Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

==Cults and cult themes==

===Agricultural fertility===
Ceres was credited with the discovery of [[spelt]] wheat (Latin ''far''), the yoking of oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and the gift of agriculture to humankind; before this, it was said, man had subsisted on acorns, and wandered without settlement or laws. She had the power to fertilize, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres (alongside the earth-goddess [[Terra Mater|Tellus]]) was offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow, at the movable ''[[Feria]]e [[Sementivae]]''. This was almost certainly held before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the entrails ''([[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#exta|exta]])'' presented in an earthenware pot ''([[Olla (Roman pot)|olla]]).''<ref>[[John Scheid]], in [[Jörg Rüpke|Rüpke, Jörg]] (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p 264; and Varro, ''Lingua Latina'', 5.98.</ref> In a rural, agricultural context, [[Cato the Elder]] describes the offer to Ceres of a ''porca praecidanea'' (a pig, offered before harvesting).<ref>Spaeth, 1996, p. 35: "The pregnant victim is a common offering to female fertility divinities and was apparently intended, on the principle of sympathetic magic, to fertilise and multiply the seeds committed to the earth." See also Cato the Elder, ''On Agriculture'', 134, for the ''porca praecidanea''.</ref> Before the harvest, she was offered a propitiary grain sample (''praemetium'').<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 35–39: the offer of ''praemetium'' to Ceres is thought to have been an ancient Italic practice. In Festus, "Praemetium [is] that which was measured out beforehand for the sake of [the goddess] tasting it beforehand".</ref> Ovid tells that Ceres "is content with little, provided that her offerings are [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#castus, castitas|casta]]" (pure).<ref>Linderski, J., in Wolfgang Haase, Hildegard Temporini (eds), ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt'', Volume 16, Part 3, de Gruyter, 1986, p. 1947, citing Ovid, Fasti, 4.411 - 416.</ref>

Ceres' main festival, [[Cerealia]], was held from mid to late April. It was organised by her [[plebeian]] [[aedile]]s and included circus games (''[[Ludi|ludi circenses]]''). It opened with a horse-race in the [[Circus Maximus]], whose starting point lay below and opposite to her Aventine Temple;<ref>Wiseman, 1995, p. 137.</ref> the [[Altar of Consus|turning post]] at the far end of the Circus was sacred to [[Consus]], a god of grain-storage. After the race, foxes were released into the Circus, their tails ablaze with lighted torches, perhaps to cleanse the growing crops and protect them from disease and vermin, or to add warmth and vitality to their growth.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 36–37. Ovid offers a myth by way of explanation: long ago, at ancient Carleoli, a farm-boy caught a fox stealing chickens and tried to burn it alive. The fox escaped and fired the fields and their crops, which were sacred to Ceres. Ever since (says Ovid) foxes are punished at her festival.</ref> From c.175 BC, Cerealia included ''[[ludi scaenici]]'' (theatrical religious events) through April 12 to 18.<ref>A plebeian aedile, C. Memmius, claims credit for Ceres' first ludi scaeneci. He celebrated the event with the dole of a new commemorative [[denarius]]; his claim to have given "the first Cerealia" represents this innovation. See Spaeth, 1996, p. 88.</ref>
====Helper gods====
In the ancient ''sacrum cereale'' a priest, probably the [[Flamen|Flamen Cerialis]], invoked Ceres (and probably Tellus) along with twelve specialised, minor assistant-gods to secure divine help and protection at each stage of the grain cycle, beginning shortly before the Feriae Sementivae.<ref>Ceres' 12 assistant deities are listed in [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], ''On Vergil's Georgics'', 1.21. Cited in Spaeth, 1996, p. 36. Servius cites the historian [[Fabius Pictor]] (late 3rd century BC) as his source.</ref> [[Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher|W.H. Roscher]] lists these deities among the ''[[indigitamenta]]'', names used to invoke specific divine functions.<ref>[[Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher]], ''Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie'' (Leipzig: Teubner, 1890–94), vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 187–233.</ref>

