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Greek city of
Menainon in Sicily
Bronze Tetras 17mm (3.43 grams) Struck circa 175-125 B.C.
Reference: Sear 1129 var.; SNG Cop 384; SNG ANS 290-291var
Veiled bust of Demeter right, wreathed with corn.
MENAINΩN, Crossed torches, symbols of hope.
Founded in 459 B.C., Menainon was the subject to Syracuse for much
of its history down to the time of the Roman conquest at the end of the 3rd
Century.
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A veil is an article of clothing or cloth hanging that is intended to
cover some part of the
head
or
face, or an object of some significance. It is especially associated
with women and sacred objects.
One view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an
object or space. The actual sociocultural, psychological, and sociosexual
functions of veils have not been studied extensively but most likely include the
maintenance of social distance and the communication of social status and
cultural identity. In Islamic society, various forms of the veil have been
adopted from the Arab culture in which Islam arose. The
Quran
has no requirement that women cover their
faces with a veil, or cover their bodies with the full-body
burqua
or
chador
.
History
The first recorded instance of veiling for women is recorded in an
Assyrian
legal text from the 13th century BC,
which restricted its use to noble women and forbade prostitutes and common women
from adopting it.[citation
needed] The
Mycenaean Greek
term a-pu-ko-wo-ko
meaning “craftsman of horse veil” written in
Linear B
syllabic script is also attested since
ca. 1300 BC. In
ancient Greek
the word for veil was “καλύπτρα”
(kaluptra,
Ionic Greek
“καλύπτρη” – kaluptrē, from
the verb “καλύπτω” – kaluptō, “I cover”) and is first attested in the
works of Homer
.
Classical Greek and Hellenistic statues sometimes depict Greek women with
both their head and face covered by a veil. Caroline Galt and Lloyd
Llewellyn-Jones have both argued from such representations and literary
references that it was commonplace for women (at least those of higher status)
in ancient Greece to cover their hair and face in public.
For many centuries, until around 1175,
Anglo-Saxon
and then
Anglo-Norman
women, with the exception of young
unmarried girls, wore veils that entirely covered their hair, and often their
necks up to their chins (see
wimple
). Only in the
Tudor period
(1485), when
hoods
became increasingly popular, did veils of
this type become less common.
For centuries, women have worn sheer veils, but only under certain
circumstances. Sometimes a veil of this type was draped over and pinned to the
bonnet
or hat of a woman in
mourning
, especially at the
funeral
and during the subsequent period of
“high mourning”. They would also have been used, as an alternative to a
mask, as a simple method of hiding the identity of a woman who was
traveling to meet a lover, or doing anything she didn’t want other people to
find out about. More pragmatically, veils were also sometimes worn to protect
the complexion from sun and wind damage (when un-tanned skin was fashionable),
or to keep dust out of a woman’s face, much as the
keffiyeh
is used today.
Religion
In Judaism
,
Christianity
and
Islam
the concept of covering the head is or
was associated with propriety and modesty. Most traditional depictions of the
Virgin Mary
, the mother of
Christ
, show her veiled. During the
Middle Ages
most European and Byzantine married
women covered their hair rather than their face, with a variety of styles of
wimple
, kerchiefs and headscarfs. Veiling,
covering the hair rather than the face, was a common practice with church-going
women until the 1960s, typically using
lace, and a number of very traditional churches retain the custom.
Lace face-veils are still often worn by female relatives at funerals.
In North India, Hindu women may often veil for traditional purposes, it is
often the custom in rural areas to veil in front of male elders. This veil is
called the Ghoonghat
or Laaj. This is to show humility and
respect to those elder to the woman, in particular elder males. The ghoonghat is
customary especially in the westerly states of
Gujarat
and
Rajasthan
.
Although religion stands as a commonly held reason for choosing to veil, it
has also reflects on political regimes and personal conviction, allowing it to
serve as a medium through which personal character can be revealed.
Praying Jewish woman wearing
Tichel
Judaism
After the
destruction of the Temple
in
Jerusalem
, the
synagogues
that were established took the
design of the
Tabernacle
as their plan. The
Ark of the Law
, which contains the
scrolls
of the
Torah
, is covered with an embroidered curtain
or veil called a
parokhet
. (See also
below
regarding the veiling – and unveiling –
of the bride.)
The
Veil of our Lady
is a liturgical feast
celebrating the protection afforded by the
intercessions
of the Virgin Mary.
Traditionally, in Christianity, women were enjoined to cover their heads in
church, just as it was (and still is) customary for men to remove their hat as a
sign of respect. This practice is based on
1 Corinthians 11:4–16
, where
St. Paul
writes:
Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon
his head. But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled
brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had
had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may
as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her
hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the
other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of
God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but
woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this
reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the
angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For
just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are
from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with
her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his
hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is
her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering? But if
anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do
the churches of God (New
American Bible translation)
In many traditional
Eastern Orthodox Churches
, and in some very
conservative
Protestant
churches as well, the custom
continues of women covering their heads in church (or even when praying
privately at home).
In the
Roman Catholic Church
, it was customary in most
places before the 1960s for women to wear a headcovering in the form of a scarf,
cap, veil or hat when entering a church. The practice now continues where it is
seen as a matter of etiquette, courtesy, tradition or fashionable elegance
rather than strictly of canon law.
Traditionalist Catholics
also maintain the
practice.
The wearing of a headcovering was for the first time mandated as a universal
rule for the
Latin Rite
by the
Code of Canon Law of 1917
, which code was
abrogated by the advent of the present (1983) Code of Canon Law. Traditionalist
Catholics majorly still follow it, generally as a matter of ancient custom and
biblically approved aptness, some also supposing St. Paul’s directive in full
force today as an ordinance of its own right, without a canon law rule enforcing
it. The photograph here of Mass in the
Netherlands
in about 1946, two decades before
the changes that followed the
Second Vatican Council
, shows that, even at
that time, when a hat was still considered part of formal dress for both women
and men, wearing a headcovering at Mass was not a universal practice for
Catholic women.
