MENAINON in Sicily 175BC Demeter Ceres & Torches HOPE Emblem Greek Coin i39580

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Greek city of  Menainon in Sicily Bronze Tetras 17mm (3.43 grams) Struck circa 175-125 B.C. Reference: Sear 1129 var.; SNG Cop 384; SNG ANS 290-291var Veiled bust of Demeter right, wreathed with corn. MENAINΩN, Crossed torches, symbols of hope.  Founded in 459 B.C., Menainon was the subject to Syracuse for much of its history down to the time of the Roman conquest at the end of the 3rd Century.

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A veil is an article of clothing or cloth hanging that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. It is especially associated with women and sacred objects.

One view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an object or space. The actual sociocultural, psychological, and sociosexual functions of veils have not been studied extensively but most likely include the maintenance of social distance and the communication of social status and cultural identity. In Islamic society, various forms of the veil have been adopted from the Arab culture in which Islam arose. The Quran has no requirement that women cover their faces with a veil, or cover their bodies with the full-body burqua or chador .

History

The first recorded instance of veiling for women is recorded in an Assyrian legal text from the 13th century BC, which restricted its use to noble women and forbade prostitutes and common women from adopting it.[citation needed ] The Mycenaean Greek term a-pu-ko-wo-ko meaning "craftsman of horse veil" written in Linear B syllabic script is also attested since ca. 1300 BC. In ancient Greek the word for veil was "καλύπτρα" (kaluptra , Ionic Greek "καλύπτρη" - kaluptrē , from the verb "καλύπτω" - kaluptō , "I cover") and is first attested in the works of Homer .

Classical Greek and Hellenistic statues sometimes depict Greek women with both their head and face covered by a veil. Caroline Galt and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones have both argued from such representations and literary references that it was commonplace for women (at least those of higher status) in ancient Greece to cover their hair and face in public.

For many centuries, until around 1175, Anglo-Saxon and then Anglo-Norman women, with the exception of young unmarried girls, wore veils that entirely covered their hair, and often their necks up to their chins (see wimple ). Only in the Tudor period (1485), when hoods became increasingly popular, did veils of this type become less common.

For centuries, women have worn sheer veils, but only under certain circumstances. Sometimes a veil of this type was draped over and pinned to the bonnet or hat of a woman in mourning , especially at the funeral and during the subsequent period of "high mourning". They would also have been used, as an alternative to a mask, as a simple method of hiding the identity of a woman who was traveling to meet a lover, or doing anything she didn't want other people to find out about. More pragmatically, veils were also sometimes worn to protect the complexion from sun and wind damage (when un-tanned skin was fashionable), or to keep dust out of a woman's face, much as the keffiyeh is used today.

Religion

In Judaism , Christianity and Islam the concept of covering the head is or was associated with propriety and modesty. Most traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary , the mother of Christ , show her veiled. During the Middle Ages most European and Byzantine married women covered their hair rather than their face, with a variety of styles of wimple , kerchiefs and headscarfs. Veiling, covering the hair rather than the face, was a common practice with church-going women until the 1960s, typically using lace, and a number of very traditional churches retain the custom. Lace face-veils are still often worn by female relatives at funerals.

In North India, Hindu women may often veil for traditional purposes, it is often the custom in rural areas to veil in front of male elders. This veil is called the Ghoonghat or Laaj. This is to show humility and respect to those elder to the woman, in particular elder males. The ghoonghat is customary especially in the westerly states of Gujarat and Rajasthan .

Although religion stands as a commonly held reason for choosing to veil, it has also reflects on political regimes and personal conviction, allowing it to serve as a medium through which personal character can be revealed.

Praying Jewish woman wearing Tichel

Judaism

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem , the synagogues that were established took the design of the Tabernacle as their plan. The Ark of the Law , which contains the scrolls of the Torah , is covered with an embroidered curtain or veil called a parokhet . (See also below regarding the veiling – and unveiling – of the bride.)

The Veil of our Lady is a liturgical feast celebrating the protection afforded by the intercessions of the Virgin Mary.

Traditionally, in Christianity, women were enjoined to cover their heads in church, just as it was (and still is) customary for men to remove their hat as a sign of respect. This practice is based on 1 Corinthians 11:4–16 , where St. Paul writes:

Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head. But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering? But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God (New American Bible translation)

In many traditional Eastern Orthodox Churches , and in some very conservative Protestant churches as well, the custom continues of women covering their heads in church (or even when praying privately at home).

In the Roman Catholic Church , it was customary in most places before the 1960s for women to wear a headcovering in the form of a scarf, cap, veil or hat when entering a church. The practice now continues where it is seen as a matter of etiquette, courtesy, tradition or fashionable elegance rather than strictly of canon law. Traditionalist Catholics also maintain the practice.

The wearing of a headcovering was for the first time mandated as a universal rule for the Latin Rite by the Code of Canon Law of 1917 , which code was abrogated by the advent of the present (1983) Code of Canon Law. Traditionalist Catholics majorly still follow it, generally as a matter of ancient custom and biblically approved aptness, some also supposing St. Paul's directive in full force today as an ordinance of its own right, without a canon law rule enforcing it. The photograph here of Mass in the Netherlands in about 1946, two decades before the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council , shows that, even at that time, when a hat was still considered part of formal dress for both women and men, wearing a headcovering at Mass was not a universal practice for Catholic women.