* '''Vervactor''', "He who ploughs"<ref name="Price p11">{{cite book |author1=Mary Beard |author-link=Mary Beard (classicist) |author2=John North |author2-link=John A. North (classicist) |author3=Simon Price |author3-link=Simon Price (classicist) |title=Religions of Rome: Volume 1: A History |year=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0521316828 |page=11}}</ref>
* '''Reparātor''', "He who prepares the earth"
* '''Imporcĭtor''', "He who ploughs with a wide furrow"<ref name="Price p11" />
* '''Insitor''', "He who plants seeds"
* '''Obarātor''', "He who traces the first ploughing"
* '''Occātor''', "He who harrows"
* '''Serritor''', "He who digs"
* '''Subruncinator''', "He who weeds"
* '''Mĕssor''', "He who reaps"
* '''Convector''', "He who carries the grain"
* '''Conditor''', "He who stores the grain"
* '''Promitor''', "He who distributes the grain"

===Marriage, human fertility and nourishment===
In Roman bridal processions, a young boy carried Ceres' torch to light the way; "the most [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#arbor felix|auspicious wood]] for wedding torches came from the ''spina alba'', the [[Crataegus|May-tree]], which bore many fruits and hence symbolised fertility".<ref>Spaeth, 1996, citing [[Pliny the Elder]], ''Historia Naturalis'', 30.75.</ref> The adult males of the wedding party waited at the groom's house. A wedding sacrifice was offered to [[Terra Mater|Tellus]] on the bride's behalf; a sow is the most likely [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#victima|victim]]. Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig as "a worthy mark of weddings" because "our women, and especially nurses" call the female genitalia ''porcus'' (pig). [[Barbette Spaeth]] (1996) believes Ceres may have been included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with Tellus and, as ''Ceres legifera'' (law-bearer), she "bears the laws" of marriage. In the most solemn form of marriage, ''confarreatio'', the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, the ancient wheat-type particularly associated with Ceres.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 5, 6, 44–47. ; the relevant passage from Varro is ''Rerum Rusticarum'', 2.4.10. [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], ''On Vergil's Aeneid'', 4.58, "implies that Ceres established the laws for weddings as well as for other aspects of civilized life." For more on Roman attitudes to marriage and sexuality, Ceres' role at marriages and the ideal of a "chaste married life" for Roman matrons, see Staples, 1998, pp. 84–93.</ref><ref>Benko, p. 177.</ref>
[[File:Ceres statue.jpg|thumb|Funerary statue of an unknown woman, depicted as Ceres holding wheat. Mid 3rd century AD. ([[Louvre]])]]
From at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and Proserpina reinforced Ceres' connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a plebeian nobility, an increased birthrate among plebeian commoners, and a fall in the birthrate among patrician families. The late Republican ''Ceres Mater'' (Mother Ceres) is described as ''genetrix'' (progenitress) and ''alma'' (nourishing); in the early Imperial era she becomes an Imperial deity, and receives joint cult with [[Ops]] [[Augusta (honorific)|Augusta]], Ceres' own mother in Imperial guise and a bountiful genetrix in her own right.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, 103 - 106.</ref> Several of Ceres' ancient Italic precursors are connected to human fertility and motherhood; the Pelignan goddess ''[[Angitia]] Cerealis'' has been identified with the Roman goddess [[Angerona]] (associated with childbirth).<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 42–43, citing Vetter, E., 1953, ''Handbuch der italienischen Dialekte'' 1. Heidelberg, for connections between Ceres, Pelignan ''Angitia Cerealis'', ''Angerona'' and childbirth.</ref>

===Laws===
Ceres was patron and protector of [[Plebeian Council|plebeian laws]], rights and [[Tribune]]s. Her Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury and possibly law-court; its foundation was contemporaneous with the passage of the [[Lex Sacrata]], which established the office and person of plebeian aediles and tribunes as inviolate representatives of the Roman people. Tribunes were legally immune to arrest or threat, and the lives and property of [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacer|those who violated this law]] were forfeit to Ceres.<ref>For discussion of the duties, legal status and immunities of plebeian tribunes and aediles, see Andrew Lintott, ''Violence in Republican Rome'', Oxford University Press, 1999,[https://books.google.com/books?id=QIKEpOP4lLIC&q=Ceres&pg=PA92 pp. 92–101]</ref> 

