In auncient Greek releegion an meeth, Demeter (/diˈmtər/; Attic Δημήτηρ Dēmētēr. Doric Δαμάτηρ Dāmātēr) is the goddess o the hairst, who presidit ower grains an the growthiness o the yird. Her cult titles include Sito (σίτος: wheat) as the giver o fuid or corn/grain[1] an Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law) as a merk o the ceevilisit existence o agricultural society.[2]

Demeter
Goddess o the harvest an growthiness o the yird
Statue o Demeter. Roman copy frae a Greek oreeginal
made for the Eleusis sanctuar circa 425-420 BC.
AbodeOlympus
Personal Information
ConsortSeveral, see text
Childersee belaw
ParentsCronus an Rhea
SiblinsHestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus
Roman equivalentCeres

Tho Demeter is aften describit simply as the goddess o the hairst, she presidit ower the sanctity o marriage an aw, the saucrit law, an the cycle o life an daith. She an her dochter Persephone wur the central figurs o the Eleusinian Meesteries that predatit the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets o circa 1400-1200 BC foond at Pylos, the "twa mistresses an the keeng" mey be relatit wi Demeter, Persephone an Poseidon.[3][4] Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.

Consorts an childer eedit

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Notes eedit

  1. Eustathius of Thessalonica, scholia on Homer, 265.
  2. Themis was an ancient Greek goddess, embodiment of divine order,law. She was the organizer of the communal affairs and she evoked the social order: Finley, The World of Odysseus, rev. ed. Viking Press. (1978:78 note 82)
  3. John Chadwick, The Mycenean World. Cambridge University Press, 1976.
  4. "Wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te, (to the two queens and the king). Wanax is best suited to Poseidon, the special divinity of Pylos. The identity of the two divinities adressed as wanassoi, is uncertain ": George Mylonas (1966) Mycenae and the Mycenean age" p.159 :Princeton University Press
  5. Hesychius o Alexandria, s. v.

References eedit

  • Walter Burkert (1985) Greek Religion, Harvard University Press, 1985.
  • Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, 1962. An illustrated beuk of Greek myths retold for children.
  • Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1903
  • Hesiod, Theogony, and Works and Days in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; Lunnon, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
  • Karl Kerenyi, Eleusis: archetypal image of mother and daughter, 1967.
  • Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, 1976
  • Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, 1940. Sacred-texts.com
  • Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; Lunnon, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
  • Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.

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