Editing Demeter (section)

==Worship==
[[File:Demeter figurine - Museo Archeologico Regionale - Agrigento - Italy 2015 (2).JPG|thumb|left|Terracotta Demeter figurine, Sanctuary of the Underworld Divinities, Akragas, 550–500 BC]]

===In Crete===
In an older tradition in Crete the vegetation cult was related with the deity of the cave.<ref>Dietrich [https://books.google.com/books?id=TZVsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA169 p. 169].</ref> During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cults. In the Linear B inscriptions ''po-ti-ni-ja'' (potnia) refers to the goddess of nature who was concerned with birth and vegetation and had certain chthonic apects. Some scholars believe that she was the universal mother goddess.<ref name="Dietriech181">Dietrich, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TZVsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 pp. 181–185].</ref> A Linear B inscription at Knossos mentions the potnia of the labyrinth ''da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja''. Poseidon was often given the title ''wa-na-ka'' (''[[wanax]]'') in Linear B inscriptions in his role as King of the Underworld, and his title ''E-ne-si-da-o-ne'' indicates his chthonic nature. He was the male companion (paredros) of the goddess in the Minoan and probably Mycenean cult.<ref name="Dietriech181"/> In the cave of [[Amnisos]], ''Enesidaon'' is associated with the cult of [[Eileithyia]], the goddess of childbirth, who was involved with the annual birth of the divine child.<ref>Dietrich, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TZVsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA141 p. 141].</ref> Elements of this early form of worship survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "the mighty Potnia had born a strong son."

===On the Greek mainland===
[[File:Marble Statue of Demeter.jpg|thumb|[[Demeter of Knidos]], [[Hellenistic]] marble sculpture, around 350 BC]]
Tablets from Pylos of {{circa|1400|1200}} BC record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King":''wa-na-ssoi'', ''wa-na-ka-te''). The "Two Queens" may be related to Demeter and Persephone or their precursors, goddesses who were no longer associated with Poseidon in later periods.<ref name="Mylonas159"/> In Pylos ''potnia'' (mistress) is the major goddess of the city and "wanax " in the tablets has a similar nature with her male consort in the Minoan cult.<ref name="Dietriech181"/> Potnia retained some chthonic cults, and in popular religion these were related to the goddess Demeter. In Greek religion ''potniai''(mistresses) appear in plural (like the Erinyes) and are closely related to the Eleusinian Demeter.<ref>Dietrich, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TZVsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA189 pp. 189-190].</ref>

Major [[cult (religion)|cults]] to Demeter are known at Eleusis in Attica, Hermion (in Crete), [[Megara]], Celeae, [[Lerna]], [[Aegila]], [[Munychia]], [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]], [[Delos]], [[Priene]], [[Agrigento|Akragas]], [[Iasos]], [[Pergamon]], [[Selinus]], [[Tegea]], [[Thoricus]], Dion (in Macedonia)<ref>Cohen, A, Art in the Era of Alexander the Great: Paradigms of Manhood and Their Cultural Traditions, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 213. [https://books.google.com/books?id=nX8F_ZV83vUC&pg=PA213 Google book preview]</ref> [[Lycosura|Lykosoura]], [[Mesembria (Zone)|Mesembria]], [[Enna]], and [[Samothrace]].

Probably the earliest [[Amphictyony]] centred on the cult of Demeter at [[Anthele]] (Ἀνθήλη), lay on the coast of [[Malis (region)|Malis]] south of Thessaly, near Thermopylae.<ref>L. H. Jeffery (1976) ''Archaic Greece: The City States c. 700–500 BC''. Ernest Benn Ltd., London & Tonbridge pp. 72, 73, 78 {{ISBN|0-510-03271-0}}</ref><ref>The Parian marble. Entry No 5: "When [[Amphictyon]] son of [[Hellen]] became king of Thermopylae brought together those living round the temple and named them ''Amphictyones''; [http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/faqs/q004/q004008.html]</ref>

Mysian Demeter had a seven-day festival at Pellené in Arcadia. The geographer [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] passed the shrine to Mysian Demeter on the road from Mycenae to [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]] and reports that according to Argive tradition, the shrine was founded by an Argive named [[Mysius]] who venerated Demeter.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:7.27.9 7.27.9].</ref>[[File:Whitehead Coins of the Punjab Museum Plate XI Azes Demeter and Hermes.jpg|thumb|center|[[Azes]] coin in [[India]], with Demeter and [[Hermes]], 1st century BC]]
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===="Saint Demetra"<span class="anchor" id="Saint Demetra"></span>====
[[File:Saint Demetra.jpg|thumb|180px|The statue of Saint Demetra, [[Fitzwilliam Museum]]]]