A veil over the hair rather than the face forms part of the headdress of some religiouss of nuns or religious sisters; this is why a woman who becomes a nun is said "to take the veil". In medieval times married women normally covered their hair outside the house, and nun's veils are based on secular medieval styles, reflecting nuns position as "brides of Christ". In many institutes, a white veil is used as the "veil of probation" during novitiate , and a dark veil for the "veil of profession" once religious vows are taken – the color scheme varies with the color scheme of the habit of the order. A veil of consecration , longer and fuller, is used by some orders for final profession of solemn vows .

Nuns also wear veils

Nuns are the female counterparts of monks, and many monastic orders of women have retained the veil. Regarding other institutes of religious sisters who are not cloistered but who work as teachers, nurses or in other "active" apostolates outside of a nunnery or monastery, some wear the veil, while some others have abolished the use of the veil, a few never had a veil to start with, but used a bonnet-style headdress even a century ago, as in the case of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton .

The fullest versions of the nun's veil cover the top of the head and flow down around and over the shoulders. In Western Christianity, it does not wrap around the neck or face. In those orders that retain one, the starched white covering about the face neck and shoulders is known as a wimple and is a separate garment.

The Catholic Church has revived the ancient practice of allowing women to profess a solemn vow as consecrated virgins . These women are set aside as sacred persons who belong only to Christ and the service of the church. They are under the direct care of the local bishop , without belonging to a particular order and receive the veil as a sign of consecration .

There has also been renewed interest in the last half century in the ancient practice of women and men dedicating themselves as anchorites or hermits , and there is a formal process whereby such persons can seek recognition of their vows by the local bishop – a veil for these women would also be traditional.

Some Anglican women's religious orders also wear a veil, differing according to the traditions of each order.

In Eastern Orthodoxy and in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, a veil called an epanokamelavkion is used by both nuns and monks, in both cases covering completely the kamilavkion , a cylindrical hat they both wear. In Slavic practice, when the veil is worn over the hat, the entire headdress is referred to as a klobuk . Nuns wear an additional veil under the klobuk , called an apostolnik , which is drawn together to cover the neck and shoulders as well as their heads, leaving the face itself open.

Islam

A variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women and girls in accordance with hijab (the principle of dressing modestly) are sometimes referred to as veils. The principal aim of the Muslim veil is to hide that which men find sexually attractive. Many of these garments cover the hair, ears and throat, but do not cover the face. The khimar is a type of headscarf . The niqāb and burqa are two kinds of veils that cover most of the face except for a slit or hole for the eyes.

The Afghan burqa covers the entire body, obscuring the face completely, except for a grille or netting over the eyes to allow the wearer to see. The boshiya is a veil that may be worn over a headscarf; it covers the entire face and is made of a sheer fabric so the wearer is able to see through it. It has been suggested that the practice of wearing a veil  – uncommon among the Arab tribes prior to the rise of Islam  – originated in the Byzantine Empire , and then spread.

The wearing of head and especially face coverings by Muslim women has raised political issues in the West; see for example Hijab controversy in Quebec , Islamic dress controversy in Europe , Islamic scarf controversy in France , and United Kingdom debate over veils . There is also high debate of the veil in Turkey , a Muslim majority country but secular, which banned the headscarves in universities and government buildings, due to the türban (a Turkish styled headscarf) being viewed as a political symbol of Islam , see Headscarf controversy in Turkey .

Frances Perkins wearing a veil after the death of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hats

Veils pinned to hats have survived the changing fashions of the centuries and are still common today on formal occasions that require women to wear a hat. However, these veils are generally made of netting or another material not actually designed to hide the face from view, even if the veil can be pulled down.

Wedding veils

An occasion on which a Western woman is likely to wear a veil is on her white wedding day. Brides once used to wear their hair flowing down their back at their wedding to symbolise their virginity. Veils covering the hair and face became a symbolic reference to the virginity of the bride thereafter. Often in modern weddings, the ceremony of removing a face veil after the wedding to present the groom with a virgin bride is skipped, since many couples have already entered into conjugal relations prior to their wedding day – the bride either wears no face veil, or it is lifted before the ceremony begins, but this is not always the case. Further, if a bride is a virgin, she often wears the face veil through the ceremony, and then either her father lifts the veil, presenting the bride to her groom, or the groom lifts the veil to symbolically consummate the marriage, which will later become literal. Brides who are virgins may make use of the veil to symbolize and emphasize their status of purity during their wedding however, and if they do, the lifting of the veil may be ceremonially recognized as the crowning event of the wedding, when the beauty of the bride is finally revealed to the groom and the guests. It is not altogether clear that the wedding veil is a non-religious use of this item, since weddings have almost always had religious underpinnings, especially in the West. Veils, however, had been used in the West for weddings long before this. Roman brides, for instance, wore an intensely flame-colored and fulsome veil, called the flammeum , apparently intended to protect the bride from evil spirits on her wedding day. Later, the so-called velatio virginum became part of the rite of the consecration of virgins , the liturgical rite in which the church sets aside the virgin as a sacred person who belongs only to Christ.

