ANHS1602: Assessment The assignment is a discussion of the way Greek and/or Roman mythology, or a specific group of connected myths

within Greco-Roman mythology, treats ONE of the following cultural institutions/natural events: 2. agriculture Definition: The practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products Agriculture is the production, processing, marketing, and use of foods, fibers and byproducts from plant crops and animals. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants The art or science of cultivating the ground, including the harvesting of crops, and the rearing and management of livestock; tillage; husbandry; farming Agricultural engineering involves every aspect of food production, processing, marketing, and distribution. Agricultural engineers design and develop agricultural and food processing equipment, irrigation systems, grain storage facilities, feed mills, and farm structures. all perceptions of agriculture were intrinsically connected to the dogma of both Greek and Roman society there was no distinction of religion and religious beliefs from other aspects of society. Religion was ingrained within all aspects of life agriculture was dealt with in a way which demonstrates and reflects its cultural significance within the context, as well as highlighting the belief system relationship between the variations of myths and the significance of the differentiation and similarities. Myths and their relation to the institution of agriculture provided an insight and demonstration of ideals and morals as well as providing a set code for the functioning of society.

Synonyms noun: husbandry, farming, agronomy, tillage

Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 267 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th or 6th B.C.) : "[Demeter to Metaneira:] Lo! I am that Demeter who has share of honour and is the greatest help and cause of joy to the undying gods and mortal men [that is, in the giving of grain]." Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 303 ff : "Demeter sat there [in her new-built temple in

Eleusis] apart from all the blessed gods and stayed, wasting with yearning for her deep-bosomed daughter [i.e. Persephone who was abducted by Haides]. Then she caused a most dreadful and cruel year for mankind over the all-nourishing earth: the ground would not make the seed sprout, for rich-crowned Demeter kept it hid. In the fields the oxen drew many a curved plough in vain, and much white barley was cast upon the land without avail. And so she would have destroyed the whole race of man with cruel famine . . . had not Zeus perceived and marked this in his heart . . Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 398 ff : "[Demeter to Persephone upon her return from Haides:] If you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me [Demeter] and the other deathless gods. But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men [with the seasonal growing of the grain and fruits]."

Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 18 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) : "Tell how she [Demeter] gave cities pleasing ordinances; better to tell how she was the first to cut straw and holy sheaves of corn-ears and put in oxen to tread them, what time Triptolemos was taught the good craft."

Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 118 f : "Feed our kine, bring us flocks, bring us the corn-ear, bring us harvest! And nurse peace, that he who sows may also reap." Orphic Hymn 40 to Demeter (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) : "Universal mother, Deo famed, august, the source of wealth, and various named: great nurse, all-bounteous, blessed and divine, who joyest in peace; to nourish corn is thine. Goddess of seed, of fruits abundant, fair, harvest and threshing are thy constant care . . . Nurse of all mortals, who benignant mind first ploughing oxen to the yoke confined; and gave to men what nature's wants require, with plenteous means of bliss, which all desire. In verdure flourishing, in glory bright, assessor of great Bromios [Dionysos] bearing light: rejoicing in the reapers' sickles, kind, whose nature lucid, earthly, pure, we find . . . Only-begotten, much-producing queen, all flowers are thine, and fruits of lovely green. Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 42. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "They say [Demeter], angry with Poseidon and grieved at the rape of Persephone, put on black apparel and shut herself up in this cavern [in Arkadia] for a long time . . . [and] all the fruits of the earth were perishing, and the human race dying yet more through famine." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 2. 4-5 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) : "The goddesses [Demeter and Persephone] made their first appearance on this island [Sicily], and that it was the first, because of the fertility of the soil, to bring forth the fruit of corn . . . Indeed, in the plain of Leontini, we are told, and throughout many other parts of Sikelia the what men call wild grows even to this day. And, speaking generally, before the corn was discovered, if one were to raise the

question, what manner of land it was of the inhabited earth where the fruits we have mentioned appeared for the first time, the meed of honour may reasonably be accorded to the richest land; and in keeping with what we have stated, it is also to be observed the goddesses who made this discovery [Demeter and Persephone] are those who receive the highest honours among the Sikeliotai (Sicilians)."

