Demeter

Demeter or Demetra (in ancient Greek Δημήτηρ or Δημητρα, 'mother goddess' or perhaps 'distributing mother', perhaps from the Indo-European noun *d eg om *mater) is the Greek goddess of agriculture, pure nurturer of the green earth and young, life-giving cycle of life and death. She is venerated as the "bearer of the seasons" in a Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshiped long before the Olympians came. The Homeric hymn to Demeter dates from about the 7th century BC. C. She Along with her daughter Persephone were the central characters of the Eleusinian mysteries that also preceded the Olympian pantheon.

In Roman mythology, Demeter was associated with Ceres. When Demeter was given a genealogy, she was said to be the daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea (both sons of Gaia and Uranus), and thus the older sister of Zeus. The priestesses of it were given the title of Melissa.

It is easy to confuse Demeter with Gea, her grandmother, and Rhea, her mother, or Cibeles. The epithets of the goddess reveal the wide range of her functions in Greek life. Demeter and Core ('the maiden') used to be invoked as to theo ('the two goddesses'), and thus appear in the Linear B inscriptions of Mycenaean Pylos in pre-Hellenic times. It is quite likely that there was a relationship with the goddess cults of Minoan Crete.

According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, the greatest gifts Demeter gave to the Athenians were grain, which made man different from other wild animals, and the Eleusinian mysteries, which gave him greater hope in this life and the next.

Titles and functions

In various contexts, Demeter is invoked with various epithets:

• Anesidora (Ανησιδωρα, 'gift-giver' of the earth), like Demeter.
• Amphictíone (from αμφικτιονία, 'joint foundation') in reference to the first meeting place of the Peloponnesian League in the Thessalian city of Antela, which began to alternate from the 7th century BC. C. with the sanctuary of Delphi.
• Cabiria (Καβειραιη), a pre-Hellenic name of uncertain meaning.
• Chloe (Χλοη, 'the green shoot'), for her powers of fertility and eternal youth.
• Chthonia (Χθονια, 'of the land').
• Erinyes (Ερινυς, 'relentless').
• Lusia (Λουσιη, 'bath').
• Malophores (Μαλοφορος, 'apple carrier' or 'sheep carrier').
• Potnia (Πωτνια, 'lady') in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
• Termasia (Θερμασια, 'warmth').
• Thesmophora (Θεσμοφορος, "giver of robes", "she who enforces the law" or "lawgiver"), a role that links her to the even older goddess Themis. This title was connected with the Thesmophoria, Athenian festivals of exclusively female secret rituals related to wedding customs.

Theocritus remembered an older role of Demeter:For the Greeks Demeter being a goddess of the poppyCarrying sheaves and poppies in both hands.

In a clay figurine from Gazi, the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, a source of nutrition and narcosis, on her headband. Kerényi notes that "it seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess, who bore the names of Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis, and it is certain that in the Cretan religious sphere opium was prepared from poppies".

A festival was held in honor of Demeter of Mysia at Pellene, Arcadia. Pausanias visited Demeter's shrine at Mysia on his journey from Mycenae to Argos, but all he could learn to explain the archaic name was a myth from an eponymous Mysian. who worshiped Demeter.

The most important places of worship to Demeter were not concentrated in any specific region of the Greek world, but were spread over many places: Eleusis, Hermione, Megara, Celeas (near Fliunte), Lerna, Aegila (present-day Antikythera), Munichia, Corinth, Delos, Priene, Acragante, Pergamon, Selinunte, Tegea, Toricos, Dion, Lycosura, Mesembria, Enna, and Samothrace.

Demeter taught humanity the arts of agriculture: sowing seeds, ploughing, harvesting, etc. He was especially popular with the country folk, partly because they were the most direct beneficiaries of his aid, and partly because they were more conservative in maintaining the old ways. In fact Demeter was fundamental in the ancient religion of Greece. Relics typical of his cult, such as votive clay pigs, were already made in the Neolithic. In Roman times, a sow was still sacrificed to Ceres when there was a death in the family, to purify the home.

Demeter and Poseidon

The names of Demeter and Poseidon are related in the earliest Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, where they appear as PO-SE-DA-WO-NE and DA-MA-TE in the sacred context of drawing lots. The "DA" element that appears in both names is apparently not connected with a Proto-Indo-European root related to the distribution of lands and honors (compare Latin dares, 'to give'). Poseidon (whose name seems to mean 'distributor's consort') once persecuted Demeter, in her original mare-goddess form. She resisted Poseidon, but she could not hide her divine origin among the horses of King Oncos. Poseidon transformed into a stallion and covered her. Demeter was literally furious (Demeter Erinyes) at this assault, but she washed her anger in the river Ladon (Demeter Lusia). She bore Poseidon a daughter: Despena, whose name could not be pronounced outside the Eleusinian Mysteries, and a black-maned steed named Arion. In Arcadia, Demeter had historically been worshiped as a horse-headed deity:The second mountain, Mount Elaio, is about 30 stadia from Figalia and has a cave sacred to Demeter Melena ['Black']... the Figaleans say that they took advantage of the cave sacred to Demeter and put a wooden image in it. The image was carved in the following way: she was sitting on a rock and was like a woman in everything except the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and snakes and other beasts grew from her. Her chiton reached just to her feet, and she held a dolphin in one hand and a dove in the other. Why they made the

xoanon this way should be clear to any intelligent man versed in the tradition. They say they called her Black because the goddess wore black clothes. They can't remember who made this

xoanon though.or how it burned, but when it was destroyed the Phigaleos did not give a new image to the goddess and long neglected her festivals and sacrifices, until finally barrenness fell over the country.

