![]() According to Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo, animism has deep roots in the psychosynthesis of the individual which may explain why it is present in societies from every part of the world throughout the millennia. From Homer’s Iliadto Virgil and Ovid, transformations were a topic that must have surely provoked the imagination of the ancients.Īnimism, the belief that inanimate things are alive, was a major aspect of paganism, and not only. Cases of transformation in ancient Greek and Roman mythology are more than frequent they are abundant. Transformation or Metamorphosis is the act of changing one’s form into something else. Transformation In Greek Mythology Daphne and Apollo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1622-5, Borghese Gallery If goddesses, as important for Greek mythology as Demeter and Persephone, were abused and disrespected in such ways, one can only expect that mortal women could not hope for something better. Persephone would be forced to spend half of the year below the earth with the dead and half of the year above with the living. Unaware of the consequences Persephone tried the food only to realize afterward that this food had a special power it bound her to the will of Hades who reached a new agreement with Zeus and Demeter. Coming back to the story, before letting Persephone leave, Hades tricked her into eating food from the Underworld. Worth noting here is that Zeus was also said to have raped Persephone in the form of a snake which perplexes things even more. When Demeter protested Persephone’s abduction, Zeus, the king of the gods, kindly asked Hades to leave the girl. Instead, they are expected to “lay aside their wrath” and go on with their lives.ĭemeter was a goddess of fertility whose beloved daughter Persephone had also been abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. It is evident right away that Greek mythology holds little sympathy for the victims of sexual assault. With these words, Pausanias describes the reaction of goddess Demeter to her rape from Poseidon. “At first, they say, Demeter was angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the Ladon. Ancient Greek Gods And Rape The Return of Persephone (Persephone reunites with Demeter), Frederic Leighton, 1891, Leeds Museums and Galleries
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