CERES

largest known asteroid in the solar system and the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi of the Palermo Observatory on Jan. 1, 1801. Additional observations by Piazzi were cut short, and Ceres was rediscovered on Jan. 1, 1802, by Franz von Zach, who used orbit calculations by Carl Friedrich Gauss. Ceres was named after the Roman goddess of agriculture. It revolves around the Sun in 4.6 terrestrial years and has a diameter estimated at about 700 km (440 miles). Ceres, classical sculpture; in the Vatican Museum in Roman religion, goddess of the growth of food plants, worshiped either alone or in association with the earth goddess Tellus. At an early date her cult was overlaid by that of Demeter (q.v.), who was widely worshiped in Sicily and Magna Graecia. On the advice of the Sibylline Books, a cult of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was introduced into Rome (according to tradition, in 496 BC) to check a famine. The temple, built on the Aventine Hill in 493 BC, became a centre of plebeian religious and political activities and also became known for the splendour of its works of art. Destroyed by fire in 31 BC, it was restored by Augustus. The three chief festivals of Ceres' cult all followed Greek lines.