TYPE: Mother Goddess
ORIGIN: Roman
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Circa 400 BCE to CE 400
SYNONYMS: Demeter (Greek)
CENTER(S) OF CULT: Throughout Roman world
ART REFERENCES: Sculptures and reliefs
LITERARY SOURCES: Aeneid (Virgil), etc.
SYMBOL: Sickle, torches, wheat sheaf, crown of wheat stalks, cornucopia with fruits, cereals, poppy
FESTIVALS: Cerealia, Ambarvalia
PARENTS: Saturn and Ops
SIBLINGS: Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Vesta, Pluto
CHILDREN: Liber/Bacchus, Libera/Proserpina
INFORMATION: Ceres is arguably the most recent model of the "great mother" whose predecessors include, Inanna, Istar, Artemis, Kybele and Demeter on whom she is directly modeled. She is the daughter of Kronos (Cronus) and Rhea and one of the more important consorts of Jupiter. Her daughter in the upper world, Kore, is the goddess of the underworld Proserpina who was abducted by Pluto. She became foster-mother to Triptolemus, an ill-fated king in the mold of the Mesopotamian Dumuzi, depicted in the classical Greek Eleusinian Mysteries. As the embodiment of vegetation, Ceres neglects the natural world during the period that her daughter remains below ground with Pluto (Winter), but restores nature annually when Proserpina is returned to her.
Ceres was worshiped through the festivals of Thesmophoria and Cerealia in sanctuaries throught the Greco-Roman empires.