A veil over the hair rather than the face forms part of the headdress of some
religiouss
of
nuns or
religious
sisters; this is why a woman who
becomes a nun is said “to take the veil”. In medieval times married women
normally covered their hair outside the house, and nun’s veils are based on
secular medieval styles, reflecting nuns position as “brides of Christ”. In many
institutes, a white veil is used as the “veil of probation” during
novitiate
, and a dark veil for the “veil of
profession” once religious vows are taken – the color scheme varies with the
color scheme of the habit of the order. A veil of
consecration
, longer and fuller, is used by
some orders for final profession of
solemn vows
.
Nuns
also wear veils
Nuns are the female counterparts of
monks, and many
monastic orders
of women have retained the
veil. Regarding other institutes of religious sisters who are not
cloistered
but who work as teachers, nurses or
in other “active” apostolates outside of a nunnery or monastery, some wear the
veil, while some others have abolished the use of the veil, a few never had a
veil to start with, but used a bonnet-style headdress even a century ago, as in
the case of
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
.
The fullest versions of the nun’s veil cover the top of the head and flow
down around and over the shoulders. In Western Christianity, it does not wrap
around the neck or face. In those orders that retain one, the starched white
covering about the face neck and shoulders is known as a
wimple
and is a separate garment.
The Catholic Church has revived the ancient practice of allowing women to
profess a solemn vow as
consecrated virgins
. These women are set aside
as sacred persons who belong only to Christ and the service of the church. They
are under the direct care of the local
bishop
, without belonging to a particular order
and receive the veil as a
sign
of
consecration
.
There has also been renewed interest in the last half century in the ancient
practice of women and men dedicating themselves as
anchorites
or
hermits
, and there is a formal process whereby
such persons can seek recognition of their vows by the local bishop – a veil for
these women would also be traditional.
Some Anglican
women’s religious orders also wear a
veil, differing according to the traditions of each order.
In
Eastern Orthodoxy
and in the
Eastern Rites
of the Catholic Church, a veil
called an
epanokamelavkion
is used by both nuns and
monks, in both cases covering completely the
kamilavkion
, a cylindrical hat they both
wear. In
Slavic
practice, when the veil is worn over the
hat, the entire headdress
is referred to as a
klobuk
. Nuns wear an additional veil under
the klobuk, called an
apostolnik
, which is drawn together to
cover the neck and shoulders as well as their heads, leaving the face itself
open.
Islam
A variety of headdresses worn by
Muslim women
and girls in accordance with
hijab
(the principle of dressing modestly)
are sometimes referred to as veils. The principal aim of the Muslim veil is to
hide that which men find sexually attractive. Many of these garments cover the
hair, ears and throat, but do not cover the face. The
khimar
is a type of
headscarf
. The
niqāb
and
burqa
are two kinds of veils that cover
most of the face except for a slit or hole for the eyes.
The Afghan
burqa covers the entire body, obscuring
the face completely, except for a grille or netting over the eyes to allow the
wearer to see. The
boshiya
is a veil that may be worn over a
headscarf; it covers the entire face and is made of a sheer fabric so the wearer
is able to see through it. It has been suggested that
the practice of wearing a veil
– uncommon among
the Arab
tribes prior to the rise of
Islam
– originated in the
Byzantine Empire
, and then spread.
The wearing of head and especially face coverings by Muslim women has raised
political issues in the West; see for example
Hijab controversy in Quebec
,
Islamic dress controversy in Europe
,
Islamic scarf controversy in France
, and
United Kingdom debate over veils
. There is also
high debate of the veil in
Turkey
, a
Muslim majority country
but secular, which
banned the headscarves in universities and government buildings, due to the
türban (a Turkish styled headscarf) being viewed as
a political symbol of Islam
, see
Headscarf controversy in Turkey
.
Frances Perkins
wearing a veil
after the death of U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Hats
Veils pinned to hats have survived the changing fashions of the centuries and
are still common today on formal occasions that require women to wear a hat.
However, these veils are generally made of netting or another material not
actually designed to hide the face from view, even if the veil can be pulled
down.
Wedding veils
An occasion on which a Western woman is likely to wear a veil is on her
white wedding
day.
Brides
once used to wear their hair flowing
down their back at their wedding to symbolise their virginity. Veils covering
the hair and face became a symbolic reference to the virginity of the bride
thereafter. Often in modern weddings, the ceremony of removing a face veil after
the wedding to present the groom with a virgin bride is skipped, since many
couples have already entered into conjugal relations prior to their wedding
day – the bride either wears no face veil, or it is lifted before the ceremony
begins, but this is not always the case. Further, if a bride is a virgin, she
often wears the face veil through the ceremony, and then either her father lifts
the veil, presenting the bride to her groom, or the groom lifts the veil to
symbolically consummate the marriage, which will later become literal. Brides
who are virgins may make use of the veil to symbolize and emphasize their status
of purity during their wedding however, and if they do, the lifting of the veil
may be ceremonially recognized as the crowning event of the wedding, when the
beauty of the bride is finally revealed to the groom and the guests. It is not
altogether clear that the wedding veil is a non-religious use of this item,
since weddings have almost always had religious underpinnings, especially in the
West. Veils, however, had been used in the West for weddings long before this.
Roman brides, for instance, wore an intensely flame-colored and fulsome veil,
called the flammeum, apparently intended to protect the bride from
evil spirits
on her wedding day. Later, the
so-called velatio virginum became part of the rite of the
consecration of virgins
, the liturgical rite in
which the church sets aside the virgin as a sacred person who belongs only to
Christ.
