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In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although she is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld. She is also called Deo (Δηώ). In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings but Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus.
Hades, in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side.
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by and marriage to her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld.
Theseus was a divine hero and the founder of Athens from Greek mythology. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages.
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.
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year for the 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 an old agrarian cult, and there is some evidence that they were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenean period. The Mysteries represented the myth of the 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 Hellenic era, and later spread to Rome. Similar religious rites appear in the agricultural societies of the Near East and in Minoan Crete.
In ancient Greek religion and 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 by the Greeks for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherios, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance 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 and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.
The Thesmophoria was an ancient Greek religious festival, held in honor of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. It was held annually, mostly around the time that seeds were sown in late autumn – though in some places it was associated with the harvest instead – and celebrated human and agricultural fertility. The festival was one of the most widely-celebrated in the Greek world. It was restricted to adult women, and the rites practised during the festival were kept secret. The most extensive sources on the festival are a comment in a scholion on Lucian, explaining the festival, and Aristophanes' play Thesmophoriazusae, which parodies the festival.
The Telesterion was a great hall and sanctuary in Eleusis, one of the primary centers of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The hall had a fifty-five yard square roof that could cover three-thousand people, but no one revealed what happened during these events beyond there being "something done, something said, and something shown". This building was built in the 7th century BCE and was an important site until it was destroyed in the 4th century CE. Devoted to Demeter and Persephone, these initiation ceremonies were the most sacred and ancient of all the religious rites celebrated in Greece.
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, Minthe is an Underworld Naiad nymph associated with the river Cocytus. She was beloved by Hades, the King of the Underworld, and became his mistress, but she was transformed into a mint plant by his wife Persephone. The plant was also called by some as Hedyosmos (ἡδύοσμος), which means "sweet-smelling".
The Anthesteria was one of the four Athenian festivals in honor of Dionysus. It was held each year from the 11th to the 13th of the month of Anthesterion, around the time of the January or February full moon. The three days of the feast were called Pithoigia, Choës, and Chytroi.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto was the ruler of the Greek underworld. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploûtos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as Plouton and as Kore respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.
Mother Nature is a personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it, in the form of the mother.
In Greek mythology, Demophon was a veteran of the Trojan War and king of Athens. The son of Theseus and Phaedra, Demophon was raised in exile by a family friend after his father was deposed. He later fought in the Trojan War, being one of those who hid in the Trojan Horse. Following the fall of Troy and the rescue of his grandmother Aethra, Demophon is said to have landed in Thrace on his return journey, where he met and married Phyllis, the daughter of the king. Leaving for Athens, Demophon promised to return, and when he did not, Phyllis committed suicide in despair. Arriving in Athens after a possible stop in Cyprus, Demophon succeeded Menestheus as king of Athens, supposedly in 1183 B.C. As king, he gave refuge and land to the Heracleidae in Athens, fought Diomedes and wrested the Palladium from him, presided over the creation of the court of the Ephetae, and hosted Orestes during his madness. Demophon died in Athens in 1150 B.C., and was succeeded by his son Oxyntes.
The Adonia was a festival celebrated annually by women in ancient Greece to mourn the death of Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite. It is best attested in classical Athens, though other sources provide evidence for the ritual mourning of Adonis elsewhere in the Greek world, including Hellenistic Alexandria and Argos in the second century AD.
In Greek mythology, the Greek underworld, or Hades, is a distinct realm 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 the dead were indiscriminately grouped together and led a shadowy post-existence; however, in later mythology elements of post-mortem judgment began to emerge with good and bad people being separated. The underworld itself— commonly referred to as Hades, after its 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 or beneath the earth. Darkness and a lack of sunlight are common features associated with the underworld and, in this way, provide a direct contrast to both the 'normality' of the land of the living and also with the brightness associated with Mount Olympus. The underworld is also considered to be an invisible realm, which is understood both in relation to the permanent state of darkness but also a potential etymological link with Hades as the 'unseen place'. The underworld is made solely for the dead and so mortals do not enter it – with only a few heroic exceptions.
The festival calendar of Classical Athens involved the staging of many festivals each year. This includes festivals held in honor of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, and Herakles. Other Athenian festivals were based around family, citizenship, sacrifice, and women. There were at least 120 festival days each year.
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Eubuleus is a god known primarily from devotional inscriptions for mystery religions. The name appears several times in the corpus of the so-called Orphic gold tablets spelled variously, with forms including Euboulos, Eubouleos and Eubolos. It may be an epithet of the central Orphic god, Dionysus or Zagreus, or of Zeus in an unusual association with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have begun to consider Eubuleus independently as "a major god" of the mysteries, based on his prominence in the inscriptional evidence. His depiction in art as a torchbearer suggests that his role was to lead the way back from the Underworld.
The Aphrodisia festival was an annual festival held in Ancient Greece in honor of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. It took place in several Ancient Greek towns, but was especially important in Attica and on the island of Cyprus, where Aphrodite was venerated with a magnificent celebration. The festival occurred during the month of Hekatombaion, which modern scholars recognize as starting from the third week in July to the third week of August on the Gregorian calendar. Aphrodite was worshipped in most towns of Cyprus, as well as in Cythera, Sparta, Thebes, Delos, and Elis, and her most ancient temple was at Paphos. Textual sources explicitly mention Aphrodisia festivals in Corinth and in Athens, where the many prostitutes that resided in the city celebrated the festival as a means of worshipping their patron goddess. Though no textual sources expressly mention an Aphrodisia festival in Cythera, Thebes, or Elis, it likely occurred since textual and iconographical sources indicate that Aphrodite Pandemos had a cult following in these areas. The Aphrodisia festival was one of the most important ceremonies in Delos, though we do not know much about the details of the celebration. The inscriptions merely indicate that the festival required the purchase of ropes, torches and wood, which were customary expenses of all Delian festivals.
Hades is a roguelike video game developed and published by Supergiant Games. It was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows in September 2020, which followed an early access release in December 2018. It was later released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in August 2021.
References
- 1 2 3 "THE ANTHESPHORIA AT ATHENS". Littell's Living Age. 22 (271): 163. 28 July 1849 – via ProQuest.
- ↑ Homer. "Homeric Hymn to Demeter - SB". chs.harvard.edu. Translated by Gregory Nagy. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
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