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60-532: Pirithous was a son of "heavenly" Dia , fathered either by Ixion or by Zeus . He married Hippodamia , daughter of Atrax or Butes , at whose wedding the famous Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs occurred. By his wife, he became the father of Polypoetes , one of the Greek leaders during the Trojan War . Pirithous was also the close friend of the hero Theseus . According to Homer, Dia had sex with Zeus , who

120-463: A boar; Aphrodite descended into the Underworld to take him back. But Persephone, smitten with him, would not let him go until they came to an agreement that Adonis would alternate between the land of the living and the land of the dead each year. After a plague hit Aonia , its people asked the oracle of Apollo Gortynius, and they were told they needed to appease the anger of the king and queen of

180-463: A humorous tone in the realm of Attic comedy, in which Heracles attempted to free them from the rock to which they had been bound together in the Underworld (for having tried to carry off Persephone ). He succeeded in freeing only Theseus and left behind his buttocks attached to the rocks. Due to this Theseus came to be called hypolispos, meaning "with hinder parts rubbed smooth." This may have been

240-738: A later invention. Pirithous was worshiped at Athens, along with Theseus, as a hero. Dia (mythology) Dia ( Ancient Greek : Δία or Δῖα, "heavenly", "divine" or "she who belongs to Zeus"), in ancient Greek religion and folklore, may refer to: In ancient Roman religion , Dia may refer to Dea Dia . Persephone In ancient Greek mythology and religion , Persephone ( / p ər ˈ s ɛ f ə n iː / pər- SEF -ə-nee ; Greek : Περσεφόνη , romanized :  Persephónē , classical pronunciation: [per.se.pʰó.nɛː] ), also called Kore ( / ˈ k ɔːr iː / KOR -ee ; Greek : Κόρη , romanized :  Kórē , lit.   'the maiden') or Cora ,

300-419: A serpent. Demeter then hides Persephone in a cave; but Zeus, in the form of a serpent, enters the cave and rapes Persephone. Persephone becomes pregnant and gives birth to Zagreus . It was said that while Persephone was playing with the nymph Hercyna, Hercyna held a goose against her that she let loose. The goose flew to a hollow cave and hid under a stone; when Persephone took up the stone in order to retrieve

360-409: Is reborn with the exhumation and spreading of the grain. Bruce Lincoln argues that the myth is a description of the loss of Persephone's virginity, where her epithet koure signifies "a girl of initiatory age", and where Hades is the male oppressor forcing himself onto a young girl for the first time. Adonis was an exceedingly beautiful mortal man with whom Persephone fell in love. After he

420-589: Is taboo – Nestis is a euphemistic cult title – for she was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically named simply as Kore or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld. Nestis means "the Fasting One" in ancient Greek. As a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically friendly names. However, it

480-460: Is Kore, and in Arcadia she was worshipped under the title Despoina , "the mistress", a very old chthonic divinity. Günther Zuntz considers "Persephone" and "Kore" as distinct deities and writes that "no farmer prayed for corn to Persephone; no mourner thought of the dead as being with Kore." Ancient Greek writers were however not as consistent as Zuntz claims. Plutarch writes that Persephone

540-504: Is a goddess of marriage and childbirth in this region. Her name has numerous historical variants. These include Persephassa ( Περσεφάσσα ) and Persephatta ( Περσεφάττα ). In Latin, her name is rendered Proserpina . She was identified by the Romans as the Italic goddess Libera , who was conflated with Proserpina. Myths similar to Persephone's descent and return to earth also appear in

600-509: Is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia ( Περσεφονεία , Persephoneia ). In other dialects, she was known under variant names: Persephassa ( Περσεφάσσα ), Persephatta ( Περσεφάττα ), or simply Korē ( Κόρη , "girl, maiden"). On 5th century Attic vases one often encounters the form ( Φερρϖφάττα ). Plato calls her Pherepapha ( Φερέπαφα ) in his Cratylus , "because she

660-562: Is possible that some of them were the names of original goddesses: As a vegetation goddess, she was called: Demeter and her daughter Persephone were usually called: Persephone's abduction by Hades is mentioned briefly in Hesiod 's Theogony , and is told in considerable detail in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter . Zeus, it is said, permitted Hades, who was in love with the beautiful Persephone, to abduct her as her mother Demeter

