Demeter
Demeter,the Greek goddess of corn, identified in Italy with Ceres. The second part of her name means ‘mother’, and dē (or da) was thought to mean ‘earth’ in antiquity, but the Greeks had a separate goddess of the Earth, and Demeter came later in the pantheon, as granddaughter of Ge (Gaia) and sister of Zeus. An alternative modern theory connects dē with dēai, the Cretan word for ‘barley’ (cf. xeia, ‘spelt’), but this is linguistically doubtful. She is, however, certainly the goddess who controls all crops and vegetation, and so the sustainer of life for men and animals. In early epic corn is called ‘Demeter's grain’ (dēmēteros aktē), and in a Homeric simile ‘blonde Demeter’ herself winnows grain from chaff (Iliad 5.500 f.). Her daughter by Zeus, Persephone (Attic Pherrephatta), was called simply Korē, ‘the Girl’, and the...
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