In the 19th century, wedding veils came to symbolize the woman's virginity and modesty . The tradition of a veiled bride's face continues even today wherein, a virgin bride, especially in Christian or Jewish culture, enters the marriage ritual with a veiled face and head, and remains fully veiled, both head and face, until the ceremony concludes. After the full conclusion of the wedding ceremony, either the bride's father lifts the veil giving the bride to the groom who then kisses her, or the new groom lifts her face veil in order to kiss her, which symbolizes the groom's right to enter into conjugal relations with his bride.

The lifting of the veil was often a part of ancient wedding ritual, symbolizing the groom taking possession of the wife, either as lover or as property, or the revelation of the bride by her parents to the groom for his approval.

A bride wearing a typical wedding veil

In Judaism, the tradition of wearing a veil dates back to biblical times. According to the Torah in Genesis 24:65 , Isaac is brought Rebekah to marry by his father Abraham's servant. It is important to note that Rebekah did not veil herself when traveling with her lady attendants and Abraham's servant and his men to meet Isaac, but she only did so when Isaac was approaching. Just before the wedding ceremony the badeken or bedeken is held. The groom places the veil over the bride's face, and either he or the officiating Rabbi gives her a blessing. The veil stays on her face until just before the end of the wedding ceremony – when they are legally married according to Jewish law – then the groom helps lift the veil from off her face.

The most often cited interpretation for the badeken is that, according to Genesis 29 , when Jacob went to marry Rachel, his father in law Laban tricked him into marrying Leah, Rachel's older and homlier sister. Many say that the veiling ceremony takes place to make sure that the groom is marrying the right bride. Some say that as the groom places the veil over his bride, he makes an implicit promise to clothe and protect her. Finally, by covering her face, the groom recognizes that he his marrying the bride for her inner beauty; while looks will fade with time, his love will be everlasting. In some ultra-orthodox traditions the bride wears an opaque veil as she is escorted down the aisle to meet her groom. This shows her complete willingness to enter into the marriage and her absolute trust that she is marrying the right man. In Judaism, a wedding is not considered valid unless the bride willingly consents to it.

In ancient Judaism the lifting of the veil took place just prior to the consummation of the marriage in sexual union. The uncovering or unveiling that takes place in the wedding ceremony is a symbol of what will take place in the marriage bed. Just as the two become one through their words spoken in wedding vows, so these words are a sign of the physical oneness that they will consummate later on. The lifting of the veil is a symbol and an anticipation of this.

In the Western world , St. Paul's words concerning how marriage symbolizes the union of Christ and His Church may underlie part of the tradition of veiling in the marriage ceremony.

Dance

Veils are part of the stereotypical images of courtesans and harem women. Here, the mysterious veil hints at sensuality, an example being the dance of the seven veils. This is the context into which belly dancing veils fall, with a large repertoire of ways to wear and hold the veil, framing the body and accentuating movements. Dancing veils can be as small as a scarf or two, silk veils mounted on fans, a half circle, three-quarter circle, full circle, a rectangle up to four feet long, and as large as huge Isis wings with sticks for extensions. There is also a giant canopy type veil used by a group of dancers. Veils are made of rayon, silk, polyester, mylar and other fabrics (never wool, though). Rarely used in Egyptian cabaret style, veil dancing has always played an important part in the international world of belly dance, extending the range of the dance and offering lovely transitory imagery.

Courtesans

Conversely, veils are often part of the stereotypical image of the courtesan and harem woman. Here, rather than the virginity of the bride's veil, modesty of the Muslim scarf or the piety of the nun's headdress, the mysterious veil hints at sensuality and the unknown. An example of the veil's erotic potential is the dance of the seven veils .

In this context, the term may refer to a piece of sheer cloth approximately 3 x 1.5 metres, sometimes trimmed with sequins or coins, which is used in various styles of belly dancing . A large repertoire of ways to wear and hold the veil exists, many of which are intended to frame the body from the perspective of the audience.

Veils for men

Among the Tuareg , Songhai , Moors , Hausa . and Fulani of West Africa , women do not traditionally wear the veil, while men do. The men's facial covering originates from the belief that such action wards off evil spirits, but most probably relates to protection against the harsh desert sands as well; in any event, it is a firmly established tradition. Men begin wearing a veil at age 25 which conceals their entire face excluding their eyes. This veil is never removed, even in front of family members.

In India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , and Nepal , men wear a sehra on their wedding day. This is a male veil covering the whole face and neck. The sehra is made from either flowers, beads, tinsel, dry leaves, or coconuts. The most common sehra is made from fresh marigolds. The groom wears this throughout the day concealing his face even during the wedding ceremony. In India today you can see the groom arriving on a horse with the sehra wrapped around his head.

Etymology

"Veil" came from Latin vēlum , which also means "sail". There are two theories about the origin of the word vēlum :-

  • Via the "covering" meaning, from (Indo-European root ) *wel - = "to cover, to enclose".
  • Via the "sail" meaning, from Indo-European *weghslom , from root *wegh- = "way" or "carry in a vehicle", because it makes the ship move.

