Facts about Persephone
Persephone used to live far away from the other deities, a goddess within Nature herself before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants.
In astronomy, Persephone is also the name of a Main belt asteroid with a diameter of 49.1km, discovered by Max Wolf in 1895 from Heidelberg.
Persephone and her mother Demeter were often referred to as aspects of the same Earth goddess, and were called "the Demeters" or simply "the goddesses."
Persephone also figures in the story of Adonis, the Syrian consort of Aphrodite.
More daringly, the mythologist Karl Kerenyi has identified Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth" at Knossos from the Bronze Age Minoan civilization on Crete that flourished from 1700 B.C.E.
The Homeric form of her name is Persephonea (???????????, Persephon?ia).
When Hades pursued a nymph named Minthe, Persephone turned her into a mint plant.
Of the four deities of Empedocles's elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo—Nestis is a euphemistic cult title—for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well.
On the other hand, Persephone was seen as a frightening figure among the ancient Greeks because she helped rule the dead with Hades/Pluto.
Finally, Zeus, pressured by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone.
Originally, Persephone was the parthenogenic daughter of Demeter but in later Classical myths, she became a daughter of Demeter and Zeus.
When Demeter and her daughter were united, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm.