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 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY beginning of March to the beginning of July, and here it was fructified; but with the harvest it was separated from the ground eight months. Moreover, among all the Indo-European races there is found an intimate con- nection between the concepts < child ' and ' grain/ be- tween human fructification and the fruitfulness of the grainfield; hence the effort was made to express the latter idea by symbolic actions, and by forms of speech properly referring to the former, which were apparently indecent. Thus, according to the Cretan myth, lasion begets from Demeter, on a thrice-plowed cornfield, Plutus, i.e. abundance of fruit, wealth. It is, however, a charming legend in which Demophoon, the little, sickly son of Celeus, king of Eleusis, under the nourishment of the goddess, flourishes like the germinating seed. Very closely related to him stands another of her Eleusinian proteges, the hero Triptolemus ('the one plowing thrice 7 ), who was worshiped as the first propagator of agriculture and the founder of the Eleusinian cult. Demeter sends him abroad, furnished with seed corn and agricultural implements, on her own chariot drawn by serpents, to teach men agriculture and the milder civilization and political order following in the wake of agriculture. Therefore Demeter herself was revered as Tliesmophoros (' law-giver '), particularly at the festival of the Thes- mophoria celebrated in the month of seedtime. 98. In Arcadia Demeter was associated with Poseidon Hippios or Pkytalmias, and her daughter was there called Despoina (' mistress '). The latter, as wife of Hades, became also Persephone ('the ravaging destroyer'), i.e. the dread goddess of death and the mistress of the lower world, while, in harmony with her mythical character,