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[125] Ἰασίωνι. See Hesiod ( Hesiod Theog.970, where the form “Ἰάσιος” is used). Demeter is said to have borne a son Plutus to this lover in the island of Crete. This story points to an early legend which identified Iasion with the fertile power of the soil, the name being perhaps connected with “αἶα”, or, according to others, with “ἱέναι, ἀν-ιέναι”. Later mythology makes Iasion the inventor of the cultivation of corn, like Triptolemus (“τρίπολος”). In Theocr. 3. 50 Iasion and Endymion are coupled together. The story is complicated in various ways, for Iasion appears in different genealogical connections and with different mystic meanings in the religion and legends of Arcadia, Crete, and Samothrace.

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    • Hesiod, Theogony, 970
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