In Greek mythology , Demeter   was the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains , the fertility of the earth, the seasons (personified by the Hours ), and the harvest . One of her surnames is Sito (σίτος : wheat) as the giver of food or corn. Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage , the sacred law , and the cycle of life and death . She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the Olympian pantheon.

Her Roman cognate is Ceres .

 

 

 

 

 

In ancient Roman religion , Ceres ( Latin : Cerēs ) was a goddess of agriculture , grain crops , fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad , then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales (Ceres' games). She was also honoured in the May lustration of fields at the Ambarvalia festival, at harvest-time, and during Roman marriages and funeral rites .

Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities to be listed among the Di Consentes , Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter , whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature .

Etymology and origins

Ceres' name may derive from the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European root *ker , meaning "to grow", which is also a possible root for many English words, such as "create", "cereal", "grow", "kernel", "corn", and "increase". Roman etymologists thought "ceres" derived from the Latin verb gerere , "to bear, bring forth, produce", because the goddess was linked to pastoral , agricultural and human fertility. Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Rome's neighbours in the Regal period , including the ancient Latins , Oscans and Sabellians , less certainly among the Etruscans and Umbrians . An archaic Faliscan inscription of c.600 BC asks her to provide far (spelt wheat), which was a dietary staple of the Mediterranean world . Throughout the Roman era, Ceres' name was synonymous with grain and, by extension, with bread.

Cults and cult themes

Agricultural fertility

Ceres was credited with the discovery of spelt wheat (Latin far ), the yoking of oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and the gift of agriculture to humankind; before this, it was said, man had subsisted on acorns, and wandered without settlement or laws. She had the power to fertilise, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres was offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow, along with the earth-goddess Tellus at the movable Feriae Sementivae . This was almost certainly held before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the entrails (exta) presented in an earthenware pot (olla). In a rural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca praecidanea (a pig, offered before the sowing). Before the harvest, she was offered a propitiary grain sample (praemetium ). Ovid tells that Ceres "is content with little, provided that her offerings are casta " (pure).

Ceres' main festival, Cerealia , was held from mid to late April. It was organised by her plebeian aediles and included circus games (ludi circenses ). It opened with a horse-race in the Circus Maximus , whose starting point lay below and opposite to her Aventine Temple;[7] the turning post at the far end of the Circus was sacred to Consus , a god of grain-storage. After the race, foxes were released into the Circus, their tails ablaze with lighted torches, perhaps to cleanse the growing crops and protect them from disease and vermin, or to add warmth and vitality to their growth.[8] From c.175 BC, Cerealia included ludi scaenici (theatrical religious events), held through April 12 to 18.

Helper gods

In the ancient sacrum cereale a priest, probably the Flamen Cerialis , invoked Ceres (and probably Tellus) along with twelve specialised, minor assistant-gods to secure divine protection and assistance at each stage of the grain cycle, beginning shortly before the Feriae Sementivae. W.H. Roscher lists these deities among the indigitamenta , names used to invoke specific divine functions.

  • Vervactor , "He who ploughs"
  • Reparator , "He who prepares the earth"
  • Imporcitor , "He who ploughs with a wide furrow"
  • Insitor , "He who plants seeds"
  • Obarator , "He who traces the first plowing"
  • Occator , "He who harrows"
  • Serritor , "He who digs"
  • Subruncinator , "He who weeds"
  • Messor , "He who reaps"
  • Conuector (Convector), "He who carries the grain"
  • Conditor , "He who stores the grain"
  • Promitor , "He who distributes the grain"

Marriage, human fertility and nourishment

Several of Ceres' ancient Italic precursors are connected to human fertility and motherhood; the Pelignan goddess Angitia Cerealis has been identified with the Roman goddess Angerona (associated with childbirth).[13]

Ceres' torch was a mark of Roman weddings. Adult males were excluded from bridal processions; these took place at night and were headed by a young boy, who carried a torch in honour of Ceres. Pliny the Elder "notes that the most auspicious wood for wedding torches came from the spina alba , the may tree, which bore many fruits and hence symbolised fertility". Once led thus to her husband's home, the bride was a matron.[14] Sacrifice was offered to Tellus on the bride's behalf; a sow is the most likely victim . Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig as "a worthy mark of weddings" because "our women, and especially nurses" call the female genitalia porcus (pig). Spaeth (1996) believes Ceres may have been included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with Tellus and "bears the laws" of marriage. In the most solemn form of marriage, confarreatio , the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, the ancient wheat-type particularly associated with Ceres.

Funerary statue of an unknown woman, depicted as Ceres holding wheat. Mid 3rd century AD. (Louvre)

From at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and Proserpina reinforced Ceres' connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a plebeian nobility, an increased birthrate among plebeian commoners, and a fall in the birthrate among patrician families. The late Republican Ceres Mater (Mother Ceres) is described as genetrix (progenitress) and alma (nourishing); in the early Imperial era she becomes an Imperial deity, and receives joint cult with Ops Augusta , Ceres' own mother in Imperial guise and a bountiful genetrix in her own right.

