Demeter,

Demeter, the Ceres of the Romans, was one of the chief divinities of the Greeks. She was the earth-goddess, the patroness of agriculture and of fruits, and her name itself most probably meant Mother-Earth (gē mētēr). She was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and was by Zeus the mother of Persephone (Proserpine), who was carried off while gathering flowers in the Nysian plain, in Asia, by Aidoneus (Pluto), the god of the nether world. Demeter wandered for some time in search of her daughter, and when she learned whither she had been carried, quitted Olympus in anger, and dwelt on earth among men, as at Eleusis, bringing blessings in her train. At length Zeus sent Hermes to bring back Persephone, and both mother and daughter then returned to Olympus, whereupon the earth again brought forth her fruits. As Persephone had eaten a part of a pomegranate in the under world, she was obliged to spend one-third of the year in the gloomy kingdom of her husband, returning to her mother the remainder of the year. Many later additions were made to this beautiful story, in which it is not difficult to see an allegorisation of the burial and revival of the seed-corn within the ground. The Latin poets made Enna, in Sicily, the scene of Proserpine's rape. The Eleusinians were held every year at Athens, in honour of Demeter and her daughter, as well as the Thesmophoria, both there and in other parts of Greece. The Athenians revered her especially as the originator of civilised life and its arts, which all rest on the basis of agriculture. In art Demeter is represented fully clothed, a garland of corn-ears round her head, in her hand a sceptre, corn-ears, or a poppy, and sometimes with a torch and mystic basket. The worship of Demeter, known as Ceres, reached Rome from Sicily, and ultimately acquired great political importance. Her chief festival there was the Cerealia. See CERES.