Ah, Persephone and Hades…the unhappiest of divine couples, but one of the most important. Perhaps you know the myth: Hades (god of the underworld) spied the nubile maiden frolicking in a blooming meadow with her friends, and took it upon himself to forcibly abduct her to his frigid domain.
Demeter (Persephone’s goddess mother) fell into a deep and terrible despair after the abduction of her daughter, projecting her depression outward, cooling the earth, shriveling harvests and causing serious problems for the agrarian Greeks. Unwilling to force Hades to return his new bride, but needing to placate Demeter, Zeus decreed that Persephone would stay with Hades a third of the year and head to the surface to be reunited with her mother the other two-thirds.…their annual separation caused harvests to fail, but also established the framework for seasonal renewal and rebirth.
Perhaps because it was the ‘breadbasket’ of the motherland, perhaps because it remained religiously conservative, and perhaps because outsiders abducting daughters struck a special chord there, the cult of Demeter and Persephone (Kore) was hugely popular in the Greek colonies of Southern Italy and Sicily.
This is one of hundreds of pinakes (terracotta plaques) made to adorn the sanctuary of Demeter at Locri. With roosters, sprays of grain and celery, and pasted on grins the sometime couple are reunited for the moment…graciously accepting offerings before going their separate ways once again.