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720-435: Is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter . She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades , the king of the underworld, who would later also 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

780-401: Is therefore mentioned along with or identified as other such divinities including Isis , Rhea , Ge , Hestia , Pandora , Artemis , and Hecate . In Orphic tradition, Persephone is said to be the daughter of Zeus and his mother Rhea, who became Demeter after her seduction by her son. The Orphic Persephone is said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus / Iacchus / Zagreus , and

840-426: Is trapped underground within the realm of Hades. In the beginning of the autumn, when the grain of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter. This interpretation of Persephone's abduction myth symbolizes the cycle of life and death as Persephone both dies as she (the grain) is buried in the pithoi (as similar pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices) and

900-487: Is wise and touches that which is in motion". There are also the forms Periphona ( Πηριφόνα ) and Phersephassa ( Φερσέφασσα ). The existence of so many different forms shows how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own language and suggests that the name may have a Pre-Greek origin . The etymology of the word 'Persephone' is obscure. According to a recent hypothesis advanced by Rudolf Wachter ,

960-505: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , Persephone is rising as if up stairs from a cleft in the earth, while Hermes stands aside; Hecate, holding two torches, looks back as she leads her to the enthroned Demeter. Before Persephone was abducted by Hades, the shepherd Eumolpus and the swineherd Eubuleus saw a girl in a black chariot driven by an invisible driver being carried off into the earth which had violently opened up. Eubuleus

1020-535: The river Cocytus who became mistress to Persephone's husband Hades . Persephone was not slow to notice and, in jealousy, she trampled the nymph, killing her and turning her into a mint plant . Alternatively, Persephone tore Minthe to pieces for sleeping with Hades, and it was he who turned his former lover into the sweet-smelling plant. In another version, Minthe had been Hades's lover before he met Persephone. When Minthe claims Hades will return to her due to her beauty, Persephone's mother Demeter kills Minthe over

1080-550: The Arcadian mysteries. In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD), Persephone is described as the daughter of Zeus and Rhea . Zeus was filled with desire for his mother, Rhea, intending to marry her. He pursued the unwilling Rhea, only for her to change into a serpent. Zeus also turned himself into a serpent and raped Rhea, which resulted in the birth of Persephone. Afterwards, Rhea became Demeter . Persephone

1140-400: The Arcadian mysteries. In the Arcadian mythos, while Demeter was looking for the kidnapped Persephone, she caught the eye of her younger brother Poseidon. Demeter turned into a mare to escape him, but then Poseidon turned into a stallion to pursue her. He caught her and raped her. Afterwards, Demeter gave birth to the talking horse Arion and the goddess Despoina ("the mistress"), a goddess of

1200-465: The Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess. In Arcadia , Demeter and Persephone were often called Despoinai ( Δέσποιναι , "the mistresses"). They are the two Great Goddesses of the Arcadian cults, and evidently they come from a more primitive religion. The Greek god Poseidon probably substituted for the companion ( Paredros , Πάρεδρος ) of the Minoan Great goddess in

1260-482: The ancient Greeks told the myth of Persephone to explain the origin of the four seasons . The ancient Greeks believed that spring and summer occurred during the months Persephone stayed with Demeter, who would make flowers bloom and crops grow bountiful. During the other months when Persephone must live in the underworld with Hades, Demeter expressed her sadness by letting the earth go barren and covering it with snow, resulting in autumn and winter . According to

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1320-434: The bird, water flowed from that spot, and hence the river received the name Hercyna. This was when she was abducted by Hades according to Boeotian legend; a vase shows water birds accompany the goddesses Demeter and Hecate who are in search of the missing Persephone. The abduction of Persephone is an etiological myth providing an explanation for the changing of the seasons. Since Persephone had consumed pomegranate seeds in

1380-495: The central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries , which promised the initiated a happy afterlife . The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. In Athens, the mysteries celebrated in the month of Anthesterion were dedicated to her. The city of Locri Epizephyrii , in modern Calabria (southern Italy ), was famous for its cult of Persephone, where she

1440-417: The context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to initiates. In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles , c.  490–430 BC, describing a correspondence among four deities and the classical elements , the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone: Of the four deities of Empedocles' elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that

