tries to make him immortal, but is stopped by his mother, who doesn’t understand Demeter orders the people of Eleusis to establish a cult in her honor. When she finds out what happened, she wanders through the cities of humans, in disguise At Eleusis, she becomes the nurse of Demophon. Sources: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter Persephone is abducted by Hades, god of the dead, to be his wife – with Zeus’s permission Demeter searches for her in vain, bereft and enraged.

Etiological: explains the yearly cycle and the cult at Eleusis 4th century BCE marble of mourning Demeter.is allied with the cult at Eleusis (and elsewhere in Greece).reflects strong beliefs and commonly accepted mythology.

This Boiotian plate shows an early Classical representation of Demeter Roman name – Ceres.Īncient Fertility Goddesses Demeter’s name means “earth mother” (da/ga = earth, meter = mother) Abundant female figurines give evidence for widespread worship of female deities in the prehistoric Mediterranean Demeter, whose worship and mythology are concerned with both crop fertility and the afterlife, may have evolved from such deities Her worship was extremely popular all over the Greek and Roman world. She was unmarried but sexual – if only in that she had a daughter, Persephone, whose father was either Poseidon or Zeus. She was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, sister of Zeus. Demeter and Persephone The Earth Mother, The Bride of Death, and The Eleusinian Mysteriesĭemeter of Cnidus Demeter was the goddess of agricultural fertility, especially grains.

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