Salvete

Ceres is an Italic goddess, and should not be so closely linked with Greek Demeter. The assimilation of Ceres with Demeter is somewhat later than the fifth century establishment of the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera on the Aventine. The importation of so-called Greek rites of Ceres occurred around 217 BCE, and then it came from Sabellian city, not Greek. Liber is not associated with Dionysius until just before 186 BCE. So the Aventine temple dedicated in 493 BCE cannot have been to some Roman version of a Demeter and Dionysius.

Among the Oscan tribes Ceres had many attributes that were adopted in Rome to Juno. And among the Oscans, too, the consort of Ceres is Jupiter. The Oscans knew no Juno, and the Italic Ceres is more like the Juno you recall in Rome than any version of Greek Demeter. Furthermore the versions of Demeter and Persephone found in Magna Graecae are different from that found in the mainland of Greece, due to Italic influences. Phersephatta of Locri for example is both Ceres and Proserpina, with some additional attributes as well. The early Liber on the Aventine was probably some form of Jupiter, His association with wine, as in the Vinalia Prior and Meditrinalia, probably lent itself to later association of Liber and Dionysius. Libera was not originally identified with Proserpina, but was more a younger version of Ceres Herself. There is even an ancient legend that Liber died, leaving Libera pregnant; when She gives birth to a new Liber, Libera becomes Ceres in Her mother-form, then Liber, upon reaching His maturity marries Ceres, renewing Her into the maiden Libera, and so on. The regeneration cycle told in a different manner than later Greek influence imposed. In that there is closer similarity with Phersephatta or Oscan Mafiti, the dual goddesses, than Greek Demeter.

The sacra Cereri to which Proserpina Curius refers is different from the Ceralia. The Cerealia celebrated the dedication of the Aventine temple with horse races and other games, 12-19 April. It concluded on 19 April, so noted in the Fasti, with lectisternia held on the Aventine (probably to Ceres and Tellus, Liber and Libera, Consus and Ops), and a public sacrifice by the flamen Cerealis. The sacra Cereri, with the reenactment of the myth of Proserpina, conducted solely by women, paired as mothers and daughters, is the rite interrupted by news of the disaster at Cannae on 2 August. This was later moved further into autumn, after the Ieiunium of 4 Oct. that was established first in 191 BCE. It is to the purification rites made in preparation for the sacra Cereri that Ovid refers in the Amores, and this coincided with the autumn rites to Ceres and Liber mentioned by Tibullus and Virgil. The sacra Cereri though is distinctly different from the celebrations of Cerealia.