In the 19th century, wedding veils came to symbolize the woman’s
virginity
and
modesty
. The tradition of a veiled bride’s face
continues even today wherein, a virgin bride, especially in Christian or Jewish
culture, enters the marriage ritual with a veiled face and head, and remains
fully veiled, both head and face, until the ceremony concludes. After the full
conclusion of the wedding ceremony, either the bride’s father lifts the veil
giving the bride to the groom who then kisses her, or the new groom lifts her
face veil in order to kiss her, which symbolizes the groom’s right to enter into
conjugal relations with his bride.
The lifting of the veil was often a part of ancient wedding ritual,
symbolizing the
groom
taking possession of the wife, either as
lover or as property, or the revelation of the bride by her parents to the groom
for his approval.
A bride wearing a typical wedding veil
In Judaism, the tradition of wearing a veil dates back to biblical times.
According to the Torah in
Genesis 24:65
, Isaac is brought Rebekah to
marry by his father Abraham’s servant. It is important to note that Rebekah did
not veil herself when traveling with her lady attendants and Abraham’s servant
and his men to meet Isaac, but she only did so when Isaac was approaching. Just
before the wedding ceremony the
badeken
or bedeken is held. The groom places
the veil over the bride’s face, and either he or the officiating Rabbi gives her
a blessing. The veil stays on her face until just before the end of the wedding
ceremony – when they are legally married according to Jewish law – then the
groom helps lift the veil from off her face.
The most often cited interpretation for the
badeken
is that, according to
Genesis 29
, when Jacob went to marry Rachel,
his father in law Laban tricked him into marrying Leah, Rachel’s older and
homlier sister. Many say that the veiling ceremony takes place to make sure that
the groom is marrying the right bride. Some say that as the groom places the
veil over his bride, he makes an implicit promise to clothe and protect her.
Finally, by covering her face, the groom recognizes that he his marrying the
bride for her inner beauty; while looks will fade with time, his love will be
everlasting. In some ultra-orthodox traditions the bride wears an opaque veil as
she is escorted down the aisle to meet her groom. This shows her complete
willingness to enter into the marriage and her absolute trust that she is
marrying the right man. In Judaism, a wedding is not considered valid unless the
bride willingly consents to it.
In ancient Judaism
the lifting of the veil took place just
prior to the consummation of the marriage in sexual union. The uncovering or
unveiling that takes place in the
wedding ceremony
is a symbol of what will take
place in the marriage bed. Just as the two become one through their words spoken
in wedding vows, so these words are a sign of the physical oneness that they
will consummate later on. The lifting of the veil is a symbol and an
anticipation of this.
In the
Western world
,
St. Paul’s
words concerning how marriage
symbolizes the union of Christ and His Church may underlie part of the tradition
of veiling in the marriage ceremony.
Dance
Veils are part of the stereotypical images of courtesans and harem women.
Here, the mysterious veil hints at sensuality, an example being the dance of the
seven veils. This is the context into which belly dancing veils fall, with a
large repertoire of ways to wear and hold the veil, framing the body and
accentuating movements. Dancing veils can be as small as a scarf or two, silk
veils mounted on fans, a half circle, three-quarter circle, full circle, a
rectangle up to four feet long, and as large as huge Isis wings with sticks for
extensions. There is also a giant canopy type veil used by a group of dancers.
Veils are made of rayon, silk, polyester, mylar and other fabrics (never wool,
though). Rarely used in Egyptian cabaret style, veil dancing has always played
an important part in the international world of belly dance, extending the range
of the dance and offering lovely transitory imagery.
Courtesans
Conversely, veils are often part of the stereotypical image of the
courtesan
and
harem
woman. Here, rather than the virginity of
the bride’s veil, modesty of the Muslim scarf or the piety of the nun’s
headdress, the mysterious veil hints at sensuality and the unknown. An example
of the veil’s erotic potential is the
dance of the seven veils
.
In this context, the term may refer to a piece of sheer cloth approximately 3
x 1.5 metres, sometimes trimmed with sequins or coins, which is used in various
styles of belly dancing
. A large repertoire of ways to
wear and hold the veil exists, many of which are intended to frame the body from
the perspective of the audience.
Veils for men
Among the
Tuareg
,
Songhai
,
Moors
,
Hausa
. and
Fulani
of
West Africa
, women do not traditionally wear
the veil, while men do. The men’s facial covering originates from the belief
that such action wards off evil spirits, but most probably relates to protection
against the harsh desert sands as well; in any event, it is a firmly established
tradition. Men begin wearing a veil at age 25 which conceals their entire face
excluding their eyes. This veil is never removed, even in front of family
members.
In India
,
Pakistan
,
Bangladesh
, and
Nepal
, men wear a
sehra
on their wedding day. This is a male
veil covering the whole face and neck. The sehra is made from either flowers,
beads, tinsel, dry leaves, or coconuts. The most common sehra is made from fresh
marigolds. The groom wears this throughout the day concealing his face even
during the wedding ceremony. In India today you can see the groom arriving on a
horse with the sehra wrapped around his head.
Etymology
“Veil” came from Latin
vēlum, which also means “sail“.
There are two theories about the origin of the word vēlum:-
- Via the “covering” meaning, from (Indo-European
root
) *wel– = “to cover, to
enclose”.
- Via the “sail” meaning, from Indo-European *weghslom, from root *wegh-
= “way” or “carry in a vehicle”, because it makes the ship move.
In
Greek mythology
, Demeter
was the goddess of the harvest, who presided over
grains
, the
fertility
of the earth, the
seasons
(personified by the
Hours
), and the
harvest
. One of her surnames is Sito (σίτος:
wheat) as the giver of food or corn. Though Demeter is often described simply as
the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of
marriage
, the
sacred law
, and the cycle of
life and death
. She and her daughter
Persephone
were the central figures of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
that also predated the
Olympian pantheon.
