Editing Ceres (mythology) (section)

=== 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]]