Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

==Temples==
[[Vitruvius]] (c.80 – 15 BC) describes the "Temple of Ceres near the Circus Maximus" (her Aventine Temple) as typically [[Araeostyle]], having widely spaced supporting columns, with [[architrave]]s of wood, rather than stone. This species of temple is "clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide, [its] [[pediment]]s ornamented with statues of clay or brass, gilt in the [[Etruscan civilization#Architecture|Tuscan fashion]]".<ref>Vitruvius, On Architecture, 3.1.5 [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/3*.html#1.5 available at penelope. edu]</ref> He recommends that temples to Ceres be sited in rural areas: "in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. This spot is to be reverenced with religious awe and solemnity of demeanour, by those whose affairs lead them to visit it."<ref>Vitruvius, On Architecture, 1.7.2 [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/1*.html#7.2 available at penelope. edu]</ref> During the early Imperial era, soothsayers advised [[Pliny the Younger]] to restore an ancient, "old and narrow" temple to Ceres, at his rural property near [[Como]]. It contained an ancient wooden cult statue of the goddess, which he replaced. Though this was an [[Religion in ancient Rome#Religio and the state|unofficial and privately funded cult]] (''sacra privata''), its annual feast on the [[Roman calendar#Days|Ides]] of September was attended by pilgrims from all over the region; this feast was also the same day as the [[Epulum Jovis]]. Pliny considered this rebuilding a fulfillment of his civic and religious duty.<ref>Pliny the Younger, ''Epistles'', 9.39: cited by Oliver de Cazanove, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p. 56.</ref>

===Images of Ceres===
[[File:Denarius C. Memmius C. F. Romulus.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Denarius]] picturing [[Quirinus]] on the [[obverse]], and Ceres enthroned on the reverse, a commemoration by a moneyer in 56 BC of a Cerialia, perhaps her first ''[[ludi]]'', presented by an earlier Gaius [[Memmia gens|Memmius]] as [[aedile]]<ref>Eric Orlin, ''Foreign Cults in Rome: Creating a Roman Empire'' (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 144.</ref>]]

No images of Ceres survive from her pre-Aventine cults; the earliest date to the middle Republic, and show the Hellenising influence of Demeter's iconography. Some late Republican images recall Ceres' search for Proserpina. Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or she sits on the sacred ''kiste'' (chest) that conceals the objects of her mystery rites.<ref>Spaeth, pp. 11, 61.</ref> Sometimes she holds a [[caduceus]], a symbol of [[Pax (goddess)|Pax]] (Roman goddess of Peace).<ref>Spaeth, pp. 28, 68.</ref> Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from the earth, her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat, or her head crowned with fruits and vines.<ref>Spaeth, p. 37, illustrated at fig. 7.</ref> In free-standing statuary, she commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray. [[Moneyer|Moneyers of the Republican era]] use Ceres' image, wheat ears and garlands to advertise their connections with prosperity, the annona and the popular interest. Some Imperial coin images depict important female members of the Imperial family as Ceres, or with some of her attributes.<ref>Spaeth, pp. 97–102.</ref>