The [[Lex Hortensia]] of 287 BC extended plebeian laws to the city and all its citizens. The official decrees of the Senate (''senatus consulta'') were placed in Ceres' Temple, under the guardianship of the goddess and her aediles. Livy puts the reason bluntly: the consuls could no longer seek advantage for themselves by arbitrarily tampering with the laws of Rome.<ref>Livy's proposal that the ''senatus consulta'' were placed at the Aventine Temple more or less at its foundation (Livy, ''[[Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)|Ab Urbe Condita]]'', 3.55.13) is implausible. See Spaeth, 1996, pp. 86–87, 90.</ref> The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with [[arbitrary arrest and detention|arbitrary arrest]] by patrician magistrates.<ref>The evidence for the temple as asylum is inconclusive; discussion is in Spaeth, 1996, p. 84.</ref> Ceres' temple, games and cult were at least part-funded by fines imposed on those who offended the laws placed under her protection; the poet Vergil later calls her ''legifera Ceres'' (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, ''[[Thesmophoria|thesmophoros]]''.<ref>Cornell, T., ''The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c.1000–264 BC)'', Routledge, 1995, p. 264, citing Vergil, ''Aeneid'', 4.58.</ref>

As Ceres' first plough-furrow opened the earth (Tellus' realm) to the world of men and created the first field and its boundary, her laws determined the course of settled, lawful, civilised life. Crimes against fields and harvest were crimes against the people and their protective deity. Landowners who allowed their flocks to graze on public land were fined by the plebeian aediles, on behalf of Ceres and the people of Rome. Ancient laws of the [[Twelve Tables]] forbade the magical charming of field crops from a neighbour's field into one's own, and invoked the death penalty for the illicit removal of field boundaries.<ref>Ogden, in Valerie Flint, ''et al.'', ''Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome'', Vol. 2, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 1998, p. 83: citing Pliny, Natural History, 28.17–18; Seneca, Natural Questions, 4.7.2</ref> An adult who damaged or stole field-crops should be hanged "for Ceres".<ref>Cereri necari, literally "killed for Ceres".</ref> Any youth guilty of the same offense was to be whipped or fined double the value of damage.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, p. 70, citing Pliny the elder, Historia naturalis, 18.3.13 on the Twelve Tables and ''cereri necari''; cf the terms of punishment for violation of the sancrosancticity of Tribunes.</ref>

=== Poppies ===
Ceres' signs and iconography, like Demeter's from early Mycenae onwards, include poppies - symbolic of fertility, sleep, death and rebirth.  Poppies readily grow on soil disturbed by ploughing, as in wheatfields, and bear innumerable tiny seeds. They were raised as a crop by Greek and Roman farmers, partly for their fibrous stems and for the food value of their seeds<ref>Stone, S., p. 39, and note 9, citing Pliny the Elder, ''Natural History'', 8.74.195 in Sebesta, Judith Lynn; [[Larissa Bonfante|Bonfante, Larissa]], eds. (1994). The World of Roman Costume: Wisconsin Studies in Classics. The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299138509.</ref> Where the poppy capsule alone is shown, this probably belongs to the [[opium poppy]] (''papaver somniferum'', the "sleep-bearing poppy"). The Roman poet Vergil, in ''Georgics'', 1.212, describes this as ''Cereale papaver'', or "Ceres' poppy", which eases pain and brings sleep - the deepest sleep of all being death. Poppies are often woven into Ceres' wheat-stalk crown, the ''corona spicea'', worn by her priestesses and devotees.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp.128-129</ref>