Her
Roman
cognate is
Ceres
.
In
ancient Roman religion
, Ceres (
Latin
: Cerēs)
was a goddess
of
agriculture
,
grain crops
, fertility and motherly
relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome’s so-called
plebeian
or
Aventine Triad
, then was paired with her
daughter Proserpina
in what Romans described as “the
Greek rites of Ceres”. Her seven-day April
festival
of
Cerealia
included the popular
Ludi Ceriales (Ceres’ games). She was also honoured in the May
lustration
of fields at the
Ambarvalia
festival, at harvest-time, and
during
Roman marriages
and
funeral rites
.
Ceres is the only one of Rome’s many
agricultural deities
to be listed among the
Di Consentes
, Rome’s equivalent to the
Twelve Olympians
of Greek mythology. The Romans
saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess
Demeter
, whose
mythology
was
reinterpreted
for Ceres in
Roman art
and
literature
.
Etymology and origins
Ceres’ name may derive from the hypothetical
Proto-Indo-European root
*ker, meaning
“to grow”, which is also a possible root for many English words, such as
“create”, “cereal”, “grow”, “kernel”, “corn”, and “increase”. Roman etymologists
thought “ceres” derived from the Latin verb gerere, “to bear, bring
forth, produce”, because the goddess was linked to
pastoral
, agricultural and human fertility.
Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Rome’s neighbours in the
Regal period
, including the ancient
Latins
,
Oscans
and
Sabellians
, less certainly among the
Etruscans
and
Umbrians
. An archaic
Faliscan
inscription of c.600 BC asks her to
provide far (spelt
wheat), which was a dietary staple of the
Mediterranean world
. Throughout the Roman era,
Ceres’ name was synonymous with grain and, by extension, with bread.
Cults and cult themes
Agricultural fertility
Ceres was credited with the discovery of
spelt
wheat (Latin far), the yoking of
oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and
the gift of agriculture to humankind; before this, it was said, man had
subsisted on acorns, and wandered without settlement or laws. She had the power
to fertilise, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and
rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres was
offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow, along with the earth-goddess
Tellus
at the movable
Feriae
Sementivae
. This was almost certainly held
before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the
entrails (exta)
presented in an earthenware pot (olla).
In a rural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca
praecidanea (a pig, offered before the sowing). Before the harvest, she was
offered a propitiary grain sample (praemetium). Ovid tells that Ceres “is
content with little, provided that her offerings are
casta
” (pure).
Ceres’ main festival,
Cerealia
, was held from mid to late April. It
was organised by her
plebeian
aediles
and included circus games (ludi
circenses). It opened with a horse-race in the
Circus Maximus
, whose starting point lay below
and opposite to her Aventine Temple;[7]
the turning post at the far end of the Circus was sacred to
Consus
, a god of grain-storage. After the race,
foxes were released into the Circus, their tails ablaze with lighted torches,
perhaps to cleanse the growing crops and protect them from disease and vermin,
or to add warmth and vitality to their growth.[8]
From c.175 BC, Cerealia included
ludi scaenici
(theatrical religious
events), held through April 12 to 18.
Helper gods
In the ancient sacrum cereale a priest, probably the
Flamen Cerialis
, invoked Ceres (and probably
Tellus) along with twelve specialised, minor assistant-gods to secure divine
protection and assistance at each stage of the grain cycle, beginning shortly
before the Feriae Sementivae.
W.H. Roscher
lists these deities among the
indigitamenta
, names used to invoke
specific divine functions.
- Vervactor, “He who ploughs”
- Reparator, “He who prepares the earth”
- Imporcitor, “He who ploughs with a wide furrow”
- Insitor, “He who plants seeds”
- Obarator, “He who traces the first plowing”
- Occator, “He who harrows”
- Serritor, “He who digs”
- Subruncinator, “He who weeds”
- Messor, “He who reaps”
- Conuector (Convector), “He who carries the grain”
- Conditor, “He who stores the grain”
- Promitor, “He who distributes the grain”
Marriage, human fertility and nourishment
Several of Ceres’ ancient Italic precursors are connected to human fertility
and motherhood; the Pelignan goddess
Angitia
Cerealis has been identified with
the Roman goddess
Angerona
(associated with childbirth).[13]
Ceres’ torch was a mark of Roman weddings. Adult males were excluded from
bridal processions; these took place at night and were headed by a young boy,
who carried a torch in honour of Ceres.
Pliny the Elder
“notes that the most
auspicious wood
for wedding torches came from
the spina alba, the may tree, which bore many fruits and hence symbolised
fertility”. Once led thus to her husband’s home, the bride was a matron.[14]
Sacrifice was offered to
Tellus
on the bride’s behalf; a sow is the most
likely
victim
. Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig
as “a worthy mark of weddings” because “our women, and especially nurses” call
the female genitalia porcus (pig).
Spaeth
(1996) believes Ceres may have been
included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with
Tellus and “bears the laws” of marriage. In the most solemn form of marriage,
confarreatio, the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, the ancient
wheat-type particularly associated with Ceres.
Funerary statue of an unknown woman, depicted as Ceres holding
wheat. Mid 3rd century AD. (Louvre)
From at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and
Proserpina reinforced Ceres’ connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The
promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a plebeian nobility, an
increased birthrate among plebeian commoners, and a fall in the birthrate among
patrician families. The late Republican Ceres Mater (Mother Ceres) is
described as genetrix (progenitress) and alma (nourishing); in the
early Imperial era she becomes an Imperial deity, and receives joint cult with
Ops
Augusta
, Ceres’ own mother in Imperial guise
and a bountiful genetrix in her own right.