Laws

Ceres was patron and protector of plebeian laws , rights and Tribunes . Her Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury and possibly law-court; its foundation was contemporaneous with the passage of the Lex Sacrata , which established the office and person of plebeian aediles and tribunes as inviolate representatives of the Roman people. Tribunes were legally immune to arrest or threat, and the lives and property of those who violated this law were forfeit to Ceres. The Lex Hortensia of 287 BC extended plebeian laws to the city and all its citizens. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus consulta ) were placed in Ceres' Temple, under the guardianship of the goddess and her aediles. Livy puts the reason bluntly: the consuls could no longer seek advantage by arbitrarily tampering with the laws of Rome. The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by patrician magistrates.[20] Successful prosecutions of those who offended the laws of Ceres raised fines and property distraints that funded her temple, games and cult. Ceres was thus the patron goddess of Rome's written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, thesmophoros .

Ceres' role as protector of laws continued throughout the Republican era. The killing of the tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was justified by some as rightful punishment for attempted tyranny, an offense against Ceres' Lex sacrata . Others deplored his killing as murder, because the same "Lex sacrata" had made his person sacrosanct. In 70 BC, Cicero refers to this killing in connection with Ceres' laws and cults, during his prosecution of Verres , Roman governor of Sicily, for extortion. The case included circumstantial details of Verres' irreligious exploitation and abuse of Sicilian grain farmers, naturally under Ceres' special protection at the very place of her "earthly home" – and thefts from her temple, including an ancient image of the goddess herself. Faced by the mounting evidence against him, Verres abandoned his own defense and withdrew to a prosperous exile. Soon after, Cicero won election as aedile .

As Ceres' first plough-furrow opened the earth (Tellus' realm) to the world of men and created the first field and its boundary, her laws determined the course of settled, lawful, civilised life. Crimes against fields and harvest were crimes against the people and their protective deity. Landowners who allowed their flocks to graze on public land were fined by the plebeian aediles, on behalf of Ceres and the people of Rome. Ancient laws of the Twelve Tables forbade the magical charming of field crops from a neighbour's field into one's own, and invoked the death penalty for the illicit removal of field boundaries.[24] An adult who damaged or stole field-crops should be hanged "for Ceres". Any youth guilty of the same offense was to be whipped or fined double the value of damage.

Ceres protected transitions of women from girlhood to womanhood, from unmarried to married life and motherhood. She also maintained the boundaries between the realms of the living and the dead, regardless of their sex. Given the appropriate rites, she helped the deceased into afterlife as an underworld shade (Di Manes), else their spirit might remain to haunt the living, as a wandering, vengeful ghost (Lemur). For this service, well-off families offered Ceres sacrifice of a pig. The poor could offer wheat, flowers, and a libation. The expected afterlife for the exclusively female initiates in the sacra Cereris may have been somewhat different; they were offered "a method of living" and of "dying with better hope".

The mundus of Ceres

The mundus cerialis (literally "the world" of Ceres) was a hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome; Cato describes its shape as a reflection or inversion of the dome of the upper heavens. On most days of the year, it was sealed by a stone lid known as the lapis manalis .[30] On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official announcement "mundus patet " ("the mundus is open"), and offerings were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. While the mundus was open, the spirits of the dead could lawfully emerge from the underworld and roam among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as ‘holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts’. When it was re-sealed, the spirits returned to the realms of the dead.

The origins and location of the mundus pit are disputed. The days when the mundus was open are identified in the oldest Roman calendar as C(omitiales) (days when the Comitia met) but by later authors as dies religiosus , when it would be irreligious to perform any official work: this apparent contradiction has led to the suggestion that the whole mundus ritual was not contemporary with Rome's early calendar or early Cerean cult, but was a later Greek import. Nevertheless, the days when the mundus was open were connected to the official festivals of the agricultural cycle; the mundus rite of August 24 follows Consualia (an agricultural festival) and precedes Opiconsivia (another such).

Other than the festivals of Parentalia and Lemuralia , these rites at the mundus cerialis on particular dies religiosi are the only known, regular official contacts with the spirits of the dead, or Di Manes . This may represent a secondary or late function of the mundus , attested no earlier than the Late Republican Era, by Varro . Warde Fowler speculates that it was originally Rome's storehouse (penus ) for the best of the harvest, to provide seed-grain for the next planting, then became the symbolic penus of the expanded Roman state. In Plutarch, the digging of such a pit to receive first-fruits and small quantities of native soil was an Etruscan colonial city-foundation rite.[35] The rites of the mundus suggest Ceres as guardian deity of seed-corn, an essential deity in the establishment and agricultural prosperity of cities, and a door-warden of the underworld's afterlife, in which her daughter Proserpina rules as queen-companion to Pluto or Dis .

