See L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone (1837); P. R. Förster, Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone (1874), in which considerable space is devoted to the representations of the myth in art; W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (1884); J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); L. Dyer, The Gods in Greece (1891); J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (2nd ed.), ii. 168-222; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie (4th ed., by C. Robert); O. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iv. pt. 2 (1901); L. Bloch in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, ii. (1907); L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. (1907); article “Ceres” by F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités.
(J. H. F.)
[1] O. Gruppe (Griechische Mythologie, ii. 1177, note 1) considers it “certain” that Ἀχαία = Ἀχελωία, although he is unable to explain the form.
DEMETRIA, a Greek festival in honour of Demeter, held at seed-time, and lasting ten days. Nothing is known of it beyond the fact that the men who took part in it lashed one another with whips of bark (μόροττον), while the women made obscene jests. It is even doubtful whether it was a particular festival at all or only another name for the Eleusinia or Thesmophoria. The Dionysia also were called Demetria in honour of Demetrius Poliorcetes, upon whom divine honours were conferred by the Athenians.
Hesychius, s.v. μόροττον; Pollux i. 37; Diod. Sic. v. 4; Plutarch, Demetrius, 12; Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités.
DEMETRIUS, king of Bactria, was the son of the Graeco-Bactrian king Euthydemus, for whom he negotiated a peace with Antiochus the Great in 206 (Polyb. xi. 34). Soon afterwards he crossed the Hindu Kush and began the invasion of India (Strabo xi. 516); he conquered the Punjab and the valley of the Indus down to the sea and to Gujerat. The town Sangala, a town of the Kathaeans in the Punjab (Arrian v. 22, 2 ff.), he named after his father Euthydemia (Ptol. vii. 1, 46). That his power extended into Arachosia (Afghanistan) is proved by the name of a town Demetrias near Kandahar (Isidor. Charac. 19, cf. Strabo xi. 516). On his coins he wears an elephant’s skin with trunk and teeth on his head; on bronze coins, which have also an Indian legend in Kharoshti letters (see [Bactria]), he calls himself the unvanquished king (Βασιλέως ἀνικήτου Δημητρίου). One of his coins has already the square form used in India instead of the circular. Eventually he was defeated by the usurper Eucratides (q.v.), who meanwhile had risen to great power in Bactria. About his death we know nothing; his young son Euthydemus II. (known only from coins) can have ruled only a short time.
(Ed. M.)