1500-501: The cults of male gods, including Attis , Adonis , and Osiris , and in Minoan Crete . In a Linear B Mycenaean Greek inscription on a tablet found at Pylos dated 1400–1200 BC, John Chadwick reconstructed the name of a goddess, *Preswa , who could be identified with Perse , daughter of Oceanus , and found speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone. Persephonē ( Greek : Περσεφόνη )

1560-582: The ears of corn", i.e., a "thresher of grain". The name of the Albanian dawn-goddess, goddess of love and protector of women, Premtë or P(ë)rende , is thought to correspond regularly to the Ancient Greek counterpart Περσεφάττα ( Persephatta ), a variant of Περσεφόνη ( Persephone ). The theonyms have been traced back to the Indo-European *pers-é-bʰ(h₂)n̥t-ih₂ ("she who brings

1620-409: The earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. In Classical Greek art , Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a 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 goddess , and her mother Demeter were

1680-521: The earth with Hecate 's torches. In most versions, she forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and, in the depth of her despair, she causes nothing to grow. Helios , the Sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered where her daughter had been taken. Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone. When Hades

1740-563: The first element in the name ( Perso - ( Περσο- ) may well reflect a very rare term, attested in the Rig Veda (Sanskrit parṣa- ), and the Avesta , meaning 'sheaf of corn' / 'ear [of grain]'. The second constituent, phatta , preserved in the form Persephatta ( Περσεφάττα ), would in this view reflect Proto-Indo-European *-gʷn-t-ih , from the root *gʷʰen- "to strike / beat / kill". The combined sense would therefore be "she who beats

1800-459: The ghosts of the dead, who drink the blood of the sacrificed animal. In the reformulation of Greek mythology expressed in the Orphic Hymns , Dionysus and Melinoë are separately called children of Zeus and Persephone. Groves sacred to her stood at the western extremity of the earth on the frontiers of the lower world, which itself was called "house of Persephone". Her central myth served as

1860-421: The insult done to her daughter. Theophile was a girl who claimed that Hades loved her and that she was better than Persephone. Once, Hermes chased Persephone (or Hecate ) with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name " Brimo " ("angry"). The hero Orpheus once descended into the underworld seeking to take back to

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1920-494: The land of the living his late wife Eurydice , who died when a snake bit her. So lovely was the music he played that it charmed Persephone and even stern Hades. So entranced was Persephone by Orpheus' sweet melody that she persuaded her husband to let the unfortunate hero take his wife back. Sisyphus , the wily king of Corinth managed to avoid staying dead, after Death had gone to collect him, by appealing to and tricking Persephone into letting him go; thus Sisyphus returned to

1980-430: The land of the living, he is said to have offered a myrtle plant to Persephone in exchange for Semele. On a neck amphora from Athens Dionysus is depicted riding on a chariot with his mother, next to a myrtle-holding Persephone who stands with her own mother Demeter; many vases from Athens depict Dionysus in the company of Persephone and Demeter. Persephone also convinced Hades to allow the hero Protesilaus to return to

2040-400: The light of the sun in the surface above. When Echemeia , a queen of Kos , ceased to offer worship to Artemis , the goddess shot her with an arrow. Persephone, witnessing that, snatched the still living Euthemia and brought her to the Underworld. When Dionysus, the god of wine, descended into the Underworld accompanied by Demeter to retrieve his dead mother Semele and bring her back to

2100-418: The light through"). A popular folk etymology is from φέρειν φόνον , pherein phonon , "to bring (or cause) death". The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as chthonic and vegetation goddess. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her role as queen of the lower world and the dead and to the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a vegetation goddess

2160-414: The little-attested Melinoë . In mythology and literature she is often called dread(ed) Persephone, and queen of the underworld, within which tradition it was forbidden to speak her name. This tradition comes from her conflation with the very old chthonic divinity Despoina ("[the] mistress"), whose real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries. As goddess of death, she

2220-552: The lower world at the entrance of the western Oceanus. Later accounts place the abduction in Attica , near Athens , or near Eleusis. The Homeric hymn mentions the Nysion (or Mysion) which was probably a mythical place. The location of this mythical place may simply be a convention to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past. After Persephone had disappeared, Demeter searched for her all over

