She was especially popular with rural folk, partly because they most benefited directly from her assistance, but also because rural folk are more conservative about keeping to the old ways. ĭemeter was revered in Hellenic (and pre-Hellenic) world for teaching mankind the arts of agriculture: sowing seeds, ploughing, harvesting, etc. The lowest terrace, which was used for dining, had thirty dining rooms, with couches for 200 people the middle terrace had pits for sacrifice and other offerings, but neither a temple nor a normal altar the highest terrace had two theatre areas cut into the rocks, with space for 80 to 90 spectators. For example, the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Corinth was laid out on three terraces, on the lower slope of the hill overlooking the city. In sanctuaries of Demeter there was generally no 'normal' temple, though there were some buildings. Indeed, Mikalson notes that, the various cults of Demeter "were open to all Greeks." In addition to primary role of Demeter in the pan-Hellenic Mystery Religion (discussed below), worship of the goddess also took other forms: Major sites for the cult of Demeter were not confined to any localized part of the Greek world: there were sites at Eleusis, in Sicily, Hermion, in Crete, Megara, Celeae, Lerna, Aegila, Munychia, Corinth, Delos, Priene Akragas, Iasos, Pergamon, Selinus, Tegea, Thorikos, Dion, Lykosoura, Mesembria, Enna, and Samothrace. "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess, who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis, and it is certain that in the Cretan cult sphere, opium was prepared from poppies." Cult In a clay statuette from Gazi, the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. Theocritus remembered an earlier role of Demeter:įor the Greeks, Demeter was still a poppy goddess, Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. This title was connected with the Thesmophoria, a festival of secret women-only rituals in Athens connected with marriage customs.) Thesmophoros ("giver of customs" or even "legislator," a role that links her to the even more ancient goddess Themis.Kabeiraia, a pre-Greek name of uncertain definition.
In various contexts, Demeter is invoked with many epithets: Īccording to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, the greatest gifts that Demeter gave were cereal, which set humans apart from wild animals, and the mysteries, which give humankind higher hopes in this life and the next. A connection with the goddess-cults of Minoan Crete is quite possible. Demeter and Kore ("the maiden") are usually invoked as to theo ('"The Two Goddesses"), and they appear in that form in Linear B graffiti at Mycenaean Pylos in pre-classical times. The goddess' epithets reveal the span of her functions in Greek life. The Roman equivalent is Ceres, from whom the word "cereal" is derived.ĭemeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which also predate the Olympian pantheon. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter has been dated to sometime around the seventh century B.C.E. She is invoked as the "bringer of seasons" in the Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshiped long before the Olympians arrived. In Greek mythology, Demeter ( Greek: "mother-earth" or possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth) is the goddess of grain and agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of both marital fertility and the sacred law. Ceres ( Demeter), allegory of August: detail of a fresco by Cosimo Tura, Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara, 1469-1470
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