The goddess Ceres' primary function was as the goddess of agricultural fertility in general and grain in particular. Virgil claimed that her name was derived from the word creare, "to create". Modern scholars find the source of her name in the Indo-European *ker-, "to grow", which is the root of creare (Spaeth 33). As such, Ceres' name can be translated as meaning "Growth." She is one of the twelve Dii Consentes, who are analogous to the great Olympian gods of Greek mythology (Dumezil 477). A gilt statue of Ceres stood alongside one of Mercury in the Forum. She is also considered one of the Dii Novensiles, the foreign deities adopted by Rome (Nova Roma, "Gods and Goddesses of Rome" 5).
She is also associated with the ground from which crops spring, the bread produced from grain, and the work necessary to raise crops. Ceres presided over the frumentationes, the distribution of grain to the urban poor, and the annona, the administration of the Roman grain supply (Spaeth 10). She also becomes associated with the countryside and people who live there in the Augustinian period. In literature, she is most often described with the epithets flava, golden, the color of grain; frugifera, bearer of crops; larga, abundant, fecunda, fecund; fertilis, fertile; genetrix frugum, progenetress of the crops; and potens frugum, powerful in crops (25).
It was only after she became part of the Aventine Triad with Liber and Libera that Ceres began to assimilate the mythology and iconography of the Greek Demeter into her cult (8). As a part of this process, Ceres also become a goddess associated with women and human fertility (11). Varro suggests that the term "pig" was used to refer to the female genitalia as a reference to the pigs that were customarily sacrifices to Ceres. It is more likely that the word "pig" was instead derived from the same root as Ceres' own name, *ker- (Dumezil, 374). As Ceres Mater, she became a goddess of motherhood, a concept the Romans highly valued (Spaeth, 116). Reliefs from the imperial period show her attending at the birth of Apollo and Diana. She was also considered the mother of crops (117).
Ceres' major festival was the Cerealia, held on April 19 to celebrate the growth of grain and other agricultural products. The central and oldest ritual of this festival was a rite in which lit torches were tied to the tails of foxes. This rite has been associated with magic that would help protect crops. It was performed in the Circus Maximus in the Vallis Murcia, where other archaic agrarian deities were also worshiped (4). In 176 BCE ludi scaenici, or dramatic productions, were added to the festival (15). There were also ludi Circenses, which were horse races in the Circus Maximus. The aediles oversaw the production of the ludi (88). Religiously, the purpose of the ludi were to make the goddess favorably disposed toward the Roman people, so that she would give them a good harvest. The first day of the Cerialia was also a dies nefasti, on which no business could take place (Grilo).
The goddess was worshiped in many ways. There was the porca praecidanea, which involved sacrificing a fertile female pig and was necessary before a harvest. Cato indicates that sacrifices of any large food item will do, however, and suggests a pumpkin as an acceptable substitute for a pig, since it can be cut open and the seeds offered to Ceres in much the same way the entrails of the pig would be. After the offering of the porca praecidanea, it was customary to also give the goddess a libation of wine. The porca praesentanea was similarly sacrificed to her as a funerary custom, along with a porca praecidanea. The funerary sacrifice was considered necessary to cleanse a family of the taint of death and return it to a state of fertile productivity, and had to be performed in the presence of the corpse (Spaeth 54). It was probably performed by an heir as a condition of receiving his inheritance. The first fruits of the harvest were often offered to Ceres. The Ambarvalia, celebrated in May, had associations with her, since it concerned the lustration of the fields. So did the Feriae Sementivae, since both concerned the status of the fields (5). Those who worked in the grain trade often honored her with votive inscriptions (25).
There is evidence that Ceres was worshiped in Rome as early as 753 BCE. The high priest of her cult in Rome, the flamen cerealis, is part of the ancient flaminate class whose founding myths attributed to the ancient King Numa (4). The flamen alone could celebrate the ritual called the sacrum Cereale. During this sacrifice, which is occasionally attributed to Ceres and Tellus together, the flamen must recite the name of the twelve minor gods who assist the goddess in going about her work of aiding agriculture: Vervactor who turns fallow land, Reparator who prepares fallow land, Imporcitor who plows with wide furrows, Insitor who sowed, Obarator who plowed the surface, Occator who harrowed, Sarritor who weeded, Subruncinator who thinned out, Messor who harvested, Conuector who carted, Conditor who stored, and Promitor who distributed (Dumezil, 35). These spirits are from a class of Roman deity called indigimenta who assisted with private and agricultural tasks (36). These spirits can be considered to 'belong' to Ceres, in the same way that household slaves would belong to a Roman matron (37). The minor goddess Flora, who governed the blooming of plants, was also closely associated with and subordinate to Ceres, but was served by the flamen minores instead of the flamen cerealis (270).
Visual depictions of Ceres were largely derived from Greek portrayals of Demeter. On two coin types, a bust of Ceres was pictured on one side, while a yoke of oxen was on the other. On other coins, she wears a crown of grain stalks called a corona spicea, holds stalks of wheat, and is occasionally pictured with wheat and barley grains. One coin actually portrayed her wearing a modius, an instrument used to measure grain, on her head. Another pictures a bust of series on one side, and a pair of seated male figures with a wheat stalk to their side on the other. The seated men represent the official distribution of grain to the people (Spaeth 16). Annona, the goddess who personified the wheat supply, appears alongside Ceres on several coins from the imperial period. Reliefs from the Augustan period have even gone so far as to depict her as a plant growing out of the ground. In one her bust emerges from the earth, holding bunches of poppies and grain in her upraised hands while two snakes twine about her arms (37). Ceres also assimilated the visual symbols of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which most Romans observed in her name (Dillon 179). Ceres is depicted with symbols of the Mysteries, such as riding in a chariot drawn by snakes while holding a torch in her right hand, in coins issued in the 2nd century BCE (Spaeth 18).