Laws
Ceres was patron and protector of
plebeian laws
, rights and
Tribunes
. Her Aventine Temple served the
plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury and possibly law-court; its
foundation was contemporaneous with the passage of the
Lex Sacrata
, which established the office and
person of plebeian aediles and tribunes as inviolate representatives of the
Roman people. Tribunes were legally immune to arrest or threat, and the lives
and property of
those who violated this law
were forfeit to
Ceres. The
Lex Hortensia
of 287 BC extended plebeian laws
to the city and all its citizens. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus
consulta) were placed in Ceres’ Temple, under the guardianship of the
goddess and her aediles. Livy puts the reason bluntly: the consuls could no
longer seek advantage by arbitrarily tampering with the laws of Rome. The Temple
might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by
patrician magistrates.[20]
Successful prosecutions of those who offended the laws of Ceres raised fines and
property distraints that funded her temple, games and cult. Ceres was thus the
patron goddess of Rome’s written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her
legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter’s Greek
epithet,
thesmophoros
.
Ceres’ role as protector of laws continued throughout the Republican era. The
killing of the tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was justified by some as
rightful punishment for attempted tyranny, an offense against Ceres’ Lex
sacrata. Others deplored his killing as murder, because the same “Lex
sacrata” had made his person sacrosanct. In 70 BC,
Cicero
refers to this killing in connection
with Ceres’ laws and cults, during his prosecution of
Verres
, Roman governor of Sicily, for
extortion. The case included circumstantial details of Verres’ irreligious
exploitation and abuse of Sicilian grain farmers, naturally under Ceres’ special
protection at the very place of her “earthly home” – and thefts from her temple,
including an ancient image of the goddess herself. Faced by the mounting
evidence against him, Verres abandoned his own defense and withdrew to a
prosperous exile. Soon after, Cicero won election as
aedile
.
As Ceres’ first plough-furrow opened the earth (Tellus’ realm) to the world
of men and created the first field and its boundary, her laws determined the
course of settled, lawful, civilised life. Crimes against fields and harvest
were crimes against the people and their protective deity. Landowners who
allowed their flocks to graze on public land were fined by the plebeian aediles,
on behalf of Ceres and the people of Rome. Ancient laws of the
Twelve Tables
forbade the magical charming of
field crops from a neighbour’s field into one’s own, and invoked the death
penalty for the illicit removal of field boundaries.[24]
An adult who damaged or stole field-crops should be hanged “for Ceres”. Any
youth guilty of the same offense was to be whipped or fined double the value of
damage.
Ceres protected transitions of women from girlhood to womanhood, from
unmarried to married life and motherhood. She also maintained the boundaries
between the realms of the living and the dead, regardless of their sex. Given
the appropriate rites, she helped the deceased into afterlife as an underworld
shade (Di
Manes), else their spirit might remain to haunt the living, as a
wandering,
vengeful ghost
(Lemur).
For this service, well-off families offered Ceres sacrifice of a pig. The poor
could offer wheat, flowers, and a libation. The expected afterlife for the
exclusively female initiates in the sacra Cereris may have been somewhat
different; they were offered “a method of living” and of “dying with better
hope”.
The mundus of
Ceres
The mundus cerialis (literally “the world” of Ceres) was a
hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome;
Cato
describes its shape as a reflection or
inversion of the dome of the upper heavens. On most days of the year, it was
sealed by a stone lid known as the
lapis manalis
.[30]
On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official
announcement “mundus patet” (“the mundus is open”), and offerings
were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as
goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. While the
mundus was open, the spirits of the dead could lawfully emerge from the
underworld and roam among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as
‘holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts’. When it was re-sealed, the spirits
returned to the realms of the dead.
The origins and location of the mundus pit are disputed. The days when
the mundus was open are identified in the oldest Roman calendar as
C(omitiales) (days when the
Comitia
met) but by later authors as dies
religiosus
, when it would be irreligious to
perform any official work: this apparent contradiction has led to the suggestion
that the whole mundus ritual was not contemporary with Rome’s early
calendar or early Cerean cult, but was a later Greek import. Nevertheless, the
days when the mundus was open were connected to the official festivals of the
agricultural cycle; the mundus rite of August 24 follows
Consualia
(an agricultural festival) and
precedes Opiconsivia
(another such).
Other than the festivals of
Parentalia
and
Lemuralia
, these rites at the mundus
cerialis on particular dies religiosi are the only known, regular
official contacts with the spirits of the dead, or Di Manes. This may
represent a secondary or late function of the mundus, attested no earlier
than the Late Republican Era, by
Varro
. Warde Fowler speculates that it was
originally Rome’s storehouse (penus) for the best of the harvest, to
provide seed-grain for the next planting, then became the symbolic penus
of the expanded Roman state. In Plutarch, the digging of such a pit to receive
first-fruits and small quantities of native soil was an Etruscan colonial
city-foundation rite.[35]
The rites of the mundus suggest Ceres as guardian deity of seed-corn, an
essential deity in the establishment and agricultural prosperity of cities, and
a door-warden of the underworld’s afterlife, in which her daughter Proserpina
rules as queen-companion to
Pluto
or
Dis
.
Expiations
In Roman theology,
prodigies
were abnormal phenomena that
manifested
divine anger
at human impiety. In Roman
histories, prodigies are clustered around perceived or actual threats to the
equilibrium of the Roman state, in particular, famine, war and social disorder,
and are expiated as matters of urgency. The establishment of Ceres’ Aventine
cult has itself been interpreted as an extraordinary expiation after the failure
of crops and consequent famine. In Livy’s history, Ceres is among the deities
placated after a remarkable series of prodigies that accompanied the disasters
of the
Second Punic War
: during the same conflict, a
lighting strike at her temple was expiated. A fast in her honour is recorded for
191 BC, to be repeated at 5-year intervals. After 206, she was offered at least
11 further official expiations. Many of these were connected to famine and
manifestations of plebeian unrest, rather than war. From the Middle Republic
onwards, expiation was increasingly addressed to her as mother to Proserpina.
