Ceres (mythology)

Goddess Headquarters Ceres. CenturyId. C., Museo Nacional de Arte Romano de Mérida (Spain).

Source of Ceres in the Parterre Garden of Aranjuez.

Ceres in a medieval representation

In Roman mythology, Ceres (from the Proto-Indo-European root ker, "to grow, create") she was the goddess of agriculture, harvests and fertility. Her equivalent in Greek mythology was Demeter. The cereals are named after her.

Myth

Ceres was the daughter of Saturn and Ops, mother of their daughter Proserpina, sister of Juno, Vesta, Neptune, Pluto, and Jupiter. She taught humans the art of cultivating the land, planting, harvesting wheat and making bread, which led to her being considered the goddess of agriculture. Her brother Jupiter, captivated by her beauty, fathered Proserpina with her (assimilated to Persephone in Greek mythology). Neptune also fell in love with her, and to escape from this, Ceres turned into a mare, but the god noticed her and turned into a horse, thus making Ceres the mother of the horse Arion.

Ceres was also the patron saint of Enna (Sicily). According to legend, she prayed to Jupiter that Sicily be placed in the heavens. The result, because the island is triangular in shape, was the constellation Triangulum, one of whose ancient names was "Sicily."

She had twelve minor gods who assisted her and were in charge of specific aspects of agriculture: Vervactor, who transforms fallow land; Reparator, who prepares it; Imporcitor (from the Latin imporcare, 'to make furrows'), which plows it into wide furrows; Insitor, who sows; Obarator, who plows the surface; Occator, who scarifies it; Sarritor, who weeds it; Subruncinator, which clears it; Messor, who reaps; Conuector, which transports what is harvested; Conditor, which stores it; and Promitor, which distributes it.

Worship

The inhabitants of Sicily, neighbors of the Etna volcano, annually commemorated the departure of Ceres on her long journeys by running at night with burning torches and shouting loudly.

In Greece there were numerous Demetrias, festivals of Demeter, the goddess equivalent to Ceres. The most curious were undoubtedly those in which the followers of the goddess whipped each other with whips made of tree bark. Athens had two solemn festivals in honor of Demeter: one called Eleusinia and another, Thesmophoria. It was said that they were instituted by Triptolemus. Pigs were sacrificed, due to the damage they caused to the fruits of the earth, and libations of sweet wine were made.

The Romans adopted Ceres in 496 B.C. C. during a devastating famine, when the Sibylline Books advised the adoption of its Greek equivalent Demeter, along with Persephone and Iacus (mediator between the Eleusinian goddesses and Dionysus). Ceres was personified and honored by the women with secret rituals in the Ambarvalia festivities, celebrated in May with processions in which the Roman women wore the white typical of the men, who were mere spectators. It was believed that these festivities, to please the goddess, should not be celebrated by people in mourning, which is why they were not celebrated the year of the battle of Cannae.

A temple to Ceres was erected on the Aventine Hill in Rome. Its main festivity was the Cerealias or Ludi Ceriales ('Ceres games'), instituted in the 3rd century BC. C. and held annually from April 12 to 19. The cult of Ceres became especially associated with the commoner classes, who dominated the grain trade. Little is known about the rituals of this cult, one of the few customs that were recorded being the peculiar practice of tying burning embers to the tails of foxes that were then released in the Circus Maximus.

In addition to the pig, sow or javelin, Ceres also admitted the ram as a sacrifice. At her festivities, the garlands used were myrtle or daffodil, but flowers were prohibited, because she was picking flowers like Proserpina was kidnapped by Pluto. Only the poppy was consecrated to her, not only because it grows among the wheat but also because Jupiter made her eat it to make her sleepy and thus give her some respite from her pain.

In Crete, Sicily, Lacedaemon and several other cities of the Peloponnese, the Eleusinian mysteries or mysteries of Ceres, celebrated in the city of Eleusis, were periodically celebrated. From here they passed to Rome, where they subsisted until the reign of Theodosius. These mysteries were divided into large and small. The little ones were a preparation for the big ones that were held near Athens, on the banks of the Ilissus. They conferred a kind of novitiate. After a certain period of time more or less long, the beginner was initiated into the great mysteries, in the temple of Eleusis. The Eleusis festivities lasted nine days, each year, in the month of September, days on which the courts were closed. The Athenians had their children initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries from the cradle. It was forbidden, even for women, to be driven to the temple by car or cart. The initiates considered themselves under the tutelage and protection of Ceres, for which boundless happiness was expected of them.

Representations

Ceres is usually depicted as a beautiful woman, of stately stature and ruddy complexion, with languid eyes and blond hair falling untidy to her shoulders.

In addition to a crown of ears of wheat, she wears a very tall diadem. Sometimes it is crowned with a garland of ears or poppies, a symbol of fertility. She has large breasts and carries a bundle of spikes in her right hand and a burning torch in her left. Her tunic reaches down to her feet, and she often wears a veil thrown back. Sometimes they give her a scepter or a sickle: two little children, clinging to her breast and each carrying a cornucopia, sufficiently point to the nurse of the human race. She wears a yellow cloth, the color of ripe wheat.

The Black Ceres

In Arcadia, the Phygalians made a wooden statue whose head was that of a mare with dragons for a mane, which they called the Black Ceres. Since this statue was burned by accident, the Phygalians neglected the cult of Ceres and were therefore punished with a terrible drought that did not end until, on the advice of an oracle, the statue was restored.

Fonts

• OVIDIO: Metamorphosis V, 341 - 408.
  • Proserpina's rapture in MetamorphosisOvid: Book V, 332 - 571 (in the Latin text, 333 - 572); Spanish text on Wikisource.
    • V: Latin text on Wikisource.