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The myth of the abduction of Persephone (or Kore, the maiden), snatched away from her mother Demeter by Hades, king of the underworld, travelled down the centuries in many different versions from ancient Greece through to late Roman times. The present study seeks to gain an insight into the way ancient Greeks and Romans wrote about and depicted abduction, the brutal seizure and predation of a young person taken away from the apparent safety of their childhood surroundings. This article adopts an approach combining both a literary and historico-anthropological perspective, showing that throughout Antiquity, especially in poetry, the movement towards the unknown that sexual relations involve for the young woman is described through metaphors, ellipses and euphemisms, providing a means to legitimise the order of the world whereby men hold sway over women and the gods rule over mankind.