Even after [[Theodosius I]] issued the [[Edict of Thessalonica]] and banned [[paganism]] throughout the [[Roman Empire]], people throughout [[Greece]] continued to pray to Demeter as "Saint Demetra", [[patron saint]] of [[agriculture]].<ref name="Keller-1988">{{Cite journal |last=Keller |first=Mara Lynn |date=1988 |title=The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone: Fertility, Sexuality, and Rebirth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25002068 |journal=Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=27–54 |jstor=25002068 |issn=8755-4178}}</ref> Around 1765–1766, the antiquary [[Richard Chandler (antiquary)|Richard Chandler]], alongside the architect [[Nicholas Revett]] and the painter [[William Pars]], visited Eleusis and mentioned a [[Caryatids of Eleusis|statue of a caryatid]] as well as the [[folklore]] that surrounded it, they stated that it was considered sacred by the locals because it protected their crops. They called the statue "Saint Demetra", a saint whose story had many similarities to the myth of Demeter and Persephone, except that her daughter had been abducted by the [[Ottoman Empire|Turks]] and not by [[Hades]].<ref name="Cosmopoulos-2015">{{Cite book |last=Cosmopoulos |first=Michael B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BPkKCgAAQBAJ&dq=Saint+Demetra+of+Eleusis&pg=PA35 |title=Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-36823-7 |pages=35 |language=en |author-link=Michael Cosmopoulos}}</ref> The locals covered the statue with flowers to ensure the fertility of their fields.<ref name="Sharma-2005">{{Cite book |last=Sharma |first=Arvind |author-link=Arvind Sharma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k6YrsMcVqS4C&pg=PA47 |title=Goddesses And Women In The Indic Religious Tradition |date=2005 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-12466-0 |pages=47 |language=en}}</ref> This tradition continued until 1865,<ref name="Keller-1988" /> when the statue was forcibly removed by [[Edward Daniel Clarke]] and donated to the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref name="Cosmopoulos-2015" /><ref name="Sharma-2005" /> The statue is now located in the [[Fitzwilliam Museum]], the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/65755|title=Upper part of a caryatid: GR.1.1865|website=[[Fitzwilliam Museum|The Fitzwilliam Museum]]|publisher=[[University of Cambridge|The University of Cambridge]]|access-date=23 September 2024}}</ref>

===Festivals===
{{Main|Eleusinian Mysteries|Thesmophoria}}
Demeter's two major festivals were [[sacred mysteries]]. Her [[Thesmophoria]] festival (11–13 October) was women-only.<ref>Benko, Stephen, ''The virgin goddess: studies in the pagan and Christian roots of mariology,'' BRILL, 2004, note 111 on pp. 63 – 4, and p. 175.</ref> Her Eleusinian mysteries were open to initiates of any gender or social class. At the heart of both festivals were myths concerning Demeter as the mother and Persephone as her daughter.

===Conflation with other goddesses===
[[File:Kykladitisses exhibition in the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens Greece 175.jpg|thumb|240px|Terracotta plaque relief of Demeter in profile wearing ears of corn, 1st century BC–AD, Archaeological Museum of [[Amorgos]], Greece.]]

In the Roman period, Demeter became conflated with the Roman agricultural goddess [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] through [[Interpretatio graeca#Interpretatio romana|interpretatio romana]].<ref>''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', [[The Book People]], Haydock, 1995, p. 215.</ref> The worship of Demeter has formally merged with that of Ceres around 205 BC, along with the ''[[Ceres (mythology)#Middle Republic|ritus graecia cereris]]'', a Greek-inspired form of cult, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards the end of the [[Second Punic War]]. The cult originated in southern Italy (part of [[Magna Graecia]]) and was probably based on the Thesmophoria, a mystery cult dedicated to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who 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".<ref>[[Spaeth, Barbette Stanley]], ''The Roman goddess Ceres'', University of Texas Press, 1996, pp. 4, 6–13, citing [[Arnobius]], who mistakes this as the first Roman cult to Ceres. His belief may reflect its high profile and ubiquity during the later Imperial period and possibly the fading of older, distinctively Aventine forms of her cult.</ref> The new cult was installed in the already ancient Temple of Ceres, [[Liber]] and [[Libera (mythology)|Libera]], Rome's [[Aventine Hill|Aventine]] patrons of the [[plebs]]; 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 recognized as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Persephone.<ref>[[John Scheid|Scheid, John]], "Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods," ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', 97, Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance, 1995, p.23.</ref>

Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone after the latter's abduction into the Underworld by [[Hades]]. At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old. It did not refer to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult played a central role in plebeian culture as a patron and protector of plebeian rights, freedoms and values. The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new "[[Ritus graecus|greek style]]" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]]-dominated social hierarchy and [[mos maiorum|traditional morality]]. Unmarried girls should emulate the chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women should seek to emulate Ceres, the devoted and fruitful mother. Their rites were intended to secure a good harvest and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries.<ref>Spaeth, Barbette Stanley, ''The Roman goddess Ceres'', University of Texas Press, 1996, pp. 13, 15, 60, 94–97.</ref>

Beginning in the 5th century BCE in [[Asia Minor]], Demeter was also considered equivalent to the Phrygian goddess [[Cybele]].<ref>Eur.Hel.1301–45 and Melanippid.764PMG.</ref> Demeter's festival of Thesmophoria was popular throughout Asia Minor, and the myth of Persephone and [[Adonis]] in many ways mirrors the myth of Cybele and [[Attis]].<ref name=Persephone_asia_minor>[http://asiaminor.ehw.gr/Forms/fLemmaBody.aspx?lemmaId=10541#noteendNote_11 Kore / Persephone]. Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World: Asia Minor. http://asiaminor.ehw.gr/Forms/fLemmaBody.aspx?lemmaId=10541#noteendNote_11</ref>

Some late antique sources syncretized several "great goddess" figures into a single deity. For example, the [[Platonist]] philosopher [[Apuleius]], writing in the late 2nd century, identified Ceres (Demeter) with Isis, having her declare:
<blockquote>I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of the ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me the Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; ... the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; ... and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis.
:--[[Apuleius]], translated by E. J. Kenny. ''[[The Golden Ass]]''<ref>{{cite book|last1=Apuleius|title=The Golden Ass|date=1998|publisher=Penguin classics}}</ref></blockquote>