Who was Ceres?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
April 16, 2004
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Little is known of the ancient goddess, Ceres. She was an Etruscan goddess, one of the Penates [pe nah' tes], guardians of the home and hearth. She was perhaps a goddess of agrarian families. By Roman times, the Penates numbered two and did not include Ceres. She was resurrected as the goddess of agriculture, adopted from the Greek goddess, Demeter, the mother or giver of barley and other grains.
In the Greek legend, Demeter had a daughter, Persephone, by Zeus. When Persephone [per sef' o ne] was a young woman, she was abducted by Pluto with the help of Zeus and carried into Hades. Demeter heard the echoes of her daughter's cries and searched for anyone who may have witnessed the disappearance of her daughter. Discovering that Zeus aided the abduction, Demeter abandoned Olympus and Earth—the world cooled, plants ceased to grow, and humans starved.
Meanwhile in Hades, Persephone rejected Pluto and refused all food and drink—to partake of anything condemned her to a life in the dark underworld. After months, she was so hungry that she ate a single piece of a pomegranate—she was mated to Pluto for eternity.
But Zeus was losing humanity to the famine. He sent all of the Olympian gods and goddesses to 'reason' with Demeter to forget her daughter. But Demeter was unreasonable. Finally Zeus sent Hermes to bring Persephone home to her mother.
Pluto was outraged, Persephone belonged to him. So Zeus negotiated a compromise between Demeter and Pluto. Persephone was to spend six months on earth and six in the underworld. The legend says that when winter lies on the land, Persephone is with Pluto. When the earth is green and growing, Persephone is with her mother.
The Romans admired the mother who stood up to Zeus and cared more for her child than the opinions of the gods and goddesses. As the Roman goddess, Ceres, special homage was paid to the mother who gave grain to humanity. The Romans built temples to Ceres and even a special festival, Cerealia, was celebrated on the 19th of April. Her Roman name lingers after all the centuries in our collective term for wheat, barley, rye, and oats. The seeds of these grasses are called the cereals.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has information on Ceres and a statue of the goddess carrying fruit. To view Ceres and learn more, click on the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28mythology%29
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image.
(Compiled from: The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, trans. Richard Aldington and Delano Ames, Crescent Books, New York, 1989; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed. John Murray, London, 1902; The Etruscans, a new investigation, Mauro Cristofani, Galahad Books, New York, 1979)
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