The last known followed
Rome’s Great Fire of 64 AD
.[38]
The cause or causes of the fire remained uncertain, but its disastrous extent
was taken as a sign of offense against
Juno
,
Vulcan
, and Ceres-with-Proserpina, who were all
were given expiatory cult. Champlin (2003) perceives the expiations to Vulcan
and Ceres in particular as attempted populist appeals by the ruling emperor,
Nero.
Myths and theology
Ceres with cereals
The complex and multi-layered origins of the Aventine Triad and Ceres herself
allowed multiple interpretations of their relationships; Cicero asserts Ceres as
mother to both Liber and Libera, consistent with her role as a mothering deity.
Varro’s more complex theology groups her functionally with Tellus, Terra, Venus
(and thus Victoria) and with Libera as a female aspect of Liber.[40]
No native Roman myths of Ceres are known. According to
interpretatio romana
, which sought the
equivalence of Roman to Greek deities, she was an equivalent to Demeter, one of
the
Twelve Olympians
of Greek religion and
mythology; this made Ceres one of Rome’s twelve
Di Consentes
, daughter of
Saturn
and
Ops,
sister of
Jupiter
, mother of
Proserpina
by Jupiter and sister of
Juno
,
Vesta
,
Neptune
and
Pluto
. Ceres’ known mythology is
indistinguishable from Demeter’s:
“When Ceres sought through all the earth with lit torches for Proserpina,
who had been seized by Dis Pater, she called her with shouts where three or
four roads meet; from this it has endured in her rites that on certain days
a lamentation is raised at the crossroads everywhere by the matronae.”
Ceres had strong mythological and cult connections with
Sicily
, especially at
Henna (Enna), on whose “miraculous plain” flowers bloomed throughout
the year. This was the place of Proserpina’s rape and abduction to the
underworld and the site of Ceres’ most ancient Sanctuary.[42]
According to legend, she begged Jupiter that Sicily be placed in the heavens.
The result, because the island is triangular in shape, was the constellation
Triangulum
, an early name of which was
Sicilia.[citation
needed]
Temples
Vitruvius
(c.80 – 15 BC) describes the “Temple
of Ceres near the Circus Maximus” (her Aventine Temple) as typically
Araeostyle
, having widely spaced supporting
columns, with
architraves
of wood, rather than stone. This
species of temple is “clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide, [its]
pediments
ornamented with statues of clay or
brass, gilt in the
Tuscan fashion
“. He recommends that temples to
Ceres be sited in rural areas: “in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the
public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. This
spot is to be reverenced with religious awe and solemnity of demeanour, by those
whose affairs lead them to visit it.” During the early Imperial era, soothsayers
advised
Pliny the Younger
to restore an ancient, “old
and narrow” temple to Ceres, at his rural property near
Como. It contained an ancient wooden cult statue of the goddess,
which he replaced. Though this was unofficial, private cult (sacra privata)
its annual feast on the
Ides
of September, the same day as the
Epulum Jovis
, was attended by pilgrims from all
over the region. Pliny considered this rebuilding a fulfillment of his civic and
religious duty.
Images of Ceres
Denarius
picturing Quirinus on the
obverse
, and Ceres enthroned on the
reverse, a commemoration by a moneyer in 56 BC of a Cerialia,
perhaps her first
ludi
, presented by an earlier
Gaius Memmius
as
aedile
No images of Ceres survive from her pre-Aventine cults; the earliest date to
the middle Republic, and show the Hellenising influence of Demeter’s
iconography. Some late Republican images recall Ceres’ search for Proserpina.
Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or
she sits on the sacred kiste (chest) that conceals the objects of her
mystery rites. Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from the earth,
her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat,
or her head crowned with fruits and vines. In free-standing statuary, she
commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray.
Moneyers of the Republican era
use Ceres’
image, wheat ears and garlands to advertise their connections with prosperity,
the annona and the popular interest. Some Imperial coin images depict important
female members of the Imperial family as Ceres, or with some of her attributes.
Priesthoods
Ceres was served by several public priesthoods. Some were male; her senior
priest, the flamen cerialis, also served Tellus and was usually plebeian
by ancestry or adoption. Her public cult at the
Ambarvalia
, or “perambulation of fields”
identified her with
Dea Dia
, and was led by the
Arval Brethren
(“The Brothers of the Fields”);
rural versions of these rites were led as private cult by the
heads of households
. An inscription at
Capua
names a male sacerdos Cerialis
mundalis, a priest dedicated to Ceres’ rites of the mundus. The
plebeian aediles
had minor or occasional
priestly functions at Ceres’ Aventine Temple and were responsible for its
management and financial affairs including collection of fines, the organisation
of ludi Cerealia and probably the Cerealia itself. Their cure
(care and jurisdiction) included, or came to include, the
grain supply
(annona) and later the
plebeian grain doles (frumentationes), the organisation and management of
public games
in general, and the maintenance of Rome’s
streets and public buildings.
