The myth of Persephone has deep origins — It was old even in the Golden Age of 5th-c BCE Athens. The daughter of Demeter, Persephone was abducted by the God of the underworld as a forced bride. The grieving mother happened to be a fertility Goddess, and refused to allow the crops or any plants to grow. Faced with the prospect of life on earth ceasing, the Gods conspired to reunite mother and daughter. However, in the underworld, Persephone had eaten some pomegranate seeds, and this tied her to her new husband. Each year, winter was explained as Persephone descending into the underworld, one month for each seed consumed. Demeter’s grief resurfaces at that time, and plants cease to grow. The story has greater significance than its explanation for winter’s origins: it might have testified to the prevalence of birth control in the Ancient world. As the physician Soranus of Ephesus notes (1st-2nd centuries CE), pomegranate rinds might be used to prevent pregnancy — this correlates with the way the fruit’s consumption by Persephone led to infertility in the land. In fact, historian John Riddle has drawn attention to lab experiments on guinea pigs which show a lowered rate of pregnancy for the animals who consumed the fruit. *Quaint, but not a recommended birth-control plan for today, folks.* First image is a fifth-century BCE detail from Athenian lekythos showing Hades and Persephone (Athens National Museum). Second is Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s _Proserpine_, wiki commons.
Source(s): See review _Bryn Mawr Classical Review_, 4/4/2008 by Paul T. Keyser of John M. Riddle, _Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance_, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
