Proserpina

Proserpina ( proh-SUR-pih-nə; Latin: [proːˈsɛrpɪna]) or Proserpine ( PROSS-ər-pyne) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of the Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in a temple atop Rome's Aventine Hill, which she shared with the grain-goddess Ceres and the wine god Liber (Liber Pater). Each of these three deities occupied their own cella at the temple, their cults served or supervised by a male public priesthood. Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the Dii Consentes, Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians, Ceres being identified with the Greek Demeter and Liber with Dionysus. Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a feminine form of Liber, "the free one". Proserpina's name is a Latinization of "Persephone", perhaps influenced by the Latin proserpere ("to emerge, to creep forth"), 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. The new cult was installed around 205 BC at Ceres' Aventine temple. Ethnically Greek priestesses were recruited to serve Ceres and Proserpina as "Mother and Maiden". This innovation might represent an attempt by Rome's ruling class to please the gods and the plebeian class; the latter shared strong cultural ties with Magna Graecia, the collection of Greek...