282 ESSAYS ON" WHEAT 



plain was solemnly plowed every year in memory of 

 the first sowing of wheat. Among the offerings dedicated 

 to her by her votaries were fruit and honey-comb, the 

 cow and the sow, the latter as emblems of productivity. 

 Among her attributes were ears of wheat. 



At Rome in b. c. 496 there was a drought. The 

 Sibylline Books were therefore consulted and, as a result, 

 the cult of Demeter was introduced into Italy. The 

 Greek name Demeter was changed by the Romans to 

 Ceres,^ and a temple was raised to the goddess on on 

 of the seven hills of Rome in b. c. 490. The worshipers 

 of Ceres in Italy were almost entirely plebeian, and they 

 annually celebrated the festival of the Cerealia or games 

 introduced at the founding of the temple. One festival 

 was held in April and another was held in August. At 

 the latter, after fasting for nine days, the women, clothed 

 in white and adorned with crowns of ripe ears of wheat, 

 offered to the goddess the first-fruits of the harvest. The 

 worship of Ceres was maintained in its purest form in 

 the country. Here the people of the soil, before the be- 

 ginning of harvest, offered to the goddess of agriculture a 

 sow (porca prsecidanea) and dedicated to her the first cut- 

 tings of the wheat fields (prsemetium). 



At Pompeii, the City of the Dead, which was buried in 

 ashes during the eruption of Vesuvius in a. d. 79, there 

 have been preserved to us some of the world's greatest 

 treasures in art and archaeology, and among them are two 

 mural paintings of the goddess of agriculture. In one of 

 them (Figure 43), the artist has represented her as full of 



3 Ceres may have been originally a native Italian deity whose name 

 came from create, to create, and who presided over or represented the 

 generative powers of nature. If so, she was replaced by Demeter 

 when the cult of the Greek goddess was introduced into Italy. Cf. 

 W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, 

 London, 1908, pp. 73, 181. 