Expiations

In Roman theology, prodigies were abnormal phenomena that manifested divine anger at human impiety. In Roman histories, prodigies are clustered around perceived or actual threats to the equilibrium of the Roman state, in particular, famine, war and social disorder, and are expiated as matters of urgency. The establishment of Ceres' Aventine cult has itself been interpreted as an extraordinary expiation after the failure of crops and consequent famine. In Livy's history, Ceres is among the deities placated after a remarkable series of prodigies that accompanied the disasters of the Second Punic War : during the same conflict, a lighting strike at her temple was expiated. A fast in her honour is recorded for 191 BC, to be repeated at 5-year intervals. After 206, she was offered at least 11 further official expiations. Many of these were connected to famine and manifestations of plebeian unrest, rather than war. From the Middle Republic onwards, expiation was increasingly addressed to her as mother to Proserpina. The last known followed Rome's Great Fire of 64 AD .[38] The cause or causes of the fire remained uncertain, but its disastrous extent was taken as a sign of offense against Juno , Vulcan , and Ceres-with-Proserpina, who were all were given expiatory cult. Champlin (2003) perceives the expiations to Vulcan and Ceres in particular as attempted populist appeals by the ruling emperor, Nero.

Myths and theology Ceres with cereals

The complex and multi-layered origins of the Aventine Triad and Ceres herself allowed multiple interpretations of their relationships; Cicero asserts Ceres as mother to both Liber and Libera, consistent with her role as a mothering deity. Varro's more complex theology groups her functionally with Tellus, Terra, Venus (and thus Victoria) and with Libera as a female aspect of Liber.[40] No native Roman myths of Ceres are known. According to interpretatio romana , which sought the equivalence of Roman to Greek deities, she was an equivalent to Demeter, one of the Twelve Olympians of Greek religion and mythology; this made Ceres one of Rome's twelve Di Consentes , daughter of Saturn and Ops, sister of Jupiter , mother of Proserpina by Jupiter and sister of Juno , Vesta , Neptune and Pluto . Ceres' known mythology is indistinguishable from Demeter's:

"When Ceres sought through all the earth with lit torches for Proserpina, who had been seized by Dis Pater, she called her with shouts where three or four roads meet; from this it has endured in her rites that on certain days a lamentation is raised at the crossroads everywhere by the matronae ."

Ceres had strong mythological and cult connections with Sicily , especially at Henna (Enna), on whose "miraculous plain" flowers bloomed throughout the year. This was the place of Proserpina's rape and abduction to the underworld and the site of Ceres' most ancient Sanctuary.[42] According to legend, she begged Jupiter that Sicily be placed in the heavens. The result, because the island is triangular in shape, was the constellation Triangulum , an early name of which was Sicilia .[citation needed ]

Temples

Vitruvius (c.80 – 15 BC) describes the "Temple of Ceres near the Circus Maximus" (her Aventine Temple) as typically Araeostyle , having widely spaced supporting columns, with architraves of wood, rather than stone. This species of temple is "clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide, [its] pediments ornamented with statues of clay or brass, gilt in the Tuscan fashion ". He recommends that temples to Ceres be sited in rural areas: "in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. This spot is to be reverenced with religious awe and solemnity of demeanour, by those whose affairs lead them to visit it." During the early Imperial era, soothsayers advised Pliny the Younger to restore an ancient, "old and narrow" temple to Ceres, at his rural property near Como. It contained an ancient wooden cult statue of the goddess, which he replaced. Though this was unofficial, private cult (sacra privata ) its annual feast on the Ides of September, the same day as the Epulum Jovis , was attended by pilgrims from all over the region. Pliny considered this rebuilding a fulfillment of his civic and religious duty.

Images of Ceres Denarius picturing Quirinus on the obverse , and Ceres enthroned on the reverse, a commemoration by a moneyer in 56 BC of a Cerialia, perhaps her first ludi , presented by an earlier Gaius Memmius as aedile

No images of Ceres survive from her pre-Aventine cults; the earliest date to the middle Republic, and show the Hellenising influence of Demeter's iconography. Some late Republican images recall Ceres' search for Proserpina. Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or she sits on the sacred kiste (chest) that conceals the objects of her mystery rites. Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from the earth, her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat, or her head crowned with fruits and vines. In free-standing statuary, she commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray. Moneyers of the Republican era use Ceres' image, wheat ears and garlands to advertise their connections with prosperity, the annona and the popular interest. Some Imperial coin images depict important female members of the Imperial family as Ceres, or with some of her attributes.

Priesthoods

Ceres was served by several public priesthoods. Some were male; her senior priest, the flamen cerialis , also served Tellus and was usually plebeian by ancestry or adoption. Her public cult at the Ambarvalia , or "perambulation of fields" identified her with Dea Dia , and was led by the Arval Brethren ("The Brothers of the Fields"); rural versions of these rites were led as private cult by the heads of households . An inscription at Capua names a male sacerdos Cerialis mundalis , a priest dedicated to Ceres' rites of the mundus . The plebeian aediles had minor or occasional priestly functions at Ceres' Aventine Temple and were responsible for its management and financial affairs including collection of fines, the organisation of ludi Cerealia and probably the Cerealia itself. Their cure (care and jurisdiction) included, or came to include, the grain supply (annona ) and later the plebeian grain doles (frumentationes ), the organisation and management of public games in general, and the maintenance of Rome's streets and public buildings.

