Zeus agreed and proposed Persephone as a good choice. He had decided that he needed a wife to keep him company in his realm. His brother Hades was the god of the underworld and rarely visited Olympus or the world of the living. What Persephone did not know was that her father and king, Zeus, was making very different plans for her future. As a maiden she spent most of her time by Demeter’s side, looking after vegetation. Persephone, like her mother, was a goddess of agriculture. The mother and daughter shared a unique bond that formed the basis for one of the most memorable stories in Greek mythology. In fact, the end of Demeter’s name contains the same root as “mother,” further evidence that she was closely linked to the earth and fertility before the Greeks codified their mythology.īut of all the goddesses, Demeter was linked to none as closely as she was to Persephone. But without grain, the humans and animals that were Gaia’s children would starve. Without the fertile earth, Demeter’s grains would not grow. Some stories said that Gaia was the mother of all things except cereal grains, which were the creation of Demeter. In fact, at least one ancient writer suggested that Demeter was not Zeus’s sister at all, but rather a renamed Rhea.ĭemeter and Gaia worked particularly closely. In her role as a goddess of agriculture, she was closely allied with other goddesses of the earth and fertility.
Because of their reliance on the grains she oversaw, Demeter was one of the most widely venerated deities in the Greek pantheon. She looked after grains and vegetables, ensuring good growth and a bountiful harvest.īread was the staple food in the diet of most Greeks, so Demeter’s role was an important one for their survival. Philomelus was a minor god of plowing while Plutus was the god of agricultural wealth.ĭemeter’s primary role was as a goddess of agriculture. He struck Iasion dead with a thunderbolt for daring to touch a goddess.Īlthough he and Poseidon had many affairs with mortal women, such a thing was, to him, inappropriate when a goddess was involved.ĭemeter had two sons from her affair with the human.
Zeus immediately knew what had happened when he saw the dirt on his sister’s back. According to legend, she lured him away from a wedding feast and they made love in a freshly plowed field. Despoina was a goddess of the mystery cults, while her brother Arion was born as an immortal horse.ĭemeter also had one mortal love, Iasion. She attempted to hide by turning into a mare and mingling with a herd of horses, but her brother took the form of a stallion and caught her easily. Later in her life, she was pursued by Poseidon. Demeter never married, although she did give birth to a few more children. Zeus, however, went on to marry their sister Hera. They had one daughter together, Persephone. Her earliest relationship, as described by both Homer and Hesiod, was with her brother Zeus. The three brothers were joined by their sisters – Demeter, Hera, and Hestia. When they won the Titanomachy, the younger generation of gods established their new seat of power on Olympus. With their allies, they spent ten years battling to unseat their father. Zeus’s brothers, Hades and Poseidon, joined him in the fight. With the help of a sympathetic young Titaness, he tricked his father into swallowing a drink that made him regurgitate the children he had swallowed whole.
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When Zeus was grown and returned to challenge his father as was foretold, his first task was to free his siblings. His mother hid him away and tricked Chronus into swallowing a rock instead.
Zeus, the last of Rhea’s children, avoided this fate however. The ruler of the Titans had been warned that one of his children would someday rise up to take his throne, so he ate his newborn sons and daughters to avoid losing power. So how was a goddess of grain also a goddess of the cycle of death? Keep reading to find out all about Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture! The Family of Demeterĭemeter was one of the five children of Chronus and Rhea who were swallowed by their father. The legend ties growth and vegetation together with the underworld in an endless cycle of death and new growth. This is apparent in Demeter’s most famous story, her search for her missing daughter, Persephone. The life-sustaining goddess was also associated with death and the underworld. That might seem like a highly specific job for an Olympian, but in a culture where people lived mostly on bread the goddess of grain was one of their most important deities.ĭemeter was more than just the giver of a good harvest, though. Demeter was the Greek goddess of agriculture, specifically of cereal grains.
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