2280-477: The mother of the Erinyes by Hades. In Nonnus 's Dionysiaca , the gods of Olympus were bewitched by Persephone's beauty and desired her. Hermes , Apollo , Ares , and Hephaestus each presented Persephone with a gift to woo her. Demeter, worried that Persephone might end up marrying Hephaestus, consults the astrological god Astraeus . Astraeus warns her that Persephone will be ravished and impregnated by

2340-496: The pair met, then became so impressed with each other's gracefulness, beauty and courage they took an oath of friendship. They were among the company of heroes that hunted the Calydonian Boar , another mythic theme that was already well known to Homer's listeners. Later, Pirithous was set to marry Hippodamia , their offspring being Polypoetes . The centaurs were guests at the party, but they got drunk and tried to abduct

2400-518: The regeneration of life. In another interpretation of the myth, the abduction of Persephone by Hades, in the form of Ploutus ( πλούτος , wealth), represents the wealth of the grain contained and stored in underground silos or ceramic jars ( pithoi ) during the Summer seasons (as that was drought season in Greece). In this telling, Persephone as grain-maiden symbolizes the grain within the pithoi that

2460-548: The strongest men against the strongest enemies, a savage mountain-dwelling tribe whom they utterly destroyed." No trace of such an oral tradition, which Homer's listeners would have recognized in Nestor's allusion, survived in literary epic. In disjointed episodes that have survived, Pirithous had heard rumors about Theseus' courage and strength in battle but he wanted proof. He rustled Theseus' herd of cattle from Marathon , and Theseus set out to pursue him. Pirithous took up arms and

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2520-630: The underworld becomes half the year. It was explained to Demeter, her mother, that she would be released, so long as she did not taste the food of the underworld, as that was an Ancient Greek example of a taboo . In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other deities that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. As punishment for informing Hades, he was pinned under a heavy rock in the underworld by either Persephone or Demeter until Heracles freed him, causing Demeter to turn him into an eagle owl . In an earlier version, Hecate rescued Persephone. On an Attic red-figured bell krater of c. 440 BC in

2580-406: The underworld by means of sacrifice of two willing maidens. Two maidens, Menippe and Metioche (who were the daughters of Orion ), were chosen and they agreed to be offered to the two gods in order to save their country. After the two girls sacrificed themselves with their shuttles, Persephone and Hades took pity on them and turned their dead bodies into comets . Minthe was a Naiad nymph of

2640-467: The underworld, she was forced to spend four months, or in other versions six months for six seeds, with Hades. When Persephone would return to the underworld , Demeter's despair at losing her daughter would cause the vegetation and flora of the world to wither, signifying the Autumn and Winter seasons. When Persephone's time is over and she would be reunited with her mother, Demeter's joyousness would cause

2700-460: The vegetation of the earth to bloom and blossom which signifies the Spring and Summer seasons. This also explains why Persephone is associated with Spring: her re-emergence from the underworld signifies the onset of Spring. Therefore, not only does Persephone and Demeter's annual reunion symbolize the changing seasons and the beginning of a new cycle of growth for the crops, it also symbolizes death and

2760-557: The wife of one of the great gods as his own bride. According to a scholium on Aristophanes , in a lost play by Euripides , Hades had Pirithous fed to Cerberus for his impiety. By the time Theseus returned to Athens, the Dioscuri (Helen's twin brothers Castor and Pollux ) had taken Helen back to Sparta ; they had taken captive Aethra as well as Pirithous' sister, Physadeia, and they became handmaidens of Helen and later followed her to Troy. The rescue of Theseus and Pirithous acquired

2820-487: The women, including Hippodamia who was carried off by the intoxicated centaur Eurytion or Eurytus . The Lapiths won the ensuing battle, the Centauromachy , a favorite motif of Greek art. Hippodamia died shortly after Polypoetes' birth, after which Pirithous went to visit Theseus at Athens only to discover that Theseus' own wife, Phaedra , who, according to Ovid , felt left out by her husband's love for Pirithous,

2880-485: The world of the living for a limited period of time to see his wife. Socrates in Plato 's Cratylus previously mentions that Hades consorts with Persephone due to her wisdom. Persephone was worshipped along with her mother Demeter and in the same mysteries. Her cults included agrarian magic, dancing, and rituals. The priests used special vessels and holy symbols, and the people participated with rhymes. In Eleusis there