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 68. 2 : "Triptolemos the corn to sow, instructing him both to share the gift with men everywhere and to teach tem everything concerned with the labour of sowing." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 48. 2 : "To Iasion and Demeter, according to the story the myths relate, was born Ploutos (Wealth), but the reference is, as a matter of fact, to the wealth of the corn, which was presented to Iasion by Demeter." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 77. 1 : "Ploutos, we are told, was born in Kretan Tripolos to Demeter and Iasion, and there is a double account of his origin. For some men say that the earth, when it was sowed once by Iasion and given proper cultivation, brought forth such and abundance of fruits that those who saw this bestowed a special name upon the abundance of fruits when they appear and called it ploutos (wealth)." - Overall shows the reflection upon the differences in the versions of the myths Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 4 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Philomelus [son of Demeter] . . . bought two oxen with what he had, and became the inventor of the wagon [or the plow]. So, by plowing and cultivating the fields, he supported himself." Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 341 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "Ceres [Demeter] first turned the earth with the curved plough; she first gave corn and crops to bless the land; she first gave laws; all things are Ceres gift."

Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 475 ff : "angry hands she broke the ploughs that turned the soil and sent to death alike the farmer and his labouring ox, and bade the fields betray their trust, and spoilt the seeds. So there with angry hands she broke the ploughs that turned the soil and sent to death alike the farmer and his labouring ox, and bade the fields betray their trust, and spoilt the seeds. False lay the island's famed fertility, famous through all the world. The young crops died in the first blade, destroyed now by the rain too violent, now by the sun too strong. The stars and the winds assailed them; hungry birds gobbled the scattered seeds; thistles and twitch, unconquerable twitch, wore down the wheat . . . O thou, divine . . . Mother of crops and harvest . . . Proserpine [Persephone], of two empires alike great deity, spends with her mother [Demeter] half the year' twelve months [summer and spring] and with her husband [Haides] half [autumn and winter]." Ovid, Metamorphoses 8. 780 ff : "[Dryades] going to Ceres [Demeter], prayed for punishment on Erysichthon. That most lovely goddess assented and the teeming

countryside, laden with harvest, trembled at her nod. A punishment she planned most piteous, were pity not made forfeit by his deed hunger to rack and rend him; and because Ceres [Demeter] and Fames [Limos the spirit of hunger] may never meet, she charged . . . a rustic Oreas, to take her message . . . and Fames (Hunger) did Ceres' [Demeter's] bidding, though their aims are ever opposite [and brought unrelenting hunger to Erysikhthon]."

Virgil, Georgics 1. 94 ff : "Much service does he do the land who with the mattock breaks up the sluggish clods, and drags over it hurdles of osier; nor is it without reward that golden Ceres [Demeter] looks on him from Olympian heights. Much service, too does he who turns his plough and again breaks crosswise through the ridges which he raised when first he cut the plain."

Virgil, Georgics 1. 160 ff : "I must tell, too, of the hardy farmers weapons, without which the crops could be neither sown nor raised. First the share and the curved ploughs heavy frame, the slow-rolling wains of the Mother of Eleusis, sledges and drags, and hoes of cruel weight; further, the common wicker ware of Celeus [king of Eleusis], arbute hurdles and the mystic fan of Iacchus."

Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 42. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "[Demeter] shut herself up in this cavern for a long time . . . [and] all the fruits of the earth were perishing."

THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE & THE SEASONS Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter cont. But he on his part secretly gave her sweet pomegranate seed to eat, taking care for himself that she might not remain continually with grave, dark-robed Demeter. but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods. But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men.

