Demeter was one of the twelve Olympian gods believed by the ancient Greeks to rule over the cosmos. She was the sister of Zeus and patron goddess of agriculture. She was commonly depicted wearing a veil and carrying a torch or sheaves of wheat. One of her major centers of worship was at Eleusis, where the Eleusinian Mysteries were conducted in connection with her daughter Persephone. Only the initiates of the cult knew the secret Elusinian rites, but they were related to the cycle of life and rebirth, the origins of which came from the stories of Demeter’s search for her daughter.
1. Birth and Gigantomachy
Demeter, known as Ceres among the Romans, was born to the Titan gods Cronus and Rhea. Along with four of her siblings, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, and Hestia, Cronus swallowed Demeter as soon as she was born for fear of a prophecy that foretold one of his children would overthrow him as he had done to his own father. Only Zeus was spared being eaten, and he eventually returned to free his siblings.
Demeter and the others then followed Zeus in a war against the Titans, and later the Giants, for supremacy of the cosmos. The wars lasted for over a decade, and by the end, the Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus and the Giants were defeated. Demeter was portrayed fighting the Giants in vase paintings, where she was depicted wielding a spear and torch or a sword. This was undoubtedly the golden sword described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which gave her the epithet “Lady of the Golden Sword.”
2. Abduction of Persephone
The abduction of Demeter’s daughter Persephone by Hades is the inciting incident for most of Demeter’s other myths, best recounted in the Homeric Hymn 2 To Demeter. Demeter heard her daughter’s cries from the heavens and rushed to her rescue, but she couldn’t find her anywhere. Distraught at the disappearance of her daughter, Demeter asked the gods if anyone had seen what happened to her. Only Helios saw what happened. When the goddess came to him to ask who had stolen her daughter, he revealed that it was none other than the lord of the underworld, Hades, who had received permission from Zeus to take Persephone as a wife.
Helios tried to comfort Demeter, telling her that Hades is not so bad a choice of husband considering that he is her own brother and ruler of a third of the cosmos. But Demeter’s grief was too much to bear. Angered with Zeus, Demeter shunned the gods and Olympus, sending herself into exile on earth in the disguise of an old woman.
As a result of her grief, the world became dark and the soil no longer produced food. A great famine threatened the survival of humanity, so Zeus intervened. He sent many gods to persuade her to return to Olympus and allow plants to grow again, but Demeter refused them all, vowing only to return when she had seen her daughter with her own eyes.
Zeus then sent Hermes down to the Underworld to convince Hades to release Persephone. He agreed, but not before covertly making her eat some pomegranate seeds. When Persephone was brought back to her mother, Demeter sensed that something was wrong. She asked her daughter if she had eaten anything while in the Underworld, because if she had, she would be bound to that place for a third of the year. Persephone admitted that she had, and mother and daughter shared a moment of grief over her fate.
3. Rape by Poseidon
While Demeter wandered in search of Persephone, she was followed by a lustful Poseidon, who desired to sleep with her. In order to escape his attention, Demeter transformed herself into a horse and hid among other grazing horses in Arcadia. Her ploy worked for a time, but Poseidon discovered her, transformed himself into a stallion, and then forced himself on her.
Demeter gave birth to Arion, a winged horse, and to a daughter known only by her epithet, Despoina, “the Mistress.” Angered at her treatment, Demeter hid herself away in a cave on Mt. Elaios. None of the gods could find her, and her absence caused widespread famine. She was eventually found by Pan, who informed Zeus of her whereabouts. Zeus sent the Fates to coax her out of hiding and to return to the fold of the gods. She calmed down, but did not return to Olympus.
4. The Sirens
The Sirens were formerly the nymph handmaids of Demeter’s daughter Persephone. Demeter transformed them into their monstrous forms, though the exact reason is disputed. Some sources claim their transformation was a punishment, while others say that the sirens themselves asked to be transformed.
Roman mythographer Hyginus, in Fabulae 141, recounted that the Sirens were transformed as a punishment after Hades abducted Persephone. Demeter, furious at them for not helping her daughter, turned them into the half-woman, half-bird creatures that were encountered by Jason and the Argonauts and by Odysseus.
The 1st-century Roman poet Ovid says that their transformation was a gift, not a punishment. When Persephone was abducted, her handmaids searched throughout the land for her, but they were unsuccessful, so they prayed for wings so that they could also search across the seas. Demeter granted their wish.
