Condition: New, Made in Greece. Material: Pure Bronze Height: 18 cm - 7,1 inches Width: 11 cm - 4,3 inches Length: 8 cm - 3,1 inches Weight: 1780 g Demeter, in Greek religion, daughter of the deities Cronus & Rhea, sister & consort of Zeus (the king of the gods), & goddess of agriculture. Her name indicates that she is a mother. Demeter is rarely mentioned by Homer, nor is she included among the Olympian gods, but the roots of her legend are probably ancient. The legend centres on the story of her daughter Persephone, who is carried off by Hades, the god of the underworld. Demeter goes in search of Persephone and, during her journey, reveals her secret rites to the people of Eleusis, who had hospitably received her (see Eleusinian Mysteries). Her distress at her daughter’s disappearance was said to have diverted her attention from the harvest & caused a famine. in addition to Zeus, Demeter had a lover, Iasion (a Cretan), to whom she bore Plutus (Wealth; i.e., abundant produce of the soil). Demeter appeared most commonly as a grain goddess. The name Ioulo (from ioulos, “grain sheaf”) has been regarded as identifying her with the sheaf & as proving that the cult of Demeter originated in the worship of the grain mother. The influence of Demeter, however, was not limited to grain but extended to vegetation generally & to all the fruits of the earth, except the bean (the latter being the province of the hero Cyamites). in that wider sense Demeter was akin to Gaea (Earth), with whom she had several epithets in common, & was sometimes identified with the Great Mother of the Gods (Cybele, also identified with Rhea). Another important aspect of Demeter was that of a divinity of the underworld; she was worshiped as such at Sparta, & especially at the festival of Chthonia at Hermione in Argolis, where a cow was sacrificed by four old women. The epithets Erinys (“Avenger”) & Melaina (“the Black One”) as applied to Demeter were localized in Arcadia & stress the darker side of her character. Demeter also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, & marriage. A certain number of political & ethnic titles were assigned to her, the most important being Amphiktyonis, as patron goddess of the Amphictyonic League, subsequently well known in connection with the temple at Delphi. Among the agrarian festivals held in honour of Demeter were the following: Haloa, apparently derived from halōs (“threshing floor”), begun at Athens & finished at Eleusis, where there was a threshing floor of Triptolemus, her first priest & inventor of agriculture; it was held in the month Poseideon (December). Chloia, the festival of the grain beginning to sprout, held at Eleusis in the early spring (Anthesterion) in honour of Demeter Chloë (“the Green”), the goddess of growing vegetation. This festival is to be distinguished from the later sacrifice of a ram to the same goddess on the sixth of the month Thargelion, probably intended as an act of propitiation. Proerosia, at which prayers
