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143-576: The acropolis of the ancient city was located in the most eastern part of Zaichi peak. It's entrance in the south was a gate cut into the rocks and on one of these rocks there's a carved relief image of Cybele , the Great Mother of the Gods. Considering that this is the Phrygian name of the goddess, according to Prof. Velizar Velkov, it can be assumed that the pronunciation of the name in the ancient Thracian language

286-447: A sellisternium , a form of banquet usually reserved for goddesses, in accordance with " Greek rite " as practiced in Rome. This feast was probably held within the building, with attendance reserved for the aristocratic sponsors of the goddesses rites; the flesh of her sacrificial animal provided their meat. From at least 139 AD, Rome's port at Ostia , the site of the goddess's arrival, had

429-557: A Magnesian ( Lydian ) cult to "the mother of the gods", whose image was carved into a rock-spur of Mount Sipylus . This was believed to be the oldest image of the goddess, and was attributed to the legendary Broteas . At Pessinos in Phrygia, the mother goddess—identified by the Greeks as Cybele—took the form of an unshaped stone of black meteoric iron, and may have been associated with or identical to Agdistis , Pessinos' mountain deity. This

572-650: A mother goddess . In Phrygian art of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for her libations or other offerings. The inscription Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya at a Phrygian rock-cut shrine, dated to the first half of the 6th century BC, is usually read as "Mother of the mountain", a reading supported by ancient classical sources, and consistent with Cybele as any of several similar tutelary goddesses , each known as "mother" and associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities:

715-469: A Phrygian deity. In Phrygia, "Attis" was not a deity, but both a commonplace and priestly name, found alike in casual graffiti, the dedications of personal monuments, as well as at several of Cybele's Phrygian shrines and monuments. His divinity may therefore have begun as a Greek invention based on what was known of Cybele's Phrygian cult. His earliest certain image as deity appears on a 4th-century BC Greek stele from Piraeus , near Athens . It shows him as

858-516: A disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis , who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions. In Rome , Cybele became known as Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed

1001-605: A double shrine of "Ge-Kourotrophos" and "Demeter-Chloe" on the Acropolis. Near the Olympieion of Athens there was the temenos of Ge-Olympia. Thucydides mentions that it was among the oldest sanctuaries built in Athens, where the Deucalion flood took place. A chthonic ritual was performed in Athens in honour of Ge. The Genesia was a mourning festival in the month Broedromion. A sacrifice

1144-528: A fully developed sanctuary to Magna Mater and Attis, served by a local Archigallus and college of dendrophores (the ritual tree-bearers of "Holy Week"). Ground preparations for the building of St. Peter's basilica on the Vatican Hill uncovered a shrine, known as the Phrygianum, with some 24 dedications to Magna Mater and Attis. Many are now lost, but most that survive were dedicated by high-status Romans after

1287-526: A gift. It is said that he gave to Poseidon Calaureia , that lies off Troezen , in exchange for his oracle. Apollo is the best-known as the oracle power behind Delphi, long established by the time of Homer, having killed Gaia's child Python there and usurped the chthonic power. Hera punished Apollo for this by sending him to King Admetus as a shepherd for nine years. Gaia or Ge had at least three sanctuaries in Greece which were mentioned by Pausanias . There

1430-466: A goddess thus "born from stone". She is ancient Phrygia's only known goddess, the divine companion or consort of its mortal rulers, and was probably the highest deity of the Phrygian state. Her name, and the development of religious practices associated with her, may have been influenced by the Kubaba cult of the deified Sumerian queen Kubaba . In the 2nd century AD, the geographer Pausanias attests to

1573-499: A mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia , of her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea , and of the harvest–mother goddess Demeter . Some city-states, notably Athens , evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and

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1716-718: A particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle in 205 BC recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's second war against Carthage (218 to 201 BC). Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas . As Rome eventually established hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughout Rome's empire . Greek and Roman writers debated and disputed

1859-504: A perfumed, effeminate Gallus, a half-man who would, however, "rid himself of the effeminacy of the Oriental in order to fulfill his destiny as the ancestor of Rome." This would entail him and his followers shedding their Phrygian language and culture, to follow the virile example of the Latins. In Lucretius' description of the goddess and her acolytes in Rome, her priests provide an object lesson in

2002-495: A personal or sexual relationship between them; Attis achieves divinity through his support of Meter' s cult, is killed by a boar sent by Zeus, who is envious of the cult's success, and is rewarded for his commitment with godhood. The most complex, vividly detailed, and lurid accounts of Magna Mater and Attis were produced as anti-pagan polemic in the late 4th century by the Christian apologist Arnobius , who presented their cults as

2145-447: A premilinary offering among other gods. Ge was associated with the dead at Mykonos. Seven black lambs were offered to "Zeus Chthonios" and "Ge-Chthonia" in the month Lenaion. The worshippers were offered to feast at the place of worship. At Sparta Gaia was worshipped together with Zeus. There was a double shrine of "Ge" and "Zeus Agoraios" (of the market place). Gaia has several epithets and attributes. In poetry chthon frequently has

