So lovely was Demeter that she attracted the unwanted attention of her brothers Zeus and Poseidon. To avoid Poseidon she transformed herself into a mare, and to chase her he turned into a stallion. The issue of that union was a colt, ARION, who grew into an immortal horse magically endowed with the power of speech.44 By Zeus she had a daughter, PERSEPHONE, whose story comes along later. Zeus gave Demeter responsibility for the harvest and with it sovereignty over growth, fertility, and the seasons. Her Roman name was CERES, from which we get our word “cereal.”
