Demeter

Also known as: goddess · Family: Olympian gods · Role: goddess · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.1

🌐 Also appears in: The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Ceres)

At birth, Cronus swallowed Demeter and her siblings Hestia, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, fearing that one of his children would take the kingship. Demeter was also a sibling of Zeus, and later was joined with him; she bore Plutus, while Iasion loved her and was killed by a thunderbolt when he attempted to defile her. She also bore Arion with Poseidon.

When Aidoneus carried Persephone away from her, Zeus gave Persephone to him, and Demeter learned from the people of Hermion that Hades had carried her off. “she was wroth with the gods and quitted heaven, and came in the likeness of a woman to Eleusis .” There she met Celeus and Iambe, who made her smile, and received Demophon to nurse; when the child was discovered buried in the fire and consumed, Demeter revealed herself. She later gave Triptolemus a chariot of winged dragons and wheat to sow throughout the inhabited earth, while at Hades she laid a heavy rock on Ascalaphus for bearing witness against Persephone.