2288-408: A priest stand in a pit beneath a slatted wooden floor; his assistants or junior priests dispatch a bull, using a sacred spear. The priest emerges from the pit, drenched with the bull's blood, to the applause of the gathered spectators. This description of a Taurobolium as blood-bath is, if accurate, an exception to usual Roman sacrificial practice; it may have been no more than a bull sacrifice in which

2431-508: A remarkable figure, with "colourful attire and headdress, like a crown, with regal associations unwelcome to the Romans". Yet the senate supported him; and when a plebeian tribune who had violently opposed his right to address the senate died of a fever (or, in the alternative scenario, when the prophesied Roman victory came) Magna Mater's power seemed proven. In Rome, the Galli and their cult fell under

2574-425: A repulsive combination of blood-bath, incest, and sexual orgy, derived from the myths of Agdistis. This has been presumed the most ancient, violent, and authentically Phrygian version of myth and cult, closely following an otherwise lost orthodox, approved version preserved by the priest-kings at Pessinous and imported to Rome. Arnobius claimed several scholarly sources as his authority; but the oldest versions are also

2717-541: A resurrected god of rebirth, expressed by rejoicing at the later Canna intrat and by the Hilaria. The full sequence at any rate is thought to have been official in the time of Antoninus Pius (reigned 138–161), but among extant fasti appears only in the Calendar of Philocalus (354 AD). Significant anniversaries, stations, and participants in the 204 arrival of the goddess – including her ship, which would have been thought

2860-430: A reward, for Athena's sake. Gaia also turned the young Libanus into rosemary when he was killed by impious people. Zeus hid Elara , one of his lovers, from Hera by stowing her under the earth. His son by Elara, the giant Tityos , is therefore sometimes said to be a son of Gaia, the earth goddess. Gaia also made Aristaeus immortal. It seems that the worship of the "earth" was indigenous in Greece. However it

3003-552: A sacred object – may have been marked from the beginning by minor, local, or private rites and festivals at Ostia, Rome, and Victoria's temple . Cults to Claudia Quinta are likely, particularly in the Imperial era. Rome seems to have introduced evergreen cones (pine or fir) to Cybele's iconography, based at least partly on Rome's "Trojan ancestor" myth, in which the goddess gave Aeneas her sacred tree for shipbuilding. The evergreen cones probably symbolised Attis' death and rebirth. Despite

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3146-485: A sacred well was used for predicting the cause of diseases. At Athens Ge acquired the cult-title Themis . Themis was an oracular goddess related to Ge and she was not originally interpreted as goddess of righteousness. The cult of Gaia was probably indigenous in Attica. In the cult of Phlya , Pausanias reports that there were altars to Dionysos, certain nymphs and to Ge, whom they called the "great goddess". The Great goddess

3289-450: A shepherd, in similar relaxed attitudes, holding or playing the syrinx (panpipes). In Demosthenes ' On the Crown (330 BC), attes is "a ritual cry shouted by followers of mystic rites". Attis seems to have accompanied the diffusion of Cybele's cult through Magna Graecia; there is evidence of their joint cult at the Greek colonies of Marseilles (Gaul) and Lokroi (southern Italy) from

3432-569: A similar myth, in which Aphrodite fled from her lustful father Zeus , who was infatuated with her. As Zeus was unable to catch Aphrodite, he gave up and dropped his semen on the ground, which impregnated Gaia. This resulted in the birth of the Cyprian Centaurs . Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated her children, the Titans , so she brought forth the Gigantes to fight Zeus. It was prophesied that

3575-470: A state cult, they were sacred and inviolate. From the start, they were objects of Roman fascination, scorn, and religious awe. No Roman, not even a slave, could castrate himself "in honour of the Goddess" without penalty; in 101 BC, a slave who had done so was exiled. Augustus selected priests from among his own freedmen to supervise Magna Mater's cult, and brought it under Imperial control. Claudius introduced

3718-635: A story intended to demonstrate Cybele's power, similar to myth of Dionysus ' arrival in Thebes recounted in The Bacchae . Many of Cybele's cults were funded privately, rather than by the polis , but she also had publicly established temples in many Greek cities, including Athens and Olympia. Her "vivid and forceful character" and association with the wild, set her apart from the Olympian deities . Her association with Phrygia led to particular unease in Greece after

3861-496: A taurobolium sacrifice to Magna Mater. None of these dedicants were priests of the Magna Mater or Attis, and several held priesthoods of one or more different cults. Near Setif ( Mauretania ), the dendrophores and the faithful ( religiosi ) restored their temple of Cybele and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 AD. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and her processional chariot;

4004-490: Is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ ( Gē [ɡɛ̂ː] ), and Doric Γᾶ ( Ga [ɡâː] ), perhaps identical to Δᾶ ( Da [dâː] ), both meaning " Earth ". Some scholars believe that the word is of uncertain origin. Beekes suggested a probable Pre-Greek origin. M.L.West derives the name from the Indo-European from *dʰéǵʰōm (earth). Greek : gaia (<*gm-ya), chamai (χαμαί) on

