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Greek vs Roman

Demeter vs Ceres: how do they differ?

Short answer: Ceres is the Roman goddess matched with the Greek Demeter, and both are goddesses of grain and the harvest. The Greek source that tells her story, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, is about a mother, her lost daughter Persephone and the founding of a mystery cult at Eleusis. The Roman sources describe Ceres as the founder of ploughing and law, and show her temple at Rome as a place where the plebeians' officials kept their records.

At a glance

Demeter (Greek)Ceres (Roman)
Main storyHer daughter Persephone is taken by Hades, and Demeter withholds the grain until she is returned (Homeric Hymn to Demeter)First to plough the earth, grow crops and give laws (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.341–345)
CultFounds her rites at Eleusis and teaches them to its leaders (Hymn 256–274, 470–482)A temple where decrees of the senate were delivered to the plebeian aediles (Livy 3.55.13)
Main sources used hereHesiod, Homeric HymnOvid, Livy

Demeter in the Greek sources

Hesiod lists Demeter among the children of Rhea and Cronus and says Zeus came to her bed and she bore Persephone, whom Aidoneus (Hades) carried off from her mother, though wise Zeus gave her to him (Theogony 453–454, 912–914).

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter gives the full story. Persephone is gathering flowers when the earth opens and Hades seizes her on his chariot, with the consent of Zeus (Hymn 1–32). Demeter searches for nine days with flaming torches and learns from Helios that Zeus gave her daughter to Hades (Hymn 40–87). She comes to Eleusis disguised as an old woman, and when she reveals herself she tells the people to build her a great temple and an altar and promises to teach them her rites (Hymn 256–274).

In her grief she makes a cruel year for mankind: the ground will not make the seed sprout, and she would have destroyed the whole human race by famine, depriving the gods of their sacrifices, had Zeus not sent Iris to call her (Hymn 301–320). Hades gives Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat before she leaves; because she has tasted food in the underworld, she must spend a third of each year below and two thirds above (Hymn 370–404, 441–459). Once reunited, Demeter makes the earth bear fruit again and teaches her mysteries to Triptolemus, Diocles, Eumolpus and Celeus. The poem calls anyone who has seen these mysteries fortunate, and says the uninitiated has no such lot after death (Hymn 470–482).

Ceres in the Roman sources

Ovid begins his account of Ceres by saying she was the first to break the earth with the plough, the first to make grain and crops grow, and the first to give laws (Metamorphoses 5.341–345). In the Fasti he introduces the games of Ceres by explaining her gift: before grain, early people ate only green herbs that the earth gave unprompted (Fasti 4.393–396).

Livy ties her temple to the plebeians' institutions. In his account of the consuls' laws after the fall of the decemvirs, a statute decrees that anyone who harms the tribunes of the plebs, the aediles or the judges forfeits his head to Jupiter and that his property is sold at the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera (Livy 3.55.7). The same consuls order that the decrees of the senate be delivered to the plebeian aediles at the temple of Ceres, because until then they had been suppressed or falsified at the consuls' pleasure (Livy 3.55.13).

What the difference means

The Greek Hymn centres on a mother's grief and a cult that promises something after death. The Roman passages centre on agriculture as a gift to civilisation and on a temple that served the plebeians' officials. Both goddesses are connected with grain, so the match is natural, but the sources emphasise different things. For the profile see Demeter / Ceres, and for her daughter see Persephone / Proserpina.

Sources

More: all Greek and Roman god names compared, Roman festivals (the Cerealia).