Otherwise, in Rome and throughout Italy, as at her ancient sanctuaries of Henna and Catena, Ceres' ritus graecus and her joint cult with Proserpina were invariably led by female sacerdotes , drawn from women of local and Roman elites: Cicero notes that once the new cult had been founded, its earliest priestesses "generally were either from Naples or Velia", cities allied or federated to Rome. Elsewhere, he describes Ceres' Sicilian priestesses as "older women respected for their noble birth and character". Celibacy may have been a condition of their office; sexual abstinence was, according to Ovid, required of those attending Ceres' major, nine-day festival. Her public priesthood was reserved to respectable matrons, be they married, divorced or widowed. The process of their selection and their relationship to Ceres' older, entirely male priesthood is unknown; but they far outnumbered her few male priests, and would have been highly respected and influential figures in their own communities.

Cult development

Archaic and Regal eras

Roman tradition credited Ceres' eponymous festival, Cerealia , to Rome's second king, the semi-legendary Numa . Ceres' senior, male priesthood was a minor flaminate whose priesthood and rites were supposedly also innovations of Numa.[59] Her affinity and joint cult with Tellus, also known as Terra Mater (Mother Earth) may have developed at this time. Much later, during the early Imperial era , Ovid describes these goddesses as "partners in labour"; Ceres provides the "cause" for the growth of crops, while Tellus provides them a place to grow.

Republican era

Ceres and the Aventine Triad

In 496 BC, against a background of economic recession and famine in Rome, imminent war against the Latins and a threatened secession by Rome's plebs (citizen commoners), the dictator A. Postumius vowed a temple to Ceres, Liber and Libera on or near the Aventine Hill . The famine ended and Rome's plebeian citizen-soldiery co-operated in the conquest of the Latins. Postumius' vow was fulfilled in 493 BC: Ceres became the central deity of the new Triad , housed in a new-built Aventine temple . She was also – or became – the patron goddess of the plebs , whose enterprise as tenant farmers, estate managers, agricultural factors and importers was a mainstay of Roman agriculture.

Much of Rome's grain was imported from territories of Magna Graecia , particularly from Sicily , which later Roman mythographers describe as Ceres' "earthly home". Writers of the late Roman Republic and early Empire describe Ceres' Aventine temple and rites as conspicuously Greek.[62] In modern scholarship, this is taken as further evidence of long-standing connections between the plebeians, Ceres and Magna Graecia. It also raises unanswered questions on the nature, history and character of these associations: the Triad itself may have been a self-consciously Roman cult formulation based on Greco-Italic precedents. To complicate matters further, when a new form of Cerean cult was officially imported from Magna Graecia, it was known as the ritus graecus (Greek rite) of Ceres, and was distinct from her older Roman rites.

The older forms of Aventine rites to Ceres remain uncertain. Most Roman cults were led by men, and the officiant's head was covered by a fold of his toga. In the Roman ritus graecus , a male celebrant wore Greek-style vestments, and remained bareheaded before the deity, or else wore a wreath. While Ceres' original Aventine cult was led by male priests, her "Greek rites" (ritus graecus Cereris ) were exclusively female.

Middle Republic

Ceres and Proserpina

Towards the end of the Second Punic War , around 205 BC, an officially recognised joint cult to Ceres and her daughter Proserpina was brought to Rome from southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia ) along with Greek priestesses to serve it.[65] In Rome, this was known as the ritus graecus Cereris ; its priestesses were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention". The cult was based on ancient, ethnically Greek cults to Demeter, most notably the Thesmophoria to Demeter and Persephone , whose cults and myths also provided a basis for the Eleusinian mysteries .

From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, in Sicily , was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognised as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Demeter's daughter Persephone .[66] Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's rape and abduction into the underworld by Hades . The new cult to "mother and maiden" took its place alongside the old, but made no reference to Liber. Thereafter, Ceres was offered two separate and distinctive forms of official cult at the Aventine. Both might have been supervised by the male flamen Cerialis but otherwise, their relationship is unclear. The older form of cult included both men and women, and probably remained a focus for plebeian political identity and discontent. The new identified its exclusively females initiates and priestesses as upholders of Rome's traditional, patrician -dominated social hierarchy and mores .

Ceres and Magna Mater

A year after the import of the ritus cereris , patrician senators imported cult to the Greek goddess Cybele and established her as Magna Mater (The Great Mother) within Rome's sacred boundary , facing the Aventine Hill. Like Ceres, Cybele was a form of Graeco-Roman earth goddess. Unlike her, she had mythological ties to Troy , and thus to the Trojan prince Aeneas , mythological ancestor of Rome's founding father and first patrician Romulus . The establishment of official Roman cult to Magna Mater coincided with the start of a new saeculum (cycle of years). It was followed by Hannibal's defeat, the end of the Punic War and an exceptionally good harvest. Roman victory and recovery could therefore be credited to Magna Mater and patrician piety: so the patricians dined her and each other at her festival banquets. In similar fashion, the plebeian nobility underlined their claims to Ceres. Up to a point, the two cults reflected a social and political divide, but when certain prodigies were interpreted as evidence of Ceres' displeasure, the senate appeased her with a new festival, the ieiunium Cereris ("fast of Ceres").

