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Sicily, Attica, Crete, and Egypt claim the honor of Ceres’ birth, each country producing the ground of its claims, though general suffrage favors the first.
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.
Ceres' temple, games and cult were partially funded by fines imposed on those who offended the laws placed under her protection.
5 | Ceres Magazine | Oct/Nov 2015
Whereas other gods and goddesses were involved in human affairs only when it suited them, Ceres cared on a day-to-day basis about common folks. She was truly the nurturer, also deemed the goddess of fertility and transitions. She protected women at the vulnerable points in their lives: between girlhood and womanhood, and during the times of change between unmarried life, marriage and motherhood.
As a representation of motherly relationships, she was often paired with her daughter, Proserpina, in Roman rites. The complex origins of the Aventine Triad (the cult of Ceres, Liber and Libera) and, even Ceres herself, allow multiple interpretations of their mother-daughter relationship. Since, there are no native Roman myths
equivalent to her Greek counterpart, Demeter, the story of her daughter is ambiguous and borrows parts from Demeter's allegory.
Ceres was the daughter of Saturn and Ops, and sister of Juno, Vesta, Neptune, Pluto and Jupiter, who later on became her lover and fathered Proserpina. Again, it is said that Pluto, god of the underworld, kidnapped Proserpina to be his bride. Disconsolate at her loss, Ceres lit a torch, mounted her car drawn by winged dragons, and set out in search of her daughter, which had already disappeared into the earth. Soon, Ceres learned that Jupiter, himself, had given Pluto his approval to marry his daughter. Furious, Ceres ran away when Jupiter tried to feed her poppies, so she might sleep and forget her pain. She went to live in the world of men, disguised as an old woman, and venting her frustration about such betrayal, she stopped all the plants and crops from growing. Jupiter had no recourse but to send for Proserpina, who having eaten the food Pluto gave her, was now bound to the
Before Ceres' gift of agriculture to humanity, mankind had wandered without settlement, but the move away from a nomadic hunter gatherer society brought the need for regulations to fix land boundaries and to ascertain their possessions. Ceres provided those laws, and her Aventine Temple served not only as a cult center, but also as a legal archive, a treasury, a lawcourt, and might have offered asylum to those threatened with arbitrary arrest. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus consulta) were placed in Ceres' Temple, under the goddess’ guardianship.
Crimes against fields and harvest were crimes against Rome. Farmers who allowed their flocks to graze on other's lands were fined on behalf of Ceres. The death penalty was the sanction for the illicit removal of field boundaries. An adult who damaged or stole fieldcrops would be hanged "for Ceres” [Wikipedia].
Law and Order
Seated Ceres from Emerita Augusta, present-day Mérida, Spain (National Museum of Roman Art, 1st century AD)
Protecting women during transitions
Some interesting facts about Ceres:
Proserpina, or the love and devotion of a mother for her child
Óscar Marín Repoller