File:A classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography...revised.. (1894) (14596538997).jpg

Identifier: classicaldiction00ssmi (find matches)
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Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: S. Smith, William, Sir, 1813-1893
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Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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DELETER 277 Demeter (Arjurirrip), one of the great divinitiesof the Greeks, was the goddess of the corn-bearing earth and of agriculture, and of settledfamily life. Formerly it was generally sup-posed that her name signified Mother-Earth(on the theory that 5rj or 5a = yij): but it isprobably truer to connect the word with Sriai,the Cretan form of fatal, barley, so that hername is really Corn-Mother. She was thedeity of agricultural people, and therefore notone of the Olympian deities of Homer, wherewe hear very little of her, save that she ispresent among winnowers, beloved by Zeus,who slays in jealousy her mortal lover Iasion(II. v. 500, xiv. 326; Od. v. 125). This is notbecause her worship in Greece was more recentthan Homer—on the contrary, she was, as willbe seen, a Pelasgian deity—but because theHomeric Achaeans were sea-men and warriors,not agriculturists, nor was Ithaca a corn-land.As might be expected, we find her fully recog-nised in Hesiod ^Oji. p. 16o). Her myth is more
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IOmeter ol Cnidua. (From a statue in the BritishMuseum.) completely developed in the beautiful HomericHymn to Demeter. She was the daughter of Cro-nus and Rhea, and sister of Zeus, by whom shebecame the mother of Persephone (Proserpina)or Cora: of this relationship Homer knowsnothing. Zeus, without the knowledge ofDemeter, had promised Persephone to Aidoneus(Pluto); and while the unsuspecting maidenwas gathering flowers, the earth suddenlyopened and she was carried off by Aidoneus.Her mother, who heard only the echo of hervoice, immediately set out in search of herdaughter. For nine days she wandered aboutwithout obtaining any tidings of her, but onthe tenth she met Hecate, and from her—or, inanother form of the story, from the all-seeingsun—she learnt the truth. Failing to obtaina id from Zeus, Demeter in her anger avoidedOlympus, and dwelt upon earth at Eleosis. Asthe goddess still continued angry, and did notallow the earth to produce any fruits, Zeusfirst sent Iris and then al

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