He agreed to allow Persephone’s return if she had not eaten while with Hades. When Zeus refused, Demeter withheld the harvest from man until Zeus relented. Demeter asked Zeus, a brother of Hades, to return Persephone. Hades, god of the underworld, abducted her daughter Persephone. Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, the harvest, and possibly the grape and hence wine.The seasons halted living things ceased their growth, then began to die Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her loss and her grief. Demeter's virgin daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades.However, the dā element is not so simply equated with 'earth' according to John Chadwick.

This root also appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, 'earth-shaker', as an aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ) (which became Attic De (Δῆ)), is the Doric form of Ge (Γῆ), 'earth' the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess and Demeter is 'Mother-Earth'.Her character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (mother).In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name.Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic Zeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong. In Homer's Odyssey she is the blond-haired goddess who separates the chaff from the grain. These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults.

According to the Athenian rhetoricianIsocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.

Her symbols are the Cornucopia (horn of plenty), wheat-ears, the winged serpent and the lotus staff. She was depicted as a mature woman, often crowned and holding sheafs of wheat and a torch. Demeter is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister of Zeus, by whom she bore Persephone.

The goddess of agriculture, horticulture, grain and harvest.

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