Otherwise, in Rome and throughout Italy, as at her ancient sanctuaries of
Henna and Catena, Ceres’
ritus graecus
and her joint cult with
Proserpina were invariably led by female sacerdotes, drawn from women of
local and Roman elites: Cicero notes that once the new cult had been founded,
its earliest priestesses “generally were either from Naples or Velia”, cities
allied or federated to Rome. Elsewhere, he describes Ceres’ Sicilian priestesses
as “older women respected for their noble birth and character”. Celibacy may
have been a condition of their office; sexual abstinence was, according to Ovid,
required of those attending Ceres’ major, nine-day festival. Her public
priesthood was reserved to respectable matrons, be they married, divorced or
widowed. The process of their selection and their relationship to Ceres’ older,
entirely male priesthood is unknown; but they far outnumbered her few male
priests, and would have been highly respected and influential figures in their
own communities.
Cult development
Archaic and Regal eras
Roman tradition credited Ceres’ eponymous festival,
Cerealia
, to Rome’s second king, the
semi-legendary
Numa
. Ceres’ senior, male priesthood was a
minor flaminate
whose priesthood and rites were
supposedly also innovations of Numa.[59]
Her affinity and joint cult with Tellus, also known as
Terra Mater
(Mother Earth) may have developed
at this time. Much later, during the
early Imperial era
,
Ovid describes these goddesses as “partners in labour”; Ceres
provides the “cause” for the growth of crops, while Tellus provides them a place
to grow.
Republican era
Ceres and the
Aventine Triad
In 496 BC, against a background of economic recession and famine in Rome,
imminent war against the Latins and a threatened secession by Rome’s
plebs
(citizen commoners), the
dictator
A. Postumius
vowed
a temple to Ceres,
Liber
and
Libera
on or near the
Aventine Hill
. The famine ended and Rome’s
plebeian citizen-soldiery co-operated in the conquest of the Latins. Postumius’
vow was fulfilled in 493 BC: Ceres became the central deity of the new
Triad
, housed in a
new-built Aventine temple
. She was also – or
became – the patron goddess of the
plebs
, whose enterprise as tenant farmers,
estate managers, agricultural factors and importers was a mainstay of Roman
agriculture.
Much of Rome’s grain was imported from territories of
Magna Graecia
, particularly from
Sicily
, which later Roman
mythographers
describe as Ceres’ “earthly
home”. Writers of the
late Roman Republic
and early Empire describe
Ceres’ Aventine temple and rites as conspicuously Greek.[62]
In modern scholarship, this is taken as further evidence of long-standing
connections between the plebeians, Ceres and Magna Graecia. It also raises
unanswered questions on the nature, history and character of these associations:
the Triad itself may have been a self-consciously Roman cult formulation based
on Greco-Italic precedents. To complicate matters further, when a new form of
Cerean cult was officially imported from Magna Graecia, it was known as the
ritus graecus
(Greek rite) of Ceres, and
was distinct from her older Roman rites.
The older forms of Aventine rites to Ceres remain uncertain. Most Roman cults
were led by men, and the officiant’s head was
covered
by a fold of his toga. In the Roman
ritus graecus, a male celebrant wore Greek-style vestments, and remained
bareheaded before the deity, or else wore a wreath. While Ceres’ original
Aventine cult was led by male priests, her “Greek rites” (ritus graecus
Cereris) were exclusively female.
Middle Republic
Ceres and Proserpina
Towards the end of the
Second Punic War
, around 205 BC, an officially
recognised joint cult to Ceres and her daughter
Proserpina
was brought to Rome from southern
Italy (part of
Magna Graecia
) along with Greek priestesses to
serve it.[65]
In Rome, this was known as the ritus graecus Cereris; its priestesses
were granted
Roman citizenship
so that they could pray to
the gods “with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil
intention”. The cult was based on ancient, ethnically Greek cults to Demeter,
most notably the
Thesmophoria
to
Demeter
and
Persephone
, whose cults and myths also provided
a basis for the
Eleusinian mysteries
.
From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter’s temple at
Enna, in Sicily
, was acknowledged as Ceres’ oldest, most
authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognised as Proserpina, Roman
equivalent to Demeter’s daughter
Persephone
.[66]
Their joint cult recalls Demeter’s search for Persephone, after the latter’s
rape and abduction into the underworld by
Hades
. The new cult to “mother and maiden” took
its place alongside the old, but made no reference to Liber. Thereafter, Ceres
was offered two separate and distinctive forms of official cult at the Aventine.
Both might have been supervised by the male
flamen Cerialis
but otherwise, their
relationship is unclear. The older form of cult included both men and women, and
probably remained a focus for plebeian political identity and discontent. The
new identified its exclusively females initiates and priestesses as upholders of
Rome’s traditional,
patrician
-dominated social hierarchy and
mores
.
Ceres and Magna Mater
A year after the import of the ritus cereris, patrician senators
imported cult to the Greek goddess
Cybele
and established her as
Magna Mater
(The Great Mother) within Rome’s
sacred boundary
, facing the Aventine Hill. Like
Ceres, Cybele was a form of Graeco-Roman earth goddess. Unlike her, she had
mythological ties to Troy
, and thus to the Trojan prince
Aeneas
, mythological ancestor of
Rome’s founding father
and first patrician
Romulus
. The establishment of official Roman
cult to Magna Mater coincided with the start of a new saeculum (cycle of
years). It was followed by Hannibal’s defeat, the end of the Punic War and an
exceptionally good harvest. Roman victory and recovery could therefore be
credited to Magna Mater and patrician piety: so the patricians dined her and
each other at her festival banquets. In similar fashion, the plebeian nobility
underlined their claims to Ceres. Up to a point, the two cults reflected a
social and political divide, but when certain prodigies were interpreted as
evidence of Ceres’ displeasure, the senate appeased her with a new festival, the
ieiunium Cereris (“fast
of Ceres”).