In 133 BC, the plebeian noble Tiberius Gracchus bypassed the Senate and appealed directly to the popular assembly to pass his proposed land-reforms . Civil unrest spilled into violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their conservative opponents. At the behest of the Sibylline oracle , the senate sent the quindecimviri to Ceres' ancient cult centre at Henna in Sicily , the goddess' supposed place of origin and earthly home. Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given, either to expiate Gracchus' murder – as later Roman sources would claim – or to justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or demagogue , a homo sacer who had offended Ceres' laws against tyranny.

Late Republic

The Eleusinian mysteries became increasingly popular during the late Republic. Early Roman initiates at Eleusis in Greece included Sulla and Cicero ; thereafter many Emperors were initiated, including Hadrian , who founded an Eleusinian cult centre in Rome itself.

In Late Republican politics, aristocratic traditionalists and popularists used coinage to propagated their competing claims to Ceres' favour. A coin of Sulla shows Ceres on one side, on the other a ploughman with yoked oxen: the images, accompanied by the legend "conditor" , claim his rule (a military dictatorship) as regenerative and divinely justified. Popularists used her name and attributes to appeal their guardianship of plebeian interests, particularly the annona and frumentarium ; and plebeian nobles and aediles used them to point out their ancestral connections with plebeian commoners. In the decades of Civil War that ushered in the Empire, such images and dedications proliferate on Rome's coinage: Julius Caesar , his opponents, his assassins and his heirs alike claimed the favour and support of Ceres and her plebeian proteges, with coin issues that celebrate Ceres, Libertas (liberty) and Victoria (victory).

Imperial era Emperors celebrated imperial and divine partnerships in grain import and provision. On this Sestercius of 66 AD, Nero 's garlanded head is left. Opposite, a standing Annona holds cornucopiae (horns of Plenty) and enthroned Ceres holds grain-ears and torch. Between them on a garlanded altar, a modius (grain measure), and in the background, a ship's stern.

Imperial theology conscripted Rome's traditional cults as the divine upholders of Imperial Pax (peace) and prosperity, for the benefit of all. The emperor Augustus began the restoration of Ceres' Aventine Temple; his successor Tiberius completed it. Of the several figures on the Augustan Ara Pacis , one doubles as a portrait of the Empress Livia , who wears Ceres' corona spicea . Another has been variously identified in modern scholarship as Tellus, Venus, Pax or Ceres, or in Spaeth's analysis, a deliberately broad composite of them all.

The emperor Claudius ' reformed the grain supply and created its embodiment as an Imperial goddess, Annona , a junior partner to Ceres and the Imperial family. The traditional, Cerean virtues of provision and nourishment were symbolically extended to Imperial family members with coinage that showed Claudius' mother Antonia as Augusta with corona spicea .

The relationship between the reigning emperor, empress and Ceres was formalised in titles such as Augusta mater agrorum ("The august mother of the fields) and Ceres Augusta . On coinage, various emperors and empresses wear her corona spicea , showing that the goddess, the emperor and his spouse are conjointly responsible for agricultural prosperity and the all-important provision of grain. A coin of Nerva (reigned AD 96–98) acknowledges Rome's dependence on the princeps' gift of frumentio (corn dole) to the masses. Under Nerva's later dynastic successor Antoninus Pius , Imperial theology represents the death and apotheosis of the Empress Faustina the Elder as Ceres' return to Olympus by Jupiter's command. Even then, "her care for mankind continues and the world can rejoice in the warmth of her daughter Proserpina: in Imperial flesh, Proserpina is Faustina the Younger ", empress-wife of Pius' successor Marcus Aurelius .

In Britain, a soldier's inscription of the 2nd century AD attests to Ceres' role in the popular syncretism of the times. She is "the bearer of ears of corn", the "Syrian Goddess", identical with the universal heavenly Mother, the Magna Mater and Virgo , virgin mother of the gods. She is peace and virtue, and inventor of justice: she weighs "Life and Right" in her scale.

During the Late Imperial era, Ceres gradually "slips into obscurity"; the last known official association of the Imperial family with her symbols is a coin issue of Septimius Severus (AD 193–211), showing his empress, Julia Domna , in the corona spicea . After the reign of Claudius Gothicus , no coinage shows Ceres' image. Even so, an initiate of her mysteries is attested in the 5th century AD, after the official abolition of all non-Christian cults.

Legacy

The word cereals derives from Ceres, commemorating her association with edible grains. Statues of Ceres top the domes of the Missouri State Capitol and the Vermont State House serving as a reminder of the importance of agriculture in the states' economies and histories. There is also a statue of her on top of the Chicago Board of Trade Building , which conducts trading in agricultural commodities.

The dwarf planet Ceres (discovered 1801), is named after this goddess. And in turn, the chemical element cerium (discovered 1803) was named after the dwarf planet. A poem about Ceres and humanity features in Dmitri 's confession to his brother Alexei in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov , Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 3.

Ceres appears as a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1611).

An aria in praise of Ceres is sung in Act 4 of the opera The Trojans by Hector Berlioz .

The goddess Ceres is one of the three goddess offices held in the The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry . The other goddesses are Pomona , and Flora .

Ceres is depicted on the Seal of New Jersey as a symbol of prosperity.

Ceres was depicted on several ten and twenty Confederate States of America dollar notes.

A manga by Yuu Watase is known as Ceres Celestial Legend

 

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