Classical Greece
In classical Greece the title potnia is usually applied to the goddesses Demeter, Artemis, Athena, and Persephone. This title was also given to the earth goddess Gaia (Ge). A similar title Despoina, "the mistress", was given to the nameless goddess of the mysteries of Arcadian cult, later conflated with Kore (Persephone), the goddess of the Eleusinian mysteries. Homer in Iliad (xxi 470) mentions a potnia theron (mistress of the animals) who is obviously Artemis. Karl Kerenyi asserts that the two potniai identified at Pylos were the precursor goddesses of Demeter and Persephone, the two goddesses of the Eleusinian mysteries and he identifies Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth". According to Pausanias at Olympia the two goddesses were called Despoine ("mistresses", plural of Despoina). Demeter and Persephone were also called "Demeteres" as duplicates of the earth goddess with a double function as chthonian and vegetation goddesses.
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