=== Funerals ===
{{Main|Roman funerary practices#Sacrifices}}
Ceres maintained the boundaries between the realms of the living and the dead, and was an essential presence at funerals. Given acceptable rites and sacrifice, she helped the deceased into the afterlife as an underworld shade, or deity ([[Di Manes]]). Those whose death was premature, unexpected or untimely were thought to remain in the upper world, and haunt the living as a wandering, [[vengeful ghost]] ([[Lemures|Lemur]]). They could be exorcised, but only when their death was reasonably due. For her service at burials or cremations, well-off families offered Ceres sacrifice of a pig. The poor could offer wheat, flowers, and a libation.<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 55–63.</ref> The expected afterlife for the exclusively female initiates in the ''sacra Cereris'' may have been somewhat different; they were offered "a method of living" and of "dying with better hope".<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 60–61, 66; citing Cicero, ''de Legibus'', 2.36. As initiates of mystery religions were sworn to secrecy, very little is known of their central rites or beliefs.</ref>
[[File:Ovid Met 5 - Star Lizard - Adam Elsheimer.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|During her long, torch-lit search for her daughter, Proserpina, Ceres drinks water given her by Hecuba, and is mocked by the boy, Askalabos, for spilling some of it. She will transform him into a lowly "star-lizard' or [[newt]] (Latin; stellio) as punishment. The episode is in [[Ovid]]'s, Metamorphoses V, lines 449-450. Oil-paint on copper, by [[Adam Elsheimer]] and workshop, copy circa 1605, held by the [https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/ceres-en-casa-de-hecuba/c234310d-d284-4095-b8cf-f21896765fa9 Museo Nacional del Prado]. From an original in the collection of Alfred and Isabel Bader]]

===The ''mundus'' of Ceres===
The ''mundus cerialis'' or ''Caereris mundus'' ("the world of Ceres") was a hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome, now lost.{{efn|Various candidates for its location include the site of Rome's [[Comitium]] and the [[Palatine Hill]], within the city's ritual boundary ([[pomerium]])}} It was usually sealed by a stone lid known as the ''[[lapis manalis]]''.{{efn|Apparently not the same [[Lapis manalis]] used by the pontifices to alleviate droughts.}} On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official announcement {{lang|la|mundus patet}} ("the ''mundus'' is open") and offerings were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. Its opening offered the spirits of the dead temporary leave from the underworld to roam lawfully among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as 'holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts'.<ref>W. Warde Fowler, "Mundus Patet" in ''Journal of Roman Studies'', 2, 1912, pp. 25–26: Warde Fowler notes the possibility that pigs were offered: also (pp. 35–36) seed-corn, probably ''far'', from the harvest.</ref> The days when the mundus was open were among the very few occasions that Romans made official contact with the collective spirits of the dead, the ''Di Manes'' (the others being [[Parentalia]] and [[Lemuralia]]). This possibly secondary or late function of the ''mundus'' is first attested in the Late Republican Era, by [[Varro]].<ref>Cited in Macrobius, 1.16.18.</ref> The jurist [[Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus|Cato]] understood the shape of the ''mundus'' as a reflection or inversion of the dome of the upper heavens.<ref>Festus p. 261 L2, citing's Cato's commentaries on civil law.</ref> Di Luzio observes that the Roman ''mundus'' shared  functional and conceptual similarities with certain types of underground "pit altar" or [[megaron]], used in Demeter's Thesmophoria.<ref>DiLuzio, M. J., ''A Place at the Altar. Priestesses in Republican Rome''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 113-114</ref> 

