| Names: | Demeter; Lat. Ceres. |
| Epithets: | Blond-haired; Chloe (Blooming); Holy Lady; Antaia Meter
(Angry Mother).
With daughter Persephone, worshipped as the Two Goddesses. |
| Powers: | Crops; fertile fields; bread and cereals. |
| Attributes and symbols: | Ear of wheat; torches; sow; horse; chariot of winged snakes. Ritual drink kykeon. |
| Gifts to mortals: | Agriculture; Eleusinian Mysteries; women's festivals: Thesmophoria; Haloa. |
| Origin: | Daughter Cronus & Rhea (vomited by Cronus). |
| Loves: | Zeus; Poseidon; Jasion (on thrice-ploughed field). |
| Spouse: | --- |
| Children: | Persephone (from Zeus); Ploutos (from Jasion); Arion (horse: from Poseidon); mystical child of Eleusinian rites. She is the nurse of the baby Demophon of Eleusis. |
| Chosen people/ places: | Eleusis: the place of the Great Mysteries; Sicily. |
| Pageant: | Women (festivals of Thesmophoria; Haloa); Iambe/ Baubo (ritual
obscenity);
Eleusinian procession and the mystic agenda - telete. |
| Allies/ favorites: | Hecate (helps to search for her lost daughter); Iambe/ Baubo
(makes the grieving
mother laugh); Eubuleus (mystical swineherd: leads the way to the Underworld in search for Persephone); Triptolemus (charged by the goddess to propagate agriculture); the baby Demophon. |
| Adversaries: | Zeus (gave up Persephone); Hades (abducted Persephone); Ascalabus; Erysichton. |
| Victims: | Ascalabus (turned into a lizard for laughing at the goddess);
Erysichton (ate himself);
in some sources, the baby Demophon (burned in the stove). |
| Notes: | Controls food and hunger. She absent-mindedly ate the shoulder of Pelops, cooked and served for dinner to the gods by his father Tantalus (who later was punished by eternal thirst and hunger in Hades). |