Triptolemus

Triptolemus was the Eleusinian prince to whom Demeter gave the first grain and a winged chariot, so that he could sow the whole inhabited earth. In the Athenian tradition he was a son of Celeus, the king of Eleusis who welcomed the goddess while she searched for Persephone, and he was among the first to be taught her mysteries.

Parentage

Apollodorus makes Triptolemus the elder child of Celeus and Metanira, and gives Demophon as the younger (Library 1.5.1–2). Pausanias reports that the Athenians and their neighbours knew Triptolemus as the son of Celeus and the first man to sow seed for cultivation (Description of Greece 1.14.2).

Other writers give other parents. Apollodorus quotes Panyasis, who made him a son of Eleusis, and Pherecydes, who made him a son of Oceanus and Earth (Library 1.5.2). Pausanias adds that some verses ascribed to Musaeus also name Oceanus and Earth, while those ascribed to Orpheus make Eubuleus and Triptolemus sons of Dysaules. The Argives said that his father was Trochilus, a priest of the mysteries who fled from Argos. Choerilus of Athens made him the brother of Cercyon, with Rarus as their father (Pausanias 1.14.2–3). Hyginus names his mother Cothonea and his father Eleusinus (Fabulae 147).

Demeter at Eleusis

When Hades carried off Persephone, Demeter wandered the earth in the shape of an old woman. At Eleusis she was received in the house of Celeus. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter she gives the false name Doso (line 122), and she becomes nurse to the newest child of Celeus and Metanira, the boy Demophon (Hymn to Demeter 233–234). She fed him on ambrosia and hid him in the fire at night, meaning to make him immortal, until Metanira saw it and cried out. Demeter then dropped the child and revealed her anger at the foolishness of mortals (Hymn to Demeter 239–264). Apollodorus tells the same episode of Demophon (Library 1.5.1).

The nursling is not always the same child. In Hyginus’ version the king is Eleusinus, whose wife bore a son, Triptolemus. Demeter posed as a wet-nurse and fed the boy on divine milk by day and hid him in the fire by night, so that he grew unnaturally fast. When she tried to put him into the flames before his parents’ eyes, his father was terrified, and in her anger Demeter killed Eleusinus. To her nursling Triptolemus she gave a lasting gift: a chariot yoked with dragons, in which he drove over the world and sowed it with grain. When he came home, Celeus ordered him put to death in return for this service, but when the matter was understood, Celeus at the goddess’ command gave Triptolemus the kingdom. Triptolemus named it Eleusis after his father and founded the rites of Ceres that the Greeks call the Thesmophoria (Fabulae 147).

The Gift of Grain

In the Hymn to Demeter, Triptolemus is one of the princes of Eleusis who are named as leaders of the people (Hymn to Demeter 153). After the goddess had restored the fruits of the earth, she showed the “kings who deal justice”, Triptolemus, Diocles, Eumolpus and Celeus, how to perform her rites, and taught them her mysteries, which no one may reveal (Hymn to Demeter 473–479). The Hymn does not mention the winged chariot.

Apollodorus says that Demeter made a chariot of winged dragons for Triptolemus, the elder of Metanira’s children, and gave him wheat; riding through the air, he sowed the whole inhabited earth (Library 1.5.2). Ovid describes the same chariot with its pair of serpents, and says that Demeter sent it to Athens, telling him to scatter part of the seed on unploughed ground and part on land that had been worked and left fallow (Metamorphoses 5.642–647). Hyginus likewise says that Ceres, who had been his nurse, set him in a chariot of dragons to go round the fields of every nation and share out the seed (Fabulae 147; Astronomica 2.14). Pausanias saw a temple of Triptolemus at Eleusis. The Eleusinians said that the plain of Rharium near Eleusis was the first to be sown, and Pausanias saw a threshing floor and an altar of Triptolemus there (Description of Greece 1.38.6).

Triptolemus and Lyncus

Ovid tells that Triptolemus flew over Europe and Asia and came to Scythia, where King Lyncus received him. Asked who he was, he said that he was from Athens and bore the gifts of Ceres. Lyncus envied him and wished to claim the benefit himself, so he attacked the sleeping guest with a sword. Ceres turned the king into a lynx, and sent Triptolemus on his way (Metamorphoses 5.648–661).

Hyginus tells a similar story of Carnabon, king of the Getae in Thrace. He first welcomed Triptolemus as a guest and then plotted against him, and had one of his dragons killed so that he could not escape in the chariot. Ceres came, gave the young man back his chariot with another dragon in place of the dead one, and punished the king; according to Hegesianax she set Carnabon among the stars holding a serpent, as if about to kill it (Astronomica 2.14).

Other Traditions

• Pausanias says that when Triptolemus came from Attica to the people of Patrae, he gave Eumelus the grain and showed him how to found a city, which was named Aroe from the ploughing. Eumelus’ son Antheias once yoked the dragons while Triptolemus slept, tried to sow the seed himself, and fell off the chariot and died (Description of Greece 7.18.2–3).
• Strabo reports that in Syria, Tarsus was said to have been founded by the Argives who wandered with Triptolemus in search of Io. The people of Antioch honoured him as a hero (Geography 14.5.12, 16.2.5).
• Plato names him with Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus among the judges of the dead (Apology 41a).

Triptolemus Sources

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 96–274, 473–479; Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1–2; Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.14.2–3, 1.38.6, 7.18.2–3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.642–661; Hyginus, Fabulae 147 and Astronomica 2.14; Strabo 14.5.12, 16.2.5; Plato, Apology 41a.

See Also: Celeus, Metanira, Demeter, Persephone, Demophon, Eumolpus, Eleusinian Mysteries, Hades