Abstract
TheHomeric Hymn to Demeter depicts the goddess' anger at the abduction of her daughter by Hades, with Zeus' consent. The poem is fully in keeping with the theme of sacrificial culture : the strike by Demeter, withdrawn to her temple at Eleusis, threatens not only humans with extinction, since the cereals no longer grow, but also the gods, who will then be deprived of "the glorious privilege of offerings and sacrifices". This is the background against which we should interpret the epithet Timaochos, which Demeter adorns when she reveals her divinity to the Queen of Eleusis. The onomastic attribute, found for Hestia in theHomeric Hymn to Aphrodite, designates the goddess who wears it as 'guardian of the timē (of the gods)', i.e. the protector of sacrifice as a divine honor : with Demeter, through the growth of grain that sustains the food chain on earth and enables humans to immolate animals for the gods ; with Hestia, through the hearth fire that enables fat from the gods to rise to its recipients.
The pale barley that no longer grows when Demeter ceases to exercise her power is a central element of the diet in the ancient Greek world, both for men and their livestock. This obvious fact, which the hymn forcefully recalls, could form the background to the throwing of barley grains that opens the epic's sacrifices under the termoulochutai. The bios of human beings, i.e. the resources that sustain them, and the sacrificial device are indissolubly linked, and it is such an articulation, according to specific modalities that already eluded the actors themselves, that the opening with the barley rite implements. The grains thrown - partly onto the altar, partly onto the animal - set up the ritual device that is the sacrificial operation in cereal culture, i.e. that of bread-eating men who raise grain-eating domestic animals.
