Demeter
Demeter’s symbols are ears of wheat (the “corn” of older English translations) and the torch. She was the Greek goddess of grain, and the torch comes from the story of her search for her daughter Persephone.
Meaning
Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter calls her “rich-haired Demeter” and “lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits”, and in the Iliad Homer has “fair-haired Demeter” separate the grain from the chaff on the threshing floors when the wind blows. Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849) describes her image in art: seated, walking or riding in a chariot drawn by horses or dragons, always fully dressed, with a garland of ears of corn or a simple ribbon round her head and a sceptre, ears of corn or a poppy in her hand, sometimes also a torch and the mystic basket. Pigs were sacrificed to her, Smith adds, as the symbol of fertility. The Romans received her worship from Sicily and called her Ceres. Demeter is still honoured in the Hellenic religion of the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, which the Greek state recognised as a known religion in 2017.
Origin and history
Both of Demeter’s symbols come from one story, told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Aidoneus, lord of the underworld (Hades), carries off her daughter Persephone while she gathers flowers in a meadow, and for nine days Deo, as the hymn also calls her, wanders the earth “with flaming torches in her hands”, without eating or bathing. On the tenth day Hecate meets her, also carrying a torch, and the two go to Helios, the sun, “watchman of both gods and men”.
The grain is her weapon as well as her gift. In her grief Demeter keeps the seed hidden in the ground, and the hymn describes the Rharian plain near Eleusis, once rich corn-land, lying idle and leafless “because the white grain was hidden by design of trim-ankled Demeter”. When mother and daughter are reunited, Demeter makes fruit spring up again, and the plain is soon to be “waving with long ears of corn”. She then shows Triptolemus, Eumolpus, Celeus and the other kings “the conduct of her rites” and teaches them her mysteries, which no one may reveal. These were the mysteries of Eleusis, a secret cult that, the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, only initiates could take part in.
Ears of grain for Triptolemus
The clearest image of Demeter giving grain is the Great Eleusinian Relief, found at Eleusis and now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. It shows the three main figures of the mysteries: Demeter, Persephone and the young hero Triptolemus. The Met has ten fragments of a Roman copy set into a cast of the Greek original. Demeter stands at the left holding a sceptre, and the boy between the goddesses is thought to be Triptolemus, “who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain”. What the goddesses held out to him can no longer be made out. On Athenian vases of the same time, the Met adds, Triptolemus is usually a bearded man seated in a winged chariot, about to set out on his mission.
The torch on the Parthenon frieze
On the east frieze of the Parthenon the gods sit in two groups, and Demeter is in one of them. The Acropolis Museum identifies the seated figures on block IV, from the right, as Ares, Demeter “holding a torch in her left hand”, Dionysos and Hermes. In Athens Pausanias also saw a temple of Demeter with statues of the goddess, her daughter and Iacchus holding a torch, inscribed as the work of Praxiteles.
The Black Demeter of Phigalia
Not every image followed the pattern. On Mount Elaius, some thirty stades from Phigalia, there was a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Melaina, the Black, and Pausanias was told that her old image there sat on a rock and was a woman in every respect except the head, which was the head and mane of a horse, with serpents and other beasts growing from it. She held a dolphin in one hand and a dove in the other, and was called Black because her clothing was black.
Ceres, the Roman Demeter
Smith records that the Romans took Demeter’s worship from Sicily and gave her the name Ceres, with a festival and games, and with a Greek priestess, usually from Naples or Velia, to perform her rites. Her first temple at Rome was vowed in 496 BC to avert a famine.
Read next
- Next in Greek gods and their symbolsAthenaAthena’s symbol is the owl, her sacred bird, which Athens stamped on its coins. In art she is the armed goddess, with helmet, spear and shield and the aegis bearing the Gorgon’s head; the olive tree, her gift to Athens, was sacred to her too.
- Smith: Demeter holds corn-ears or a poppy; the flower books retell Ceres making the poppyPoppyIn the flower dictionaries the red poppy meant consolation, and the white poppy sleep or "my bane, my antidote". Since 1921 the red poppy has had a living meaning as well: in Britain and Canada it is worn in remembrance of those who died in war.
See also
Cornucopia, Persephone, Fertility and harvest goddesses, Hera, Zeus, Poseidon.
Sources
- Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter 1–5 (tr. Evelyn-White), The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter, lines 1–5, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, lines 1–5
- Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter 40–63 (tr. Evelyn-White), The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter, lines 40–63, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, lines 40–63
- Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter 450–480 (tr. Evelyn-White), The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914), Homeric Hymn 2, To Demeter, lines 450–480, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, lines 450–480
- Iliad 5.499–502 (Homer, tr. A. T. Murray), Homer, The Iliad, translated by A. T. Murray (1924), 5.499–502, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 5, lines 499–502
- Demeter (William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology), William Smith (ed.), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849), s.v. “Demeter”, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, entry text
- Greek Gods and Religious Practices (Colette and Seán Hemingway, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway, “Greek Gods and Religious Practices”, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2003), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, essay text
- Classical Period (National Archaeological Museum, Athens), National Archaeological Museum, Athens, collection guide “Classical Period”, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, collection guide text
- Ten marble fragments of the Great Eleusinian Relief (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection entry “Ten marble fragments of the Great Eleusinian Relief”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object description
- Parthenon. East frieze. Block 4 (IV). Replica (Acropolis Museum), Acropolis Museum, collection entry “Parthenon. East frieze. Block 4 (IV). Replica”, Acropolis Museum, description
- Description of Greece 1.2.4 (Pausanias, tr. Jones and Ormerod), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (1918), 1.2.4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 1, chapter 2, section 4
- Description of Greece 8.42.1 (Pausanias, tr. Jones and Ormerod), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (1918), 8.42.1, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 8, chapter 42, section 1
- Description of Greece 8.42.4 (Pausanias, tr. Jones and Ormerod), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (1918), 8.42.4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 8, chapter 42, section 4
- What is the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE)? (YSEE, frequently asked questions), Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE), “Frequently asked questions”, Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE), first and second answers
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research
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