5. Ascalabus
Demeter’s search brought her to Attica, where she stopped at the house of a woman named Misme. The goddess asked the woman for a drink, and Misme brought her a sweet barley-flavored drink. The thirsty goddess drank it all down in a single gulp.
Ascalabus, the son of Misme, saw this and laughed at Demeter, calling her greedy and saying that they should have brought her a deep basin or jar. Demeter was furious at the boy and threw the remnants of her drink at him. His skin became spotted and his arms became legs. A tail grew from his backside and his body shrank down until he was smaller than the tiniest lizard. In his new form as a spotted gecko, Ascalabus was said to be hated by both gods and men, and any who killed him would be cherished by Demeter.
6. Demophon
Demeter then came to Eleusis, to the house of Celeus. The house was thick with grief as their infant son, Demophon, lay sick and dying, with no hope that he would survive the night. Demeter put her lips upon the baby, and immediately, color returned to his face and strength to his limbs. Celeus and his wife Metaneira were overjoyed and threw a feast for the disguised goddess.
Wishing to make the child immortal, Demeter took Demophon and spoke three spells as she stroked his back, then buried him in the embers of a fire to purge him of his mortality. Before she could finish the rite, Metaneira interrupted her in a panic and pulled the baby from the fire.
Demeter was angered that the ritual was interrupted, but understood the mother’s impulse to protect her child despite the fact that she had now doomed him to being mortal. In a version told by Apollodorus it was the child’s nurse Praxithea who interrupted the rite, and as a result the fire consumed the child, killing him.
7. Triptolemus
Before the birth of Persephone, Demeter had discovered how to sow and cultivate fields. But upon learning what Hades had done with Zeus’ blessing, she burned all the fields to spite them. When Persephone had been found, Demeter later returned to Eleusis and taught Triptolemus how to cultivate grain. According to Hesiod, he was the brother of Demophon, though Ovid seems to have combined the two stories and made him the same child who Demeter had tried to make immortal. Demeter told Triptolemus to teach humanity how to sow seeds and cultivate the earth, and she gave him a chariot pulled by dragons so that he might travel the lands to spread her teachings.
Riding his chariot, Triptolemus flew across Europe and Asia and eventually came to Scythia. He was well-received by king Lyncus, but once Triptolemus was asleep, the king tried to stab him in the heart to steal credit for Demeter’s gift. Demeter saved Triptolemus by transforming the Scythian king into a lynx.
8. Iasion
Iasion was a Cretan prince and the son of Electra and Zeus. During the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, daughter of Ares, Demeter took a liking to Iasion and gifted him corn. They consummated their relationship in a thrice-plowed field, a number significant to Demeter’s rites, and had two children, Ploutos and Corybas.
There are various versions of the myth, some of which claim that Iasion tried to rape Demeter, so Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt. However, older versions from Hesiod and Homer relate that Demeter loved Iasion and that Zeus killed him out of jealousy. Hyginus gave another account of his death, writing that Iasion was killed not by the thunderbolt itself. The bolt struck nearby while he was riding his chariot and frightened his horses, who threw him from his perch and trampled or dragged him to his death.
9. Erysichthon
Recounted in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, Erysichthon was a Thessalian prince who violated one of Demeter’s sacred spaces. In Thessaly, there was a grove sacred to the goddess, and Erysichthon, along with some attendants, chopped down the sacred trees for a banquet. Demeter was angered and appeared to the man in the form of her own priestess, Nikippe. She asked Erysichthon why he cut down Demeter’s sacred trees and the king replied by threatening to kill her with his ax. Demeter then revealed herself as a goddess, fury evident on her face, and cursed Erysichthon with an insatiable hunger.
Erysichthon hides away in his home, making all manner of excuses so that none would know that he gorged himself on anything he could find. Yet no matter how much he ate, he only became more hungry, and his body wasted away until he was only sinew and bones. Erysichthon’s gluttony caused him to eat himself out of house and home, and he wound up on the streets begging for scraps.
Ovid takes the story even further. When Erysichthon had become destitute, the only thing left to him was his daughter, Mestra. She had the ability to shapeshift, and so he sold her, only for her to escape her master by transforming and returning to her father. He sold her repeatedly, but the earnings were not enough to sate his appetite. Overcome by Demeter’s curse, Erysichthon ate himself until there was nothing left.
