Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

==Priesthoods==
Ceres was served by several public priesthoods. Some were male; her senior priest, the ''flamen cerialis'', also served Tellus and was usually plebeian by ancestry or adoption.<ref>Rome's legendary second King, [[Numa Pompilius|Numa]] was thought to have instituted the flamines, so Ceres' service by a ''flamen cerialis'' suggested her oldest Roman cult as one of great antiquity.</ref> Her public cult at the [[Ambarvalia]], or "perambulation of fields" identified her with [[Dea Dia]], and was led by the [[Arval Brethren]] ("The Brothers of the Fields"); rural versions of these rites were led as private cult by the [[Pater familias|heads of households]]. An inscription at [[Capua]] names a male ''sacerdos Cerialis mundalis'', a priest dedicated to Ceres' rites of the ''mundus''.<ref>[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]] X 3926.</ref> The [[Aedile|plebeian aediles]] had minor or occasional priestly functions at Ceres' Aventine Temple and were responsible for its management and financial affairs including collection of fines, the organisation of ''ludi Cerealia'' and probably the Cerealia itself. Their ''cure'' (care and jurisdiction) included, or came to include, the [[Grain supply to the city of Rome#Grain supply made an official responsibility|grain supply]] (''annona'') and later the plebeian grain doles (''frumentationes''), the organisation and management of public [[Ludi|games]] in general, and the maintenance of Rome's streets and public buildings.<ref>Responsibility for the provision of grain and popular games lent the aedileship a high and politically useful public profile. See [[Cursus honorum]].</ref>

Otherwise, in Rome and throughout Italy, as at her ancient sanctuaries of Henna and Catena, Ceres' ''[[ritus graecus]]'' and her joint cult with Proserpina were invariably led by female ''sacerdotes'', drawn from local and Roman elites: Cicero notes that once the new cult had been founded, its earliest priestesses "generally were either from Naples or Velia", cities allied or federated to Rome. Elsewhere, he describes Ceres' Sicilian priestesses as "older women respected for their noble birth and character".<ref>Spaeth, 104-5, citing Cicero, ''Pro Balbus'', 55, and Cicero, ''Contra Verres'', 2.4.99. The translations are Spaeth's.</ref> Celibacy may have been a condition of their office; sexual abstinence was, according to Ovid, required of those attending Ceres' major, nine-day festival.<ref>Most modern scholarship assumes Cerean priestesses celibate during their term of office but the evidence is inconclusive. See Schultz, 2006, pp. 75–78, for full discussion.</ref> Her [[Sacerdos Cereris|public priesthood]] was reserved to respectable matrons, be they married, divorced or widowed.<ref>See Schultz, pp. 75–78: also Schultz, Celia E., Harvey, Paul, (Eds), ''Religion in Republican Italy'', Yale Classical Studies, 2006, pp. 52–53: [https://books.google.com/books?id=paoDK0afIcIC&q=Ceres&pg=PA52 googlebooks preview]</ref> The process of their selection and their relationship to Ceres' older, entirely male priesthood is unknown; but they far outnumbered her few male priests, and would have been highly respected and influential figures in their own communities.<ref>A Roman matron was any mature woman, married or unmarried, usually but not exclusively of the upper class. While females could serve as [[Vestal Virgins]], few were chosen, and those were selected as young maidens from families of the upper class.</ref><ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 4–5, 9, 20 (historical overview and Aventine priesthoods), 84–89 (functions of plebeian aediles), 104–106 (women as priestesses): citing among others Cicero, ''In Verres'', 2.4.108; Valerius Maximus, 1.1.1; Plutarch, ''De Mulierum Virtutibus'', 26.</ref><ref>More epigraphic evidence survives for priestesses of Ceres than for any other priesthood; it shows Cerean cults as less exclusively female than contemporary Roman authors would have it; while most Cerean priestesses were assisted by females, two in the Italian province are known to have had male assistants (''Magistri Cereris''). See Schultz, p. 72 and footnote 90 (p. 177).</ref>