Roman tradition held that the ''mundus'' had been dug and sealed by [[Romulus]] as part of Rome's foundation; Plutarch compares it to pits dug by Etruscan colonists, containing soil brought from their parent city, used to dedicate the first fruits of the harvest.<ref>Plutarch, ''Romulus'', 11.</ref> Warde Fowler speculates the ''mundus'' as Rome's first storehouse (''penus'') for seed-grain, later becoming the symbolic ''penus'' of the Roman state.<ref>See Spaeth, pp. 63–5: W. Warde Fowler, "Mundus Patet" in ''Journal of Roman Studies'', 2, (1912), pp. 25–33: [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/JRS/2/Mundus*.html available online at Bill Thayer's website]: M. Humm, "Le mundus et le Comitium : représentations symboliques de l'espace de la cité," Histoire urbaine, 2, 10, 2004. [http://www.cairn.info/revue-histoire-urbaine-2004-2-page-43.htm French language, full preview.]</ref> In the oldest known Roman calendar, the days of the ''mundus'' are marked as C(omitiales) (days when the [[Comitia]] met). Later authors mark them as ''dies [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#religiosus|religiosus]]'' (when no official meetings could be held). Some modern scholars seek to explain this as the later introduction and accommodation of Greek elements, grafted onto the original ''mundus'' rites.<ref>M. Humm, "Le mundus et le Comitium : représentations symboliques de l'espace de la cité," Histoire urbaine, 2, 10, 2004. [http://www.cairn.info/revue-histoire-urbaine-2004-2-page-43.htm French language, full preview.]</ref> The rites of August 24 were held between the agricultural festivals of [[Consualia]] and [[Opiconsivia]]; those of October 5 followed the ''[[Ieiunium Cereris]]'', and those of November 8 took place during the [[Ludi Plebeii|Plebeian Games]]. As a whole, the various days of the ''mundus'' suggest rites to Ceres as the guardian deity of seed-corn in the establishment of cities, and as a door-warden of the afterlife, which was co-ruled during the winter months by her daughter Proserpina, queen-companion to [[Dis Pater|Dis]].<ref>In Festus, the ''mundus'' is an entrance to the underworld realm of [[Orcus]], broadly equivalent to Dis Pater and Greek [[Pluto (mythology)|Pluto]]. For more on Ceres as a [[liminal deity]], her earthly precedence over the underworld and the ''mundus'', see Spaeth, 1996, pp. 5, 18, 31, 63-5. For further connection between the ''mundus'', the penates, and agricultural and underworld deities, see W. Warde Fowler, "Mundus Patet" in ''Journal of Roman Studies'', 2, (1912), pp. 25–33: [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/JRS/2/Mundus*.html available online at Bill Thayer's website]</ref>

===Expiations===
In Roman theology, [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigium|prodigies]] were abnormal phenomena that manifested [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ira deorum|divine anger]] at human impiety. In Roman histories, prodigies cluster around perceived or actual threats to the Roman state, in particular, famine, war and social disorder, and are expiated as matters of urgency. The establishment of Ceres' Aventine cult has itself been interpreted as an extraordinary expiation after the failure of crops and consequent famine. In Livy's history, Ceres is among the deities placated after a remarkable series of prodigies that accompanied the disasters of the [[Second Punic War]]: during the same conflict, a lightning strike at her temple was expiated. A fast in her honour is recorded for 191 BC, to be repeated at 5-year intervals.<ref>Livy, [[Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)|Ab Urbe Condita]], 36.37.4-5. Livy describes the fast as a cyclical ''ieiunium Cereris''; but see also Viet Rosenberger, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p 296; if expiatory, it may have been a once-only event.</ref> After 206, she was offered at least 11 further official expiations. Many of these were connected to famine and manifestations of plebeian unrest, rather than war. From the Middle Republic onwards, expiation was increasingly addressed to her as mother to Proserpina. The last known followed [[Great Fire of Rome|Rome's Great Fire of 64 AD]].<ref>Spaeth, 1996, pp. 14–15, 65–7(?).</ref> The cause or causes of the fire remained uncertain, but its disastrous extent was taken as a sign of offense against [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], [[Vulcan (mythology)|Vulcan]], and Ceres-with-Proserpina, who were all given expiatory cult. Champlin (2003) perceives the expiations to Vulcan and Ceres in particular as attempted populist appeals by the ruling emperor, [[Nero]].<ref>For the circumstances of this expiation, and debate over the site of the Cerean expiation, see Edward Champlin, ''Nero'', Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. 191–4: this expiation is usually said to be at the Aventine Temple. Champlin prefers the mundus (at or very near the [[Comitia]]). [https://books.google.com/books?id=30Wa-l9B5IoC&dq=Ceres+expiation+64&pg=PA192 Google-books preview]</ref>