MYTHOLOGY

Demeter (Greek)

Goddess of grain, agriculture and the harvest, growth and nourishment. Demeter is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister of Zeus, by whom she bore Persephone. She was one of the main deities of the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which her power over the life cycle of plants symbolized the passage of the human soul through its life course and into the afterlife. She was depicted as a mature woman, often crowned and holding sheafs of wheat and a torch. Her symbols are the cornucopia, wheat-ears, the winged serpent, and the lotus staff. Her sacred animals are pigs and snakes. Ceres was her Roman counterpart.

Abode Mount Olympus

Symbol Cornucopia, Wheat, Torch, Bread

Consort Iasion, Zeus, Oceanus, Karmanor and Triptolemus

Parents Cronus and Rhea

Siblings Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus

Children Persephone, Despoina, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus, Eubuleus, Chrysothemis and Amphitheus I

Roman equivalent Ceres

Festivals Thesmophoria

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Demeter (/diˈmiːtər/; Attic: Δημήτηρ Dēmḗtēr; Doric: Δαμάτηρ Dāmā́tēr) is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain",[1] as the giver of food or grain[2] and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; "phoros": bringer, bearer), "Law-Bringer," as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.[3]

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of circa 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the "two mistresses and the king" may be related with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.[4][5] Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.[6]It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2).[7] It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En 609); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳, da-ma-te, probably refers to "households".[8][9] On the other hand 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded to refer to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.[10]

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (mother).[11] In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ),[12] a word which became Ge (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth".[13] This root also appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker", as an aspect of the god Poseidon.[14][15] However, the dā element in the name of Demeter, is not so simply equated with "earth" according to John Chadwick.[16][17]

The element De- may be connected with Deo, a surname of Demeter[18] probably derived from the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά) meaning "barley", so that she is the Mother and the giver of food generally.[19] Arcadian cult to Demeter links her to a male deity (Greek: Πάρεδρος, Paredros), who accompanied the Great Goddess and has been interpreted as a possible substitution for Poseidon; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess.[20]

An alternative, Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina; where Des- represents a derivative of PIE *dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr).[21]