Charge of the Goddess opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek or Roman mythology, others from Celtic or Arthurian legends, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother: This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess Isis was known by ten thousand names and also that the Goddess still worshipped today by Wiccans and other neopagans is known under many guises but is in fact one universal divinity. The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland's
Ceres (mythology) among the Dii Consentes, Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature. Ceres' name derives from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root "*ḱerh₃-", meaning "to satiate, to feed", which is also the root for Latin "crescere" "to grow" and through it, the English words "create" and "increase". Roman etymologists thought "ceres" derived from the Latin verb "gerere", "to bear, bring forth, produce", because the goddess was linked to pastoral, agricultural and human fertility. Archaic cults to Ceres are