Cybele was supposed to have been born on Mt. Ida in Asia Minor; this is the source of her epithet Idaea.
Cybele's most ecstatic followers were eunuchs called Corybantes, who led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming and dancing and drink. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son/consort, Attis, who was castrated and resurrected. The dactyls were part of her retinue.
Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions by Cybele after having sex in one of her temples.
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1.1 Origins: Cybele/Rhea/Agdistis
2 External links1.2 Anatolian Cybele 1.3 Cybele and Attis 1.4 Aegean Cybele 1.5 Roman Cybele 3 Reference 4 Notes |
At Pessinos in Phrygia, an archaic version of Cybele had been venerated as Agdistis since archaic times. In 203 BCE, the aniconic cult object that embodied the Great Mother was ceremoniously and reverently removed to Rome.
Cybele's Anatolian origins probably predate the Bronze Age.
A figurine found at Çatal Hüyük, (Archaeological Museum, Ankara), dating about 6000 BCE, depicts the corpulent and fertile Mother Goddess, in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two handrests in the form of lion's heads. At her shrine at Çatal Hüyük she was depicted with the mural crown, that promised she could be a protector of cities.
In the second millennium BCE Cybele was known to the Hittites and Hurrians as Kubaba.
In Phrygia Rhea/Cybele was venerated as Agdistis, with a temple at the great trading city Pessinos, mentioned by the geographer Strabo. It was at Pessinos that her son and lover Attis was about to wed the daughter of the king, when Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her awesome glory, and he castrated himself in madness.
In Archaic Phrygian images of Cybele, her typical representation is in the figuration of a buildings façade, standing in the doorway. The façade itself can be related to the rock-cut monuments of the highlands of Phrygia. She is wearing a belted long dress, a head polos (high cylindrical hat), and a veil covering the whole body. In Phrygia, her usual attributes are the bird of prey and a small vase. Lions are sometimes related to her, in a aggressive but tamed manner.
Later, the sculptor Agoracritos, a pupil of Pheidias produced a version of Cybele that became the standard one. It showed her still seated on a throne but now more decorous and matronly, her hand resting on the neck of a perfectly still lion and the other holding the circular frame drum, like a tambourine, (tymbalon or tympanon), which evokes the full moon and is covered with the hide of the sacred lunar bull.
In Mysia Mount Dindymus was sacred to Cybele.
The goddess appears alone, 8th-6th centuries BCE. Later she is joined by her son/lover Attis, who incurred her jealousy. She castrated him, or he, in an ecstatic fit of madness, castrated himself. Grieving, Cybele resurrected him, as a eunuch. The evergreen pine and ivy were sacred to Attis.
The followers of Cybele, Phrygian kurbandes or Corybantes expressed her ecstatic and orgiastic cult in music especially drumming, clashing of shields and spears, dancing, singing, shouts, all at night. Sometimes they were led to self-castration, in emulation of her consort Attis ('q.v.'). In Rome, her self-castrating priests were called "galli", for Gauls had overrun Phrygia and established a central Anatolian territory, Galatia, early in the 3rd century BCE.
For Roman devotes of Cybele Mater Magna who were not prepared to go so far, the testacles of a bull, one of the Great Mother's sacred animals, were an acceptable substitute, as many inscriptions show. An inscription of 160 CE records that a certain Carpus had transported bull's testes from Rome to Cybele's shrine at Lyon, France.
The worship of Cybele spread from inland areas of Anatolia and Syria to the Aegean coast, to Crete and other Aegean islands, and to mainland Greece. She was particularly welcomed at Athens. The geographer Strabo (book x, 3:18) made some useful observations:
The goddess was not welcome among the patriarchal Scythians north of Thrace. From Herodotus (4.76-7) we learn that the Scythian Anacharsis (6th Century BCE), after traveling among the Greeks and acquiring vast knowledge, was put to death by his fellow Scythians for attempting to introduce the foreign cult of Magna Mater.
In Rome, the worship of Cybele, as Magna Mater, was formally installed in 203 BCE, Rome was embroiled in the Second Punic War at the time. The previous year, an inspection had been made of the Sibylline Books, and some oracular verses had been discovered which announced that whenever a foreign foe should carry war into Italy he could be driven out and conquered, if the Mater Magna were brought from Pessinos [in Phrygia] to Rome. Scipio was ordered to go to the port of Ostia, accompanied by all the matrons, to meet the goddess. He was to receive her as she left the vessel, and when brought to land he was to place her in the hands of the matrons who were to bear her to her destination, the Temple of Victory on the Palatine Hill. The day on which this event took place, 12 April, was observed afterwards as a festival, the Megalesian.
(Livy, History of Rome, ca 10 CE)
In Rome, her Phrygian origins were recalled by Catullus, whose famous poem on the theme of Attis includes a vivid description of Cybele's worship: "Together come and follow to the Phrygian home of Cybele, to the Phrygian forests of the goddess, where the clash of cymbals ring, where tambourines resound, where the Phrygian flute-player blows deeply on his curved reed, where ivy-crowned maenads toss their heads wildly."
Roman devotion to Cybele ran deep. Not coincidentally, when a Basilica was built over the site of a temple to Cybele, to occupy the site, it was dedicated to Santa Maria Maggiore.
The worship of Cybele penetrated as far as Mauretania. In Mauretania, just outside Setif, after a disastrous fire, the ceremonial "tree-bearers" and the faithful (religiosi) restored the temple of Cybele and Attis, 288 CE. Lavish new fittings, paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and the chariot that carried her in procession received a new canopy, with tassels in the form of fir cones. (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p 581.)
Roller, Lynn E. In Search of God the Mother: the cult of Anatolian Cybele (U. of California Press, 1999)
A monumental statue of Cybele is to be found in one of the principal traffic circles of Madrid.
Cult history
Origins: Cybele/Rhea/Agdistis
Anatolian Cybele
Cybele and Attis
Aegean Cybele
In Alexandria, Cybele was worshipped by the Greek population as "The Mother of the Gods, the Savior who Hears our Prayers" and as "The Mother of the Gods, the Accessible One." Ephesus, one of the major trading centers of the area, was devoted to Cybele as early the tenth century BCE, and the city's ecstatic celebration, the Ephesia, honored her.Roman Cybele
External links
Reference
Notes