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CERBERUS CERES 209 ratmian from the name of their terminal prom- ontory, which runs out into the Ionian sea, and is now called Glossa, or by the Italians Lin- guetta. The Ceraunian mountains extended several miles along the coast from the Acro- ceraunian promontory, and were much dreaded by sailors from the storms they produced. In- land they were connected by an eastern branch with the mountains on the northern frontier of Thessaly. The inhabitants of the mountains were called Ceraunii. These mountains were famous in ancient poetry, and among the mod- ern poets Shelley has celebrated them. Their present name is Khimara. CERBERUS, in Greek mythology, the monster that guarded the entrance to the infernal re- gions, lie was a son of Typhon and Echidna, and is represented as a dog with three heads, the tail of a serpent, and a mane composed of the anterior extremities of numberless snakes. His business was to admit the spirits of the dead into their subterranean abode, and to Cerberus. prevent them from leaving it. Orpheus lulled him to sleep with his lyre, and Hercules dragged him from Hades, and exhibited him to the eyes of wondering mortals. CERDONIANS, ancient heretics, whose belief, half philosophical, half religious, was a con- fused mixture of Christian dogmas with orien- tal dualism and Gnostic ideas. Their found- er, Cerdo, was a Syrian, who came to Rome about the year 139, under the pontificate of Hyginus, and developed a system, involving the two principles of good and evil and a demiurge, similar to, if not identical with, that of his contemporary Marcion. (See GNOS- TICS.) His- disciples became confounded with those of the hitter. CKKK, Jean Nicolas, a French botanist, born in the Isle of France in 1737, died there, May 2, 1810. Under the direction of the French gov- ernment he greatly extended the culture of spices in the Isle of France (now Mauritius). The agricultural society of Paris published his essay on the culture of rice, and awarded him a medal ; and Napoleon confirmed him in his position as director of the botanical garden of the Isle of France, and conferred on him a pen- sion of 600 francs. A tree of the island has been called after him Cerea. CEREALIA, a festival celebrated at Rome every April in honor of Ceres, if the citizens were not in mourning for some public calamity. If they were, its celebration was omitted, be- cause no person wearing mourning could be present at it. On the occasion of this festival the wanderings of the goddess in search of her daughter were represented by women dressed in white, running about with lighted torches ; and games were celebrated in the circus maxi- mus, the spectators of which appeared in white. CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS. See SPINAL DISEASES. CERES (called by the Greeks Demeter), the goddess of grain and harvest among the Greeks and Romans, daughter of Saturn and Rhea, and mother of Proserpine. She dwelt on Olym- pus till after the abduction of her daughter Proserpine by Pluto with the connivance of Jupiter. Ceres in her anger then abandoned the abode of the gods, and descended to earth to wander among men. On all who received her kindly she conferred presents and blessings ; but on those who treated her inhospitably, or slighted her gifts, she inflicted severe punish- ments. In her grief she took neither nectar nor ambrosia, nor attended to her person ; and instead of exhibiting her celestial charms, she went in the guise of an old woman. In the course of her wanderings she came at length to Eleusis, where she was hospitably received by its king, Celeus, whose wife Metanira engaged Ceres to nurse her infant son Demophon. Under the care of the goddess the child throve like a celestial. As he lay on her bosom, Ceres breath- ed on him, and anointed him with ambrosia ; and every night, ere she put him to rest, she immersed him in the fire unknown to his parents. Ceres proposed to make the child immortal, but the folly of his mother frustrated her intention. Metanira, wondering at the marvellous growth of her son, became curious to know how his nurse treated him. Watching one night, therefore, she saw with terror and astonishment the ordeal through which her child was made to pass, and she shrieked aloud at the sight. The goddess instantly dropped the infant, and he perished in the flames ; but to make up for the loss, she bestowed great favors upon Triptolemus, the other son of Celeus. Ceres then cast off her disguise, and appeared in her real character, commanding the people of Eleusis to build her an altar and a temple. A temple was raised in the vicinity, in which the sorrowing Ceres took up her abode. In the mean time the indignation of the divine mother had visited the earth with a famine. Jupiter therefore sent Iris to Eleusis to entreat Ceres to suffer the earth once more to bring forth her fruits, and to endeavor to prevail on her to return to Olympus ; but with