Editing Demeter (section)

===As an agricultural goddess===
[[File:Eleusinian hydria Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.46 n2.jpg|thumb|left|320px|Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling [[Metaneira]], who offers the [[wikt:triune|triune]] wheat ({{circa|340 {{small|BC}}}})]]

In epic poetry and [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'', Demeter is the Grain-Mother, the goddess of cereals who provides grain for bread and blesses its harvesters. In [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'', the light-haired Demeter with the help of the wind separates the grain from the chaff.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+5.499&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134|title=Homer, Iliad, Book 5, line 493|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> Homer mentions the [[Thalysia]] a Greek harvest-festival of first fruits in honour of Demeter .<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+9.534&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134 Iliad 9.534]</ref> In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic [[Zeus]]) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong.<ref>[[Hesiod]] ''[[Works and Days]]'', [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng1:448-478 465]</ref> This was her main function at [[Eleusis]], and she became panhellenic. In [[Cyprus]], "grain-harvesting" was ''damatrizein''. Demeter was the ''zeidoros arοura'', the Homeric "Mother Earth [[arura|arοura]]" who gave the gift of cereals (''zeai'' or ''deai'').<ref>Nilsson, (1967), Geschichte Vol I,  461–466</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=zei/dwros|title=Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ζείδωρος|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

Most of the epithets of Demeter describe her as a goddess of grain. Her name ''Deo'' in literature<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0011,002:1120&lang=original|title=Sophocles, Antigone, line 1115|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> probably relates her with ''deai'' a Cretan word for cereals. In [[Attica]] she was called [[Haloa]]s (of the threshing floor) according to the earliest conception of Demeter as the Corn-Mother. She was sometimes called ''Chloe'' (ripe-grain or fresh-green) and sometimes ''Ioulo'' (ioulos : grain sheaf). ''Chloe'' was the goddess of young corn and young vegetation and "Iouloi" were harvest songs in honour of the goddess. The reapers called Demeter ''Amallophoros'' (bringer of sheaves) and ''Amaia'' (reaper). The goddess was the giver of abundance of food and she was known as ''Sito'' (of the grain) and ''Himalis'' (of abundance ).<ref name=Stalmith116>Stalmith in GRBS48 (2008), 116-117</ref> The bread from the first harvest-fruits was called ''thalysian bread'' ([[Thalysia]]) in honour of Demeter.<ref>Nilsson, (1967), Geschichte Vol I, 468</ref> The sacrificial cakes burned on the altar were called "ompniai" and in Attica the goddess was known as ''Ompnia'' (related to corns). These cakes were offered to all gods.
[[File:Roman copy of the Great Eleusinian relief hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right|240px|The [[Eleusinian mysteries|Eleusinian trio]]: [[Persephone]], [[Triptolemus]] and Demeter (Roman copy dating to the Early Imperial period and hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of the [[Great Eleusinian Relief]] in the [[National Archaeological Museum, Athens]], marble bas-relief from [[Eleusis]], 440–430 BC.)]]

In some feasts big loafs (''artoi'') were offered to the goddess and in [[Boeotia]] she was known as
''Megalartos'' (of the big loaf) and ''Megalomazos'' (of the big mass, or big porridge). Her function was extended to vegetation generally and to all fruits and she had the epithets ''eukarpos'' (of good crop), ''karpophoros'' (bringer of fruits), ''malophoros'' (apple bearer) and sometimes ''Oria'' (all the fruits of the season). These epithets show an identity in nature with the earth goddess.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.56574|title=Cults Of The Greek States Vol.3|first=Lewis Richard|last=Farnell|date=20 May 1907|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>Nilsson(1967) Geschichte Vol I, 412, 467–478</ref><ref name=Stalmith116/><ref name= Cole201>Cole(1994) in Placing the gods 201–202</ref>

The central theme in the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]] was the reunion of [[Persephone]] with her mother, Demeter when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity.

According to the Athenian [[rhetorician]] [[Isocrates]], Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture which gave to men a civilized way of life, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.<ref>[[Isocrates]], ''Panegyricus'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Isoc.+4+27 4.28]: "When Demeter came to our land, in her wandering after the rape of Kore, and, being moved to kindness towards our ancestors by services which may not be told save to her initiates, gave these two gifts, the greatest in the world – the fruits of the earth, which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite, which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity".</ref>

These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. Demeter is the giver of mystic rites and the giver of the civilized way of life (teaching the laws of agriculture). Her epithet ''Eleusinia'' relates her with the Eleusinian mysteries, however at [[Sparta]] ''Eleusinia'' had an early use, and it was probably a name rather than an epithet.<ref>Robertson in GRBS37(1996), pp. 351, 377–378</ref> Demeter ''Thesmophoros'' (law-giving) is closely associated to the laws of cereal agriculture. The festival [[Thesmophoria]] was celebrated throughout Greece and was connected to a form of agrarian magic.<ref>Burkert(1985), 244</ref> Her epithet {{ill|Damia (Greek mythology)|ca|Dàmia (mitologia)|lt=Damia}} (as paired with [[Auxesia (Greek mythology)|Auxesia]] for Persephone) was the center of the festival called the ''[[Lithobolia (festival)|Lithobolia]]''. Near [[Pheneus]] in Arcadia she was known as Demeter-''Thesmia'' (lawfull), and she received rites according to the local version.<ref>Stalmith in GRBS48 (2008), 127</ref>

Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.