Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

===Middle Republic===
====Ceres and Proserpina====
Towards the end of the [[Second Punic War]], around 205 BC, an officially recognised joint cult to Ceres and her daughter [[Proserpina]] was brought to Rome from [[Southern Italy]] (part of [[Magna Graecia]]) along with Greek priestesses to serve it.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 4, 6–13, citing [[Arnobius]], who mistakes this as the first Roman cult to Ceres. His belief may reflect the high profile and ubiquity of the "reformed" cult during the later Imperial period, and possibly the fading of older, distinctively Aventine forms of her cult.</ref> In Rome, this was known as the ''ritus graecus Cereris''; its priestesses were granted [[Roman citizenship]] so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention"; the recruitment of respectable matrons seems to acknowledge the civic value of the cult. It was based on ancient, ethnically Greek cults to Demeter, most notably the [[Thesmophoria]] to [[Demeter]] and [[Persephone]], whose cults and myths also provided a basis for the [[Eleusinian mysteries]].

From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at [[Enna]], in [[Sicily]], was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognised as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Demeter's daughter [[Persephone]].<ref>Scheid, p. 23.</ref> Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's abduction into the underworld by [[Hades]]. The new, women-only  cult to "mother and maiden" took its place alongside the old; it made no reference to Liber. Thereafter, Ceres was offered two separate and distinctive forms of official cult at the Aventine. Both might have been supervised by the male [[Flamen#Flamines minores|flamen Cerialis]] but otherwise, their relationship is unclear. The older form of cult included both men and women, and probably remained a focus for plebeian political identity and discontent. The new form identified its exclusively females initiates and priestesses as upholders of Rome's traditional, [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]]-dominated social hierarchy and [[mos maiorum|morality]].<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 13, 15, 60, 94–97.</ref>

====Ceres and Magna Mater====
A year after the import of the ''ritus cereris'', patrician senators imported cult to the Greek goddess [[Cybele]] and established her as [[Magna Mater]] (The Great Mother) within Rome's [[Pomerium|sacred boundary]], facing the Aventine Hill. Like Ceres, Cybele was a form of Graeco-Roman earth goddess. Unlike her, she had mythological ties to [[Troy]], and thus to the Trojan prince [[Aeneas]], mythological ancestor of [[Founding of Rome|Rome's founding father]] and first patrician [[Romulus]]. The establishment of official Roman cult to Magna Mater coincided with the start of a new ''saeculum'' (cycle of years). It was followed by [[Hannibal]]'s defeat, the end of the [[Second Punic War]] and an exceptionally good harvest. Roman victory and recovery could therefore be credited to Magna Mater and patrician piety: so the patricians dined her and each other at her festival banquets. In similar fashion, the plebeian nobility underlined their claims to Ceres. Up to a point, the two cults reflected a social and political divide, but when certain prodigies were interpreted as evidence of Ceres' displeasure, the senate appeased her with a new festival, the ''ieiunium Cereris'' ("[[fasting|fast]] of Ceres").<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 14, 94–97. See also the legend of [[Claudia Quinta]].</ref>

In 133 BC, the [[Nobiles|plebeian noble]] and [[tribune]] [[Tiberius Gracchus]] bypassed the [[Roman senate|Senate]] and appealed directly to the popular assembly to pass his proposed [[agrarian law|land-reforms]]. Civil unrest spilled into violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their conservative opponents. At the behest of the [[Sibylline Books|Sibylline oracle]], the senate sent the [[Quindecimviri sacris faciundis|quindecimviri]] to Ceres' ancient cult centre at [[Enna|Henna]] in [[Sicily]], the goddess' supposed place of origin and earthly home. Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given, either to expiate Gracchus' murder &ndash; as later Roman sources would claim &ndash; or to justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or [[Demagogy|demagogue]], a ''[[homo sacer]]'' who had offended Ceres' laws against tyranny.<ref>Both interpretations are possible. On the whole, Roman sources infer the expedition as expiatory; for background, see Valerius Maximus, 1.1.1., and Cicero, ''In Verres'', 2.4.108 ''et passim'', cited by Olivier de Cazanove, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p 56. For debate and challenge to Roman descriptions of the motives for this expedition, see Spaeth, 1990, pp. 182–195. Spaeth finds the expedition an attempt to justify the killing of T. Gracchus as official, right and lawful, based on senatorial speeches given soon after the killing; ''contra'' Henri Le Bonniec, ''Le culte de Cérès à Rome. Des origines à la fin de la République'', Paris, Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1958. Le Bonniec interprets the consultation as an attempt to compensate the plebs and their patron goddess for the murder.</ref>