{
  "id": "proserpina",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Proserpina",
  "summary": "Roman queen of the underworld, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter, seized by her uncle Pluto and made his wife; identified with the Greek Persephone, whose name Ovid himself uses once. Ovid tells the abduction near Henna, the seven pomegranate seeds and the year divided in halves; Virgil makes her \"infernal Queen\" to whom the golden bough is sacred and to whom Aeneas sacrifices before entering the dead's realm.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "roman",
    "deities",
    "underworld",
    "chthonic",
    "spring"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "equivalent_of",
      "target": "persephone"
    },
    {
      "rel": "child_of",
      "target": "ceres"
    },
    {
      "rel": "child_of",
      "target": "jupiter"
    },
    {
      "rel": "consort_of",
      "target": "pluto"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "greek-underworld"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "aeneas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "metamorphoses"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "aeneid"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who is Proserpina in Roman mythology?",
    "Is Proserpina the same as Persephone?",
    "Where was Proserpina abducted according to Ovid?",
    "How many pomegranate seeds did Proserpina eat?",
    "Why does Proserpina spend half the year underground?",
    "What is the golden bough and why is it sacred to Proserpina?",
    "Is Proserpina the daughter of Jupiter?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Ovid sets the abduction in Sicily: by the lake Pergus \"not far from Henna's walls\", Proserpine \"plucking white lilies and sweet violets\" was \"seen, beloved, and carried off by Pluto\"; \"the goddess, in great fear, called on her mother and on all her friends\", and the flowers fell from her torn tunic — a loss that \"increased her virgin grief\" (Met. 5.385–408).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "She had \"broken fast\": walking \"among the cultivated Stygian fields\" she plucked a pomegranate \"and chewed seven grains, picked from the pallid rind\". Only Ascalaphus saw and \"with cruel lips debarred young Proserpine's return\"; \"the Queen of Erebus, indignant\", turned him into the owl, \"sad omen to mankind\" (Met. 5.533–550).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "Jupiter \"divided the long year in equal parts. Now Proserpina, as a Deity, of equal merit, in two kingdoms reigns:—for six months with her mother she abides, and six months with her husband\", and \"she who seemed so sad in Pluto's eyes, now as a goddess beams in joyful smiles\" (Met. 5.564–571).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.94
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Her parentage is stated in the appeal to Jupiter: Ceres asks \"some pity for thy daughter\", and Jupiter answers \"This daughter is a care, a sacred pledge to me as well as thee\" (Met. 5.514–526) — Proserpina is the child of Jupiter and his sister Ceres, and Pluto is her uncle (Met. 5.379–380).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "In Virgil she owns the passage to the dead. The golden bough is \"sacred to Proserpine, infernal Queen\"; \"for this hath beauteous Proserpine ordained her chosen gift to be\", and no one passes below without it (Aen. 6.136–148). Aeneas offers \"a curst and barren cow\" to Proserpine (Aen. 6.251) and the bough is fixed at the threshold, \"paid to the sovereign power of Proserpine\" (Aen. 6.635–637).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Charon remembers the heroes who \"would steal away out of her bride-bed Pluto's ravished Queen\"; the Sibyl reassures him that Aeneas comes in peace — \"Let Proserpine immaculately keep the house and honor of her kinsman King\" (Aen. 6.392–402).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "Ovid's translator keeps the Greek name once: Orpheus finds \"Persephone and Pluto, master-king of shadow realms below\" and it is to \"deities of this dark world\" that he sings for Eurydice (Met. 10.15–30). A variant tradition also survives on Arachne's web, where Jove seduces \"beautiful Proserpina ... apparent as a spotted snake\" (Met. 6.114).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Ovid gives the numbers most retellings blur — seven seeds, six months with each — and puts the scene at Henna in Sicily.",
    "Virgil's Proserpina is a ritual power, not a character; the golden bough and the barren cow are hers.",
    "Ovid uses both Proserpina and Persephone, which shows the Latin name as a translation of the Greek goddess rather than a separate figure."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "Where was Proserpina abducted according to Ovid?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "How many pomegranate seeds did Proserpina eat?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why does Proserpina spend half the year underground?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "Is Proserpina the daughter of Jupiter?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is the golden bough and why is it sacred to Proserpina?",
      "claim": "c5"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Binds the seeds, the months and the parentage to Ovid's lines and the golden bough to Virgil's, so an agent can answer \"how many seeds?\" with a witness instead of an average of retellings.",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "roman",
      "kind": "deity",
      "group": "chthonic",
      "domains": [
        "the underworld",
        "spring and the return of growth",
        "the dead"
      ],
      "symbols": [
        "pomegranate",
        "flowers",
        "torch",
        "golden bough"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q14515330"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/proserpina",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/proserpina.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Proserpina",
    "description": "Roman queen of the underworld, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter, seized by her uncle Pluto and made his wife; identified with the Greek Persephone, whose name Ovid himself uses once. Ovid tells the abduction near Henna, the seven pomegranate seeds and the year divided in halves; Virgil makes her \"infernal Queen\" to whom the golden bough is sacred and to whom Aeneas sacrifices before entering the dead's realm.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/proserpina",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Ovid, Metamorphoses — tr. Brookes More (1922), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0959/phi006/phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng3.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Virgil, Aeneid — tr. Theodore C. Williams (1910), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0690/phi003/phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng2.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Proserpina"
  }
}