Such
a close resemblance between the artistic types of Demeter and
Persephone militates decidedly against the view that the two
goddesses are mythical embodiments of two things so different and so
easily distinguishable from each other as the earth and the
vegetation which springs from it. Had Greek artists accepted that
view of Demeter and Persephone, they could surely have devised types
of them which would have brought out the deep distinction between
the goddesses. And if Demeter did not personify the earth, can there
be any reasonable doubt that, like her daughter, she personified the
corn which was so commonly called by her name from the time of Homer
downwards? The essential identity of mother and daughter is
suggested, not only by the close resemblance of their artistic
types, but also by the official title of "the Two Goddesses" which
was regularly applied to them in the great sanctuary at Eleusis
without any specification of their individual attributes and titles,
as if their separate individualities had almost merged in a single
divine substance.
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