James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)

Hymn to Demeter , 47-50, 191-211, 292-295, with the notes of Messrs. Allen and Sikes in their edition of the Homeric Hymns (London, 1904). As to representations of the candidates for initiation seated on stools draped with sheepskins, see L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States , iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 237 sqq. , with plate xv a . On a well-known marble vase there figured the stool is covered with a lion's skin and one of the candidate's feet rests on a ram's skull or horns; but in two other examples of the same scene the ram's fleece is placed on the seat (Farnell, op. cit. p. 240 note a), just as it is said to have been placed on Demeter's stool in the Homeric hymn. As to the form of communion in the Eleusinian mysteries, see Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. 21, p. 18 ed. Potter; Arnobius, Adversus nationes , v. 26; L. R. Farnell, op. cit. iii. 185 sq. , 195 sq. For discussions of the ancient evidence bearing on the Eleusinian mysteries it may suffice to refer to Chr. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 3 sqq. ; G. F. Schoemann, Griechische Alterthümer , 4ii. 387 sqq. ; Aug. Mommsen, Heortologie (Leipsic, 1864), pp. 222 sqq. ; id. , Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 204 sqq. ; P. Foucart, Recherches sur l'Origine et la Nature des Mystères d'Eleusis (Paris, 1895) ( Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions , xxxv.); id. , Les grands Mystères d'Eleusis (Paris, 1900) ( Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions , xxxvii.); F. Lenormant and E. Pottier, s. v. “Eleusinia,” in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines , ii. 544 sqq. ; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States , iii. 126 sqq.

Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium , v. 8, p. 162, ed. L. Duncker et F. G. Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859). The word which the poet uses to express the revelation (δεῖξε, Hymn to Demeter , verse 474) is a technical one in the mysteries; the full phrase was δεικνύναι τὰ ἱερά. See Plutarch, Alcibiades , 22; Xenophon, Hellenica , vi. 3. 6; Isocrates, Panegyricus , 6; Lysias, Contra Andocidem , 51; Chr. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus , p. 51.

Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 12, p. 12 ed. Potter: Δηὼ δὲ καὶ Κόρη δρᾶμα ἤδη ἐγενέσθην μυστικόν; καὶ τὴν πλάνην καὶ τὴν ἀρπαγὴν καὶ τὸ πένθος αὐταῖν Ἐλευσὶς δᾳδουχεῖ. Compare F. Lenormant, s. v. “Eleusinia,” in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines iii. 578: “ Que le drame mystique des aventures de Déméter et de Coré constituât le spectacle essentiel de l'initiation, c'est ce dont il nous semble impossible de douter .” A similar view is expressed by G. F. Schoemann ( Griechische Alterthümer ,4 ii. 402); Preller-Robert ( Griechische Mythologie , i. 793); P. Foucart ( Recherches sur l'Origine et la Nature des Mystères d'Eleusis , Paris, 1895, pp. 43 sqq. ; id. , Les Grands Mystères d'Eleusis , Paris, 1900, p. 137); E. Rohde ( Psyche ,3 i. 289); and L. R. Farnell ( The Cults of the Greek States , iii. 134, 173 sqq. ).

On Demeter and Proserpine as goddesses of the corn, see L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone (Hamburg, 1837), pp. 315 sqq. ; and especially W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (Strasburg, 1884), pp. 202 sqq.

According to the author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (verses 398 sqq. , 445 sqq. ) and Apollodorus ( Bibliotheca , i. 5. 3) the time which Persephone had to spend under ground was one third of the year; according to Ovid ( Fasti , iv. 613 sq. ; Metamorphoses , v. 564 sqq. ) and Hyginus ( Fabulae , 146) it was one half.

This view of the myth of Persephone is, for example, accepted and clearly stated by L. Preller ( Demeter und Persephone , pp. 128 sq. ).

See, for example, Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum , 17. 3: “ Frugum substantiam volunt Proserpinam dicere, quia fruges hominibus cum seri coeperint prosunt. Terram ipsam Cererem nominant, nomen hoc a gerendis fructibus mutuati ”; L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone , p. 128, “ Der Erdboden wird Demeter, die Vegetation Persephone .” François Lenormant, again, held that Demeter was originally a personification of the earth regarded as divine, but he admitted that from the time of the Homeric poems downwards she was sharply distinguished from Ge, the earth-goddess proper. See Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines , s. v. “Ceres,” ii. 1022 sq. Some light might be thrown on the question whether Demeter was an Earth Goddess or a Corn Goddess, if we could be sure of the etymology of her name, which has been variously explained as “Earth Mother” (Δῆ μήτηρ equivalent to Γῆ μήτηρ) and as “Barley Mother” (from an alleged Cretan word δηαί “barley”: see Etymologicum Magnum , s. v. Δηώ, pp. 263 sq. ). The former etymology has been the most popular; the latter is maintained by W. Mannhardt. See L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone , pp. 317, 366 sqq. ; F. G. Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre , i. 385 sqq. ; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie , i. 747 note 6; Kern, in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft , iv. 2713; W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen , pp. 281 sqq. But my learned friend the Rev. Professor J. H. Moulton informs me that both etymologies are open to serious philological objections, and that no satisfactory derivation of the first syllable of Demeter's name has yet been proposed. Accordingly I prefer to base no argument on an analysis of the name, and to rest my interpretation of the goddess entirely on her myth, ritual, and representations in art. Etymology is at the best a very slippery ground on which to rear mythological theories.

Hymn to Demeter , 8 sqq.

Hymn to Demeter , 279, 302.

Homer, Iliad , v. 499-504.

Iliad , xiii. 322, xxi. 76.

Hesiod, Works and Days , 31 sq.

Quoted by Plutarch, Isis et Osiris , 66.

Pausanias, i. 22. 3 with my note; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum , 2No. 615; J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae , Fasciculus I. (Leipsic, 1896) p. 49; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium , 28; Scholiast on Sophocles, Oedipus Colon. 1600; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States , iii. 312 sq.

Herodotus, i. 193, iv. 198; Xenophon, Hellenica , vi. 3. 6; Aelian, Historia Animalium , xvii. 16; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium , 28; Geoponica , i. 12. 36; Paroemiographi Graeci , ed. Leutsch et Schneidewin, Appendix iv. 20 (vol. i. p. 439).