Description of Greece VIII, 42.

Demeter's relationship with Persephone

The fundamental myth of Demeter that forms the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries is her relationship with Persephone, her daughter, and herself as a young woman. In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and the consort of Hades (Pluto for the Romans, god of wealth from the underworld). Persephone became goddess of the underworld when Hades kidnapped her on earth and took her with him. Persephone had been playing with some nymphs (or Leucippus) whom Demeter turned into sirens as punishment for not intervening. Life came to a standstill as depressed Demeter (goddess of the earth) searched for her lost daughter (resting in the Agelasta stone). Finally, Zeus could not bear the agony of the earth any longer and forced Hades to return Persephone by sending Hermes to rescue her from her. But before releasing her from her, Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds, forcing her to return six months each year. When Demeter and his daughter were together, the land flourished with vegetation. But for six months of the year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the land became a barren wasteland again.

Therefore, during the six months that Persephone was at her mother's side, they correspond to spring and summer, when the Earth is filled with flowers and warmth, while the remaining six months, Demeter is saddened by the absence of her mother. daughter and the cold arrives during the months that correspond to autumn and winter. It was during his journey to rescue Persephone from the underworld that Demeter revealed the Eleusinian mysteries. In an alternate version, Hecate rescued Persephone. In other versions Persephone was not tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds but she decided to eat them herself. Some versions state that she ate four seeds instead of six. In any case, the final result is the succession of summer, spring, autumn and winter.

Demeter's stay in Eleusis

As Demeter searched for her daughter Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman named Doso, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the king of Eleusis in Attica. Céleo asked him to take care of Demofonte and Triptolemus, the children he had had with Metanira.

As a gift to Celeus for his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon a god, covering and anointing him with ambrosia, breathing gently on him while holding him between her arms and chest, and making him immortal by burning him over red-hot coals in the hearth of the castle. family home every night, behind their parents' backs.

Demeter was unable to complete the ritual because Metanira caught her son in the fire one night and screamed in fright, angering Demeter, who lamented that mortals did not understand the concept and the ritual.

Instead of making Demophon immortal, Demeter decided to teach Triptolemus the art of agriculture, and through him the rest of Greece learned how to plant and harvest crops. Triptolemus flew across the country in a winged chariot while Demeter and Persephone looked after him, helping him complete his mission to educate all of Greece in the art of agriculture.

Later, Triptolemus taught Linco, king of Scythia, the cultivation of wheat, but Linco refused to teach it to his subjects, and tried to kill Triptolemus. Demeter transformed him into a lynx.

Phytalos also received Demeter hospitably and as a reward the goddess gave him the fig tree.

Some researchers believe that the story of Demophon is based on an earlier prototypical folk legend.

Consorts and offspring

PoseidonArionwake upYasionphilomeloPluto

ZeusKore (Persephone)Iaco

Assimilations with other goddesses

The identification with the goddess Isis is in the fact that the two must undertake a search, her daughter Core in the case of Demeter and her husband Osiris in the case of Isis, producing in both cases a paralysis of life in nature., by the arrival of winter in one case and by the end of the river's flood in the other, until the encounter takes place and nature is reborn again. Later, the Greco-Roman priestesses of Isis had to be previously trained in the Eleusinian mysteries after the model of the priestesses of Demeter, the canephores.

His assimilation with the Phoenician goddess Astarte, through Isis, was facilitated by the commercial relations between Ancient Egypt and the Phoenician city of Byblos, since according to Egyptian mythology, she would find the chest with the corpse of her husband in this ancient city. city.

Other myths

Iasion was a son of Zeus and Electra who lay with Demeter in a plowed field in Tripolo, Crete, and from this union it is said that Pluto and Philomelo were born. According to the Odyssey, Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt, but that the myth places the events in Crete is an indication that the Hellenes knew that this event happened to an older Demeter.

Demeter put Limos, the god of famine, into Erysichthon's guts to make him permanently hungry as punishment for cutting down a sacred grove.

Representations

Demeter was often portrayed riding a chariot, and was often associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. Sometimes she also painted it with Persephone (her daughter).

It was and is famous for the marble statue of this goddess that was found in the city of Cnidus and is currently in the British Museum in London.