PRIVILEGES BESTOWED ON DEMETER & THE FIRST SPRING Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter cont. And all-seeing Zeus sent a messenger to them, rich-haired Rhea, to bring dark-cloaked Demeter to join the families of the gods: and he promised to give her what right she should choose among the deathless gods and agreed that her daughter should go down for the third part of the circling year to darkness and gloom [winter], but for the two parts [spring and summer] should live with her mother and

the other deathless gods [NB the early Greeks divided the year into just three seasons]. VII) FOUNDING OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter cont. : "Then she [Demeter] went, and to the kings who deal justice, Triptolemos and Diokles, the horse-driver, and to doughty Eumolpos and Keleos, leader of the people, she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries, to Triptolemos and Polyxeinos and Diokles also, - awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 68. 1 : "Now she [Demeter] discovered the corn before she gave birth to her daughter Persephone, but after the birth of her daughter and the rape of her by Plouton, she burned all the fruit of the corn, both because of her anger at Zeus and because of her grief over her daughter. After she had found Persephone, however, she became reconciled with Zeus and gave Triptolemos the corn to sow, instructing him both to share the gift with men everywhere and to teach tem everything concerned with the labour of sowing."

DEMETER & THE STARVATION OF MANKIND Ovid, Metamorphoses cont. : "Where the girl [Persephone] was she [Demeter] knew not, but reproached the whole wide world - ungrateful, not deserving her gift of grain - and Trinacria (Sicily) in chief where she had found the traces of her loss. So there with angry hands she broke the ploughs that turned the soil and sent to death alike the farmer and his labouring ox, and bade the fields betray their trust, and spoilt the seeds. So there with angry hands she broke the ploughs that turned the soil and sent to death alike the farmer and his labouring ox, and bade the fields betray their trust, and spoilt the seeds. False lay the islands famed fertility, famous through all the world. The young crops died in the first blade, destroyed now by the rain too violent, now by the sun too strong. The stars and the winds assailed them; hungry birds gobbled the scattered seeds; thistles and twitch, unconquerable twitch, wore down the wheat. THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE Ovid, Metamorphoses cont. : "Then Juppiter [Zeus], to hold the balance fair between his brother and his sister in her grief, portioned the rolling years in equal parts. Now Proserpine, of two empires alike great deity, spends with her mother half the years twelve months [summer and spring] and with her husband half [autumn and winter]. I) GOD OF VITICULTURE & WINE-MAKING

. His attributes included the thyrsos (a pine-cone tipped staff), drinking cup, leopard and fruiting vine. Hesiod, Works and Days 609 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) : "When [the stars] Oarion and Seirios are come into mid-heaven, and rosy-fingered Dawn sees Arktouros, then cut off all the grape-clusters, Perses, and bring them home. Show them to the sun ten days and ten nights: then cover them over for five,

and on the sixth day draw off into vessels the gifts of joyful Dionysos."

Euripides, Bacchae 650 ff : "He [Dionysos] who produces the rich-clustering vine for mortals."

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 191 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Dionysos came to Attika . . . and Ikarios received Dionysos, who gave him a vine-cutting and taught him the art of making wine." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 3. 62. 5 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) : "Dionysos was named twice-born (dimetor) by the ancients, counting it as a single and first birth when the plant is set in the ground and begins to grow, and as a second birth when it becomes laden with fruit and ripens its grape-clusters - the god thus being considered as having been born once from the earth and again from the vine."

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 274 : "Inventors and their inventions . . . A certain man named Cerasus [a disciple of Dionysos] mixed wine with the river Achelous in Aetolia, and from this to mix is called kerasai. Then, too, the ancient men of our race had on the posts of their dining-couches heads of ases [Dionysos' sacred beast] bound with vines to signify that the ass had discovered the sweetness of the vine. The vine, too, which a goat [Dionysos' sacred animal] had nibbled, brought fort more fruit, and from this they invented pruning." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 130 : "When Father Liber [Dionysos] went out to visit men in order to demonstrate the sweetness and pleasantness of his fruit, he came to the generous hospitality of Icarius and Erigone. To them he gave a skin full of wine as a gift and bade them spread the use of it in all the other lands." Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 2 : "Icarus, to whom, on account of his justice and piety, Father Liber [Dionysos] gave wine, the vine, and the grape , so that he could show men how to plant the vine, what would grow from it, and how to use what was produced. When he had planted the vine, and by careful tending with a pruning-knife had made it flourish."