In 133 BC, the plebeian noble
Tiberius Gracchus
bypassed the
Senate
and appealed directly to the popular
assembly to pass his proposed
land-reforms
. Civil unrest spilled into
violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their
conservative opponents. At the behest of the
Sibylline oracle
, the senate sent the
quindecimviri
to Ceres’ ancient cult centre at
Henna in Sicily
, the goddess’ supposed place of origin
and earthly home. Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given,
either to expiate Gracchus’ murder – as later Roman sources would claim – or to
justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or
demagogue
, a
homo sacer
who had offended Ceres’ laws
against tyranny.
Late Republic
The Eleusinian mysteries became increasingly popular during the late
Republic. Early Roman initiates at
Eleusis
in Greece included
Sulla
and
Cicero
; thereafter many
Emperors
were initiated, including
Hadrian
, who founded an Eleusinian cult centre
in Rome itself.
In Late Republican politics,
aristocratic traditionalists
and
popularists
used coinage to propagated their
competing claims to Ceres’ favour. A coin of
Sulla
shows Ceres on one side, on the other a
ploughman with yoked oxen: the images, accompanied by the legend “conditor”,
claim his rule (a military dictatorship) as regenerative and divinely justified.
Popularists used her name and attributes to appeal their guardianship of
plebeian interests, particularly the annona and frumentarium; and
plebeian nobles and aediles used them to point out their ancestral connections
with plebeian commoners. In the decades of Civil War that ushered in the Empire,
such images and dedications proliferate on Rome’s coinage:
Julius Caesar
, his opponents, his assassins and
his heirs alike claimed the favour and support of Ceres and her plebeian
proteges, with coin issues that celebrate Ceres,
Libertas
(liberty) and
Victoria
(victory).
Imperial era
Emperors celebrated imperial and divine partnerships in grain import
and provision. On this
Sestercius
of 66 AD,
Nero
‘s garlanded head is left.
Opposite, a standing
Annona
holds
cornucopiae
(horns of Plenty) and
enthroned Ceres holds grain-ears and torch. Between them on a
garlanded altar, a
modius
(grain measure), and in the
background, a ship’s stern.
Imperial theology conscripted Rome’s traditional cults as the divine
upholders of Imperial
Pax
(peace) and prosperity, for the benefit of
all. The emperor
Augustus
began the restoration of Ceres’
Aventine Temple; his successor
Tiberius
completed it. Of the several figures
on the Augustan
Ara Pacis
, one doubles as a portrait of the
Empress Livia
, who wears Ceres’ corona spicea.
Another has been variously identified in modern scholarship as Tellus, Venus,
Pax or Ceres, or in Spaeth’s analysis, a deliberately broad composite of them
all.
The emperor Claudius
‘ reformed the grain supply and created
its embodiment as an Imperial goddess,
Annona
, a junior partner to Ceres and the
Imperial family. The traditional, Cerean virtues of provision and nourishment
were symbolically extended to Imperial family members with coinage that showed
Claudius’ mother
Antonia
as
Augusta
with corona spicea.
The relationship between the reigning emperor, empress and Ceres was
formalised in titles such as
Augusta
mater agrorum (“The august mother of
the fields) and Ceres Augusta. On coinage, various emperors and empresses
wear her corona spicea, showing that the goddess, the emperor and his
spouse are conjointly responsible for agricultural prosperity and the
all-important provision of grain. A coin of
Nerva
(reigned AD 96–98) acknowledges Rome’s
dependence on the princeps’ gift of frumentio (corn dole) to the masses.
Under Nerva’s later dynastic successor
Antoninus Pius
, Imperial theology represents
the death and
apotheosis
of the Empress
Faustina the Elder
as Ceres’ return to Olympus
by
Jupiter’s
command. Even then, “her care for
mankind continues and the world can rejoice in the warmth of her daughter
Proserpina: in Imperial flesh, Proserpina is
Faustina the Younger
“, empress-wife of Pius’
successor
Marcus Aurelius
.
In Britain, a soldier’s inscription of the 2nd century AD attests to Ceres’
role in the popular syncretism of the times. She is “the bearer of ears of
corn”, the “Syrian Goddess”, identical with the universal heavenly Mother, the
Magna Mater and
Virgo
, virgin mother of the gods. She is peace
and virtue, and inventor of justice: she weighs “Life and Right” in her scale.
During the Late Imperial era, Ceres gradually “slips into obscurity”; the
last known official association of the Imperial family with her symbols is a
coin issue of
Septimius Severus
(AD 193–211), showing his
empress, Julia Domna
, in the corona spicea. After
the reign of
Claudius Gothicus
, no coinage shows Ceres’
image. Even so, an initiate of her mysteries is attested in the 5th century AD,
after the official abolition of all non-Christian cults.
Legacy
The word cereals
derives from Ceres, commemorating her
association with edible grains. Statues of Ceres top the domes of the
Missouri State Capitol
and the
Vermont State House
serving as a reminder of
the importance of agriculture in the states’ economies and histories. There is
also a statue of her on top of the
Chicago Board of Trade Building
, which conducts
trading in agricultural commodities.
The dwarf planet
Ceres
(discovered 1801), is named after this
goddess. And in turn, the chemical element
cerium
(discovered 1803) was named after the
dwarf planet. A poem about Ceres and humanity features in
Dmitri
‘s confession to his brother Alexei in
Dostoevsky’s
The Brothers Karamazov
, Part 1, Book 3,
Chapter 3.
Ceres appears as a character in
William Shakespeare’s
play
The Tempest
(1611).
An aria in praise of Ceres is sung in Act 4 of the opera The Trojans
by Hector Berlioz
.
The goddess Ceres is one of the three goddess offices held in the
The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry
.
The other goddesses are
Pomona
, and
Flora
.
Ceres is depicted on the
Seal of New Jersey
as a symbol of prosperity.
Ceres was depicted on several ten and twenty
Confederate States of America dollar
notes.
A manga by Yuu Watase is known as Ceres Celestial Legend
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