2940-620: The year with Aphrodite. Alternatively, Adonis had to spend one half of the year with each goddess at the suggestion of the Muse Calliope . Of them, Aelian wrote that Adonis' life was divided between two goddesses: one who loved him beneath the earth,and one above, while the satirical author Lucian of Samosata has Aphrodite complain to the moon goddess Selene that Eros made Persephone fall in love with her own beloved, and now she has to share Adonis with her. In another variation, Persephone met Adonis only after he had been slain by

3000-484: Was also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx , the river that formed the boundary between Earth and the underworld. In Homer 's epics, she appears always together with Hades in the underworld, apparently sharing with Hades control over the dead. In Homer's Odyssey , Odysseus encounters the "dread Persephone" in Tartarus when he visits his dead mother. Odysseus sacrifices a ram to the chthonic goddess Persephone and

3060-474: Was born so deformed that Rhea ran away from her frightened, and did not breastfeed Persephone. Zeus then mates with Persephone, who gives birth to Dionysus . She later stays in her mother's house, guarded by the Curetes . Rhea-Demeter prophecies that Persephone will marry Apollo . This prophecy does not come true, however, as while weaving a dress, Persephone is abducted by Hades to be his bride. She becomes

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3120-405: Was born, Aphrodite entrusted him to Persephone to raise. But when Persephone got a glimpse of the beautiful Adonis—finding him as attractive as Aphrodite did—she refused to give him back to her. The matter was brought before Zeus , and he decreed that Adonis would spend one third of the year with each goddess, and have the last third for himself. Adonis chose to spend his own portion of

3180-460: Was bound by his oaths, so he agreed. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra , at Aphidnae , and traveled to the underworld . When they stopped to rest, they found themselves unable to stand up from the rock as they saw the Furies appear before them. Heracles freed Theseus from the stone, but the earth shook when he attempted to free Pirithous. He had committed too great a crime for wanting

3240-420: Was dead. Thus, Pirithous and Theseus pledged to marry daughters of Zeus ; Theseus chose Helen of Sparta and together they kidnapped her when she was 10 years of age and decided to hold on to her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose a more dangerous prize: Persephone herself. Theseus objected, and tried to talk him out of it, as this act would be too blasphemous; but Pirithous insisted, and Theseus

3300-453: Was disguised as a stallion, and gave birth to Pirithous; a folk etymology derived Pirithous' name from peritheein ( περιθεῖν , 'to run around'), because that was what Zeus did to seduce Dia. His best friend was Theseus . In the Iliad I, Nestor numbers Pirithous and Theseus "of heroic fame" among an earlier generation of heroes of his youth, "the strongest men that Earth has bred,

3360-638: Was feeding his pigs at the opening to the underworld, and his swine were swallowed by the earth along with her. This aspect of the myth is an etiology for the relation of pigs with the ancient rites in Thesmophoria , and in Eleusis. In the hymn, Persephone eventually returns from the underworld and is reunited with her mother near Eleusis. The Eleusinians built a temple near the spring of Callichorus, and Demeter establishes her mysteries there. Regardless of how she had eaten pomegranate seeds and how many,

3420-533: Was identified with the spring season, and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian Mysteries , her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality, and she was frequently represented on sarcophagi . In the religions of the Orphics and the Platonists , Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature who both produces and destroys everything, and she

3480-429: Was informed of Zeus' command to return Persephone, he complied with the request, but he first tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds. Hermes was sent to retrieve Persephone but, because she had tasted the food of the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year (the winter months) there, and the remaining part of the year with the gods above. With the later writers Ovid and Hyginus, Persephone's time in

3540-701: Was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to Hades. Persephone was gathering flowers, along with the Oceanids , and the goddesses Pallas Athena and Artemis , as the Homeric Hymn says, in a field when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. In another version of the myth, Persephone had her own personal companions whom Demeter turned into the half bird sirens as punishment for failing to prevent her daughter's abduction. Various local traditions place Persephone's abduction in different locations. The Sicilians , among whom her worship

3600-630: Was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Hades found her in the meadows near Enna , and that a well arose on the spot where he descended with her into the lower world. The Cretans thought that their own island had been the scene of the abduction, and the Eleusinians mentioned the Nysian plain in Boeotia, and said that Persephone had descended with Hades into

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