Virgil, Georgics 2. 1 ff : "Now you, Bacchus, will I sing, and with you the forest saplings, and the offspring of the slow-growing olive. Hither Lenaean sire! Here all is full of your bounties; for you blossoms the field teeming with the harvest of the vine, and the vintage foams in the brimming vats. Come hither, Lenaean sire, strip off your buskins and with me plunge your naked legs in the new must."

Virgil, Georgics 2. 111 ff : "Bacchus [the grape-vine] loves open hills, and the yew tree [over which vines were grown] the cold of the North Wind."

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 29 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Hermes took him [the infant Dionysos] to the Nymphai of Asian Nysa . . . [in his youth] Dionysos was the discoverer of the grapevine. After Hera inflicted madness upon him, he wandered over Aigyptos (Egypt) and Syria [introducing the vine]." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 2. 3 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) : "After he [Dionysos] had received his rearing by the Nymphai in Nysa, they say, he made the discovery of wine and taught mankind how to cultivate the vine." Oppian, Cynegetica 4. 230 (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd A.D.) : "When Dionysos was now come to boyhood, he played with the other children; he would cut a fennel stalk and smite the hard rocks, and from their wounds they poured for the god sweet liquor."

DIONYSOS FAVOUR: IKARIOS & ERIGONE LOCALE: Athens, Attika (Southern Greece) Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 191-192 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Pandion became king [of Athens]. It was during his reign that Demeter and Dionysos came to Attika. Keleus welcomed Demeter to Eleusis, and Ikarios received Dionysos, who gave him a vine-cutting and taught him the art of making wine. Ikarios was eager to share the gods kindness with mankind, so he went to some shepherds, who, when they had tasted the drink and then delightedly and recklessly gulped it down undiluted, thought they had been poisoned and slew Ikarios. But in the daylight they regained their senses and buried him. As his daughter was looking for him, a dog named Maira, who had been Ikarios faithful companion, unearthed the corpse; and Erigone, in the act of mourning her father, hanged herself." Aelian, On Animals 7. 28 (trans. Schofield) (Greek natural history C2nd to 3rd A.D.) : "When Ikarios was slain by the relatives of those who, after drinking wine for the first time, fell asleep (for as yet they did not know that what had happened was not death but a drunken stupor), the people of Attika suffered from disease, Dionysos thereby (as I think) avenging the first and the most elderly man who cultivated his plants. At any rate the Pythian oracle declared that if they wanted to be restored to health they must offer sacrifice to Ikarios and to Erigone his daughter and to her hound which was celebrated for having in its excessive love for its mistress declined to outlive her."

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 130 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) The dog Maera, howling over the body of the slain Icarius, showed Erigone where her father lay unburied. When she came there, she killed herself by hanging in a tree over the body of her father. Because of this, Father Liber [Dionysos] afflicted the daughters of the Athenians with alike punishment. They asked an oracular response from Apollo concerning this, and he told them they had neglected he deaths of Icarius and Erigone. At this reply they exacted punishment from the shepherds, and in honour of Erigone instituted a festival day of swinging because of the affliction, decreeing that through the grape-harvest they should pour libations to Icarius and Erigone. By the will of the gods they were put among the stars. Erigone is the sign Virgo whom we call Justice; Icarius is called Arcturus among the stars, and the dog Maera is Canicula." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 224 : "Mortals who were made immortal . . . Icarus and Erigone, his daughter, placed among the stars - Icarus as Arcturus, Erigone ast he sign Virgo." Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 2 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Bear Watcher [Constellation Bootes]. Some have said that he is Icarus, father of Erigone, to whom, on account of his justice and piety, Father Liber [Dionysos] gave wine, the vine, and the grape, so that he could show men how to plant the vine, what would grow from it, and how to use what was produced. When he had planted the vine, and by careful tending with a pruning-knife had made it flourish, a goat is said to have broken into the vineyard, and nibbled the tenderest leaves he saw there. Icarus, angered by this, took him and killed him and from his skin made a sack, and blowing it up, bound it tight, and cast it among his friends, directing them to dance around it. And so Eratosthenes says: Around the goat of Icarus they first danced. Others say that Icarus, when he had received the wine from Father Liber [Dionysos], straightway put full wineskins on a wagon. For this he was called Botes. When he showed it to the shepherds on going round through the Attic country, some of them, greedy and attracted by the new kind of drink, became stupefied, and sprawling here and there, as if half-dead, kept uttering unseemly things. The others, thinking poison had been given the shepherds by Icarus, so that he could drive their flocks into his own territory, killed him, and threw him into a well, or, as others say, buried him near a certain tree.

