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Persephone
In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Persephone ( ; , classical pronunciation: ), also called Kore ( ; ) or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the Greek underworld, underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who would later take her into marriage. The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her cyclical return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. In Art in ancient Greece, Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a wikt:sheaf, sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades. Persephone, as a vegetation deity, veg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hades
Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be Cronus#Mythology, regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titan (mythology) , Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth (long the province of Gaia (mythology) , Gaia) available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his cap of invisibility , helm with Cerberus, the Polycephaly, three-headed dogs in religion#Religions, myths, legends, and cultures, guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side. Roman-era mythographers eventually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demeter
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Demeter (; Attic Greek, Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Twelve Olympians, Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility (soil), fertility of the earth. Although Demeter is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Greek underworld, Underworld. She is also called Deo ( ''Dēṓ''). In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea (mythology), Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings except Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. Through Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone, a fertility goddess and Dying-and-rising deity, resurrection deity. One of the most notable ''Homeric Hymns'', the ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', tells the story of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Ancient Rome, Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his Cult of Dionysus, cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thrace, Thracian, others as Greek. In O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries () were initiations held every year for the Cult (religious practice), cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis in ancient Greece. They are considered the "most famous of the secret religious rites of ancient Greece". Their basis was a Bronze Age Agrarianism, agrarian cult, and there is some evidence that they were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenean Greece, Mycenean period.Dietrich (1975) ''The origins of Greek Religion''. Bristol Phoenix Press pp. 166, 167Walter Burkert. (1985)''Greek Religion''. Harvard University Press. p. 285 The Mysteries represented the myth of the Persephone#Abduction myth, abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the ''descent'' (loss), the ''search'', and the ''ascent'', with the main theme being the ''ascent'' () of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. It was a major festival during the Hellenistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Underworld
In Greek mythology, the underworld or Hades () is a distinct realm (one of the three realms that make up the cosmos) where an individual goes after death. The earliest idea of afterlife in Greek myth is that, at the moment of death, an individual's essence (''psyche'') is separated from the corpse and transported to the underworld. In early mythology (e.g., Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'') the dead were indiscriminately grouped together and led a shadowy post-existence; however, in later mythology (e.g., Platonism, Platonic philosophy) elements of post-mortem judgment began to emerge with good and bad people being separated (both spatially and with regards to treatment). The underworld itself—commonly referred to as Hades, after its Hades, patron god, but also known by various metonyms—is described as being located at the periphery of the earth, either associated with the outer limits of the ocean (i.e., ''Oceanus'', again also a god) or beneath the earth. Darkness and a l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epizephyrian Locris
Epizephyrian Locris, also known as Locri Epizephyrii or simply Locri (), was an ancient city on the Ionian Sea, founded by Greeks coming from Locris at the beginning of the 7th century BC. It is now in an archaeological park near the modern town of Locri. It was one of the prominent cultural centers of Magna Graecia during the Greek Classical and Hellenistic periods, with Plato describing it as a city "governed by beautiful laws." It was known throughout the Greek world for innovations and expertise in music and dance, for its victorious athletes in the Panhellenic Games, for its laws and effective government and for its military achievements. It has become known in recent times for the special prominence it gave to women. Locri played a significant and enduring part in the history of Magna Graecia from its foundation to Roman times, which was well documented by Strabo, Pausanias, Eusebius of Caesarea, Plutarch, Polybius and Diodorus Siculus and has the added support of contempor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libera (mythology)
Proserpina ( ; ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in the Aventine temple of the grain-goddess Ceres, along with the wine god Liber. Each of these three deities occupied their own '' cella'' at the temple. Their cults were served or supervised by a male public priesthood. Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the ''Dii Consentes'', Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians. She was identified with Greek Demeter and Liber was identified with Bacchus and Dionysus. Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a feminine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proserpina
Proserpina ( ; ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in the Aventine temple of the grain-goddess Ceres, along with the wine god Liber. Each of these three deities occupied their own '' cella'' at the temple. Their cults were served or supervised by a male public priesthood. Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the '' Dii Consentes'', Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians. She was identified with Greek Demeter and Liber was identified with Bacchus and Dionysus. Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a femin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zagreus
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Zagreus () was a god sometimes identified with an Orphic Dionysus who was dismembered by the Titans and reborn. In the earliest mention of Zagreus, he is paired with Gaia and called the "highest" god, though perhaps only in reference to the gods of the underworld. Aeschylus, however, links Zagreus with Hades, possibly as Hades' son, or as Hades himself. Noting "Hades' identity as Zeus' ''katachthonios'' alter ego", Timothy Gantz postulated that Zagreus, originally the son of Hades and Persephone, later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone. Etymology and origins According to Martin Litchfield West, the "most plausible etymology" derives "Zagreus" from ''zagre'', which is "properly a pit for catching animals, but perhaps also one used for depositing animal remains or offerings to a chthonic deity", making Zagreus literally the "god of pitfalls". Based on this etymology, Karl Kerényi concludes that ''zagreus' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe (mythology), Hebe, and Hephaestus.Hard 2004p. 79 At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione (Titaness/Oceanid), Dione, by whom the ''Iliad'' states that he fathered Aphrodite. According to the ''Theogony'', Zeus's first wife was Metis (mythology), Metis, by whom he had Athena.Hesiod, ''Theogony'886900 Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adonis
In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip and died in Aphrodite's arms as she wept; his blood mingled with her tears and became the anemone flower. The Adonia festival commemorated his tragic death, celebrated by women every year in midsummer. During this festival, Greek women would plant "gardens of Adonis", small pots containing fast-growing plants, which they would set on top of their houses in the hot sun. The plants would sprout but soon wither and die. Then, the women would mourn the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. The Greeks considered Adonis's cult to be of Near Eastern origin. Adonis's name comes from a Canaanite word meaning "lord" and most modern scholars consider the story of Aphrodite and Adonis to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhea (mythology)
Rhea or Rheia (; Ancient Greek: Ῥέα or Ῥεία ) is a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods ( Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus) and Hades, king of the underworld. When Cronus learnt that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children like his father before him, he swallowed all the children Rhea bore as soon as they were born. When Rhea had her sixth and final child, Zeus, she spirited him away and hid him in Crete, giving Cronus a rock to swallow instead, thus saving her youngest son who would go on to challenge his father's rule and rescue the rest of his siblings. Following Zeus's defeat of Cronus and the rise of the Olympian gods into power, Rhea withdraws from her role as the queen of the gods to become a supporting fig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
