12 Facts About Proserpina

Proserpina or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone.

Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in the Aventine temple of the grain-goddess Ceres, along with the wine god Liber.

Proserpina's was identified with Greek Demeter and Liber was identified with Bacchus and Dionysus.

Proserpina's name is a Latinisation of "Persephone", perhaps influenced by the Latin proserpere, with reference to the growing of grain.

Proserpina was imported from southern Italy as part of an official religious strategy, towards the end of the second Punic war, when antagonism between Rome's lower and upper social classes, crop failures and intermittent famine were thought to be signs of divine wrath, provoked by Roman impiety.

Related searches

Proserpina's enters Roman history as part of a so-called Triadic cult alongside Ceres and Liber, in a temple established around 493 BC on the Aventine Hill at state expense, promised by Rome's governing class to the plebs, who had threatened secession.

Proserpina was officially introduced to Rome as the daughter of Ceres in the newly Romanised cult of "Mother and Daughter".

Exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new "Greek-style" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician-dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality.

Best-known myth surrounding Proserpina is of her abduction by the god of the Underworld, her mother Ceres' frantic search for her, and her eventual but temporary restitution to the world above.

Ceres has already sought to conceal the innocent Proserpina by sending her to safety in Sicily, Ceres' earthly home and sanctuary; but Dis comes out from the volcano at Mount Etna in his chariot, seizes Proserpina at the Pergusa Lake near Enna, and takes her down into the underworld.

Virgil asserts that Proserpina agrees to this, and is reluctant to ascend from the underworld and re-unite with her mother.

In Virgil's Georgics, Orpheus' beloved wife, Eurydice, died from a snake-bite; Proserpina allowed Orpheus into Hades without losing his life; charmed by his music, she allowed him to lead his wife back to the land of the living, as long as he did not look back during the journey.