HADES GOD OF THE EARTH'S FERTILITY Haides was regarded as a god of earth's fertility in that he released Persephone (goddess symbol of the sprouting corn) from his dark subterranean realm in spring. As such, he was often depicted holding a cornucopia bursting with sheafs of grain (e.g. in many of the vase paintings on this page).

Hesiod, Works and Days 465 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) : "Pray to Zeus Khthonios (of the Earth) [Haides] and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps." Plato, Cratylus 400d & 402d - 404b (trans. Lamb) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) : "[Plato constructs philosophical etymologies for the names of the gods :] Sokrates : Let us inquire what thought men had in giving them [the gods] their names . . . The first men who gave names [to the gods] were no ordinary persons, but high thinkers and great talkers . . . Plouton, he was so named as the giver of wealth (ploutos), because wealth comes up from below out of the earth . . . [and] he also bestows such great blessings upon us who are on earth; such abundance surrounds him there below, and for this reason he is called Plouton." Orphic Hymn 18 to Pluton (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) : "Zeus Khthonios (of the Underworld) [Haides], thy sacred ear incline, and pleased accept these sacred rites divine. Earths keys to thee, illustrious king, belong, its secret gates unlocking, deep and strong. Tis thine abundant annual fruits to bear, for needy mortals are thy constant care. To thee, great king, all sovereign earth assigned, the seat of gods and basis of mankind." Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2. 26 (trans. Rackham) (Roman rhetorician C1st B.C.) : "The entire bulk and substance of the earth, was dedicated to father Dis [Haides] (that is, Dives, the rich, and so in Greek Plouton), because all things fall back into the earth and also arise from the earth. He is said to have married Proserpina (really a Greek name, for she is the same as the goddess called Persephone in Greek)--they think that she represents the seed of corn, and fable that she was hidden away, and sought for by her mother. The mother is Ceres [Demeter]."

Statius, Silvae 4. 7. 14 (trans. Mozley) (Roman poetry C1st A.D.) : "The miner returns all pale at the sight of Dis [Haides] and yellow as the gold he has unearthed."

3269929- The consequence of her intervention is the transformation of agriculture from a natural process to a human activity surrounded by divine guarentees and conducted under the aegis f Demeter and Persephones power. Further, agricultural endevour is related by the myth to participation in the rites Demeter initiated as a guarantee of the regularity of the seasons. 7 The cosmos refractions are drawn into coherence by the focus on Demeters power over the food supply: the governing power on Olympus and the existence of humans on earth and in Hades are dependent on Demeter. Demeters centrality binds them to herself, and not only restores and restructures the governance and activity of the cosmos. 7 happy (olbios) is he among men upon earth who has sseen these mysteries.. (480-81). 11

That is, human life, initially understood as punctuated by death and issuing into a destiny of bad things down in the darkness and gloom, is qualified for the initiates by the work of Demeter. Ref 16- 12 The mystery rites gave humans the possibility of happiness before and after death. 12

- 4434671: Isocrates, for example, in telling the story of Demeter in Attica, says: even if it is mythical it is fitting for it to be told now, Because it illustrates an important conviction cherished by the Athenians- that they were the founders of agriculture and the benefactors of mankind in religion and law. Isocrates, iv. 28- ref 61- pg 412 - 40024509- It has been posed that vines had the most significant impact on Greek agriculture and society. Hanson argues that the farm of Laertes in the Odyssey ( 24. 205- 212) inaugurates the particular kind of farming which defined the Gree polis. 178