Demeter

Statue of goddess Demeter. Handmade of alabaster,and painted in museum patina.

Demeter was one of the oldest gods in the ancient Greek pantheon, and she guaranteed the fertility of the earth and protected both farming and vegetation. This close connection with the earth was inherited from her mother Rhea.  She was a reincarnation of local mother Earth goddesses, commonly worshipped in rural communities in the Bronze Age. The sanctuary at Eleusis dedicated to the goddess and her daughter Persephone and the Eleusinian Mysteries practised there spread the idea across the Archaic and Classical Greek worlds that Demeter would protect her worshippers in the afterlife. To the Romans, the goddess remained popular and was known as Ceres.

Demeter’s Family

Daughter of Kronos and Rhea, sister of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, and Hestia.  Demeter was the mother of Persephone and Iacchus (both with Zeus) and Pluto, the god of wealth . She also adopted Demophon, the Eleusinian prince, who gave the human race the gifts of the plough and knowledge of agriculture. Demeter was also pursued by Poseidon, and to escape his attentions, she changed into a mare.  However, Poseidon too changed into a horse and their resulting offspring was Arion, the winged horse ridden by Hercules. Demeter and Persephone were very often paired together .  And sometimes even referred to as a single goddess with a dual aspect. The duo was often referred to as ‘the Two Goddesses’ and the Demeteres (two Demeters).

Eleusis & the Eleusinian Mysteries for Demeter

The story of Demeter and Persephone was perhaps symbolic of the changing seasons. And the perennial change from life to death, to life once more, or, in other words, the changes from summer to winter and the return of life in spring.  An alternative view of more modern historians is that the disappearance of Peresphone is symbolic.  Of the practice of burying seeds in the summer so that they did not dry out before they could be sown in the autumn. The cycle became one of the rituals of the sacred Eleusinian Mysteries.   Indeed the symbols of the cult were ears of grain and a torch .  Symbolic of Demeter’s search for Persephone and a reminder that the rituals at Eleusis were carried out at night.