Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

=== 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>