4147-524: Is a speculation and controversial in the academic community. Some modern mythographers, including Kerenyi , Ruck , and Staples , interpret the goddesses Demeter the "mother", Persephone the "daughter", and Hecate the "crone", as aspects of a former great goddess identified by some as Rhea or as Gaia herself. In Crete , a goddess was worshipped as Potnia Theron (the "Mistress of the Animals") or simply Potnia ("Mistress"), speculated as Rhea or Gaia;

4290-453: Is an Anatolian mother goddess ; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük . She is Phrygia 's only known goddess, and likely, its national deity . Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the sixth century BC. In Greece , Cybele met with

4433-895: Is around 65 km. Many of the findings are housed in the onsite museum which also includes an exhibition tracking the excavation history of the site. Under the name of Diospolis in Thracia , it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church . [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Smith, William , ed. (1854–1857). "Cabyle". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography . London: John Murray. Cybele Cybele ( / ˈ s ɪ b əl iː / SIB-ə-lee ; Phrygian : Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian Kuvava ; Greek : Κυβέλη Kybélē , Κυβήβη Kybēbē , Κύβελις Kybelis )

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4576-495: Is called "pammе̄tōr", the all-mother who nourishes everything. This conception is closer to the popular belief. In the hymn to Apollo she is called "pheresvios" (life giving) The "mother of the gods" is a form of Gaia. According to Pausanias an epithet of Ge in Athens is "the Great goddess", which is an appellation of the "Mother of the gods". She is related to the mystery cult of Phlya which seems to be original. At Athens Gaia had

4719-522: Is doubtful if the mother-religion is rooted to the Pre-Greek population. In classical times Ge was not an important deity and she didn't have any festivals. She was usually honoured together with other gods or goddesses. Local cults of Gaia are rare and only some of them can be mentioned from the existing evidence. Elements of a primitive cult of Gaia appear at Dodona in Epirus. It seems that in an old religion

4862-495: Is drinking bull's blood. Any woman who may chance not to speak the truth is immediately punished as a result of this test. If several women compete for the priesthood, lots are cast for the honor. Pausanias also mention the sanctuary of Ge Gasepton in Sparta , and a sanctuary of Ge Kourotrophe (Nurse of the Young) at Athens. Aside from her temples, Gaia had altars as well as sacred spaces in

5005-593: Is early mentioned in the Catalogue of ships . He is born by the Homeric earth which produces fruits and cereals (zeidoros arura ). The name of Erichthonius includes chthon which is not the underground kingdom of the dead, but the Homeric earth. In ancient times the earth was considered a plane or a flat disk with a wide extent. The earth-goddess can be identified with the nymph "Plataia" (broad one) in Plataea of Boeotia as

5148-533: Is interpreted as "Mother of the gods" who is a form of Gaia. It seems that a mystery-cult was related to the Great-goddess. An inscription on the Acropolis of Athens refers to the practice of service in honour of "Ge-Karpophoros" (bringer of fruits) in accordance with the oracle. The oracle was probably Delphic. A sanctuary on the Acropolis was the "Kourotrophion", and the earlier inscriptions mentions simply "The Kourotrophos" (nourisher of children). Pausanias mentions

5291-484: Is the mother mother of all ("pammetor") and in a fragment of Euripides chthon has the same epithet. In Persai of Aeschylus offerings are recommended to Ge and the spirit of the departed. She is called "pamphoros", (all bearing). In Choephori , Electra in her prayer describes Gaia as an avenger of wrong. Sophocles in Philoctetes calls Gaia "pamvōtis" (all nourishing) A famous fragment of Danaides describes

5434-606: Is the personification of Earth . Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic —of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (Sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods ), the Cyclopes , and the Giants , as well as of Pontus (Sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods . Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra . The Greek name Γαῖα ( Gaia Ancient Greek : [ɡâi̯.a] or [ɡâj.ja] )

5577-405: Is unclear who Cybele's initiates were. Reliefs show her alongside young female and male attendants with torches, and with vessels for purification. Literary sources describe joyous abandonment to the loud, percussive music of tympanon, castanets, clashing cymbals, and flutes, and to the frenzied "Phrygian dancing", perhaps a form of circle-dancing by women, to the roar of "wise and healing music of

5720-558: The Athenian agora . It showed her enthroned, with a lion attendant, holding a phiale (a dish for making libations to the gods) and a tympanon (a hand drum). Both were Greek innovations to her iconography and reflect key features of her ritual worship introduced by the Greeks which would be salient in the cult's later development. For the Greeks, the tympanon was a marker of foreign cults, suitable for rites to Cybele, her close equivalent Rhea, and Dionysus ; of these, only Cybele holds

5863-550: The Dendrophores ("tree bearers"). Scholars are divided as to whether the entire series was more or less put into place under Claudius, or whether the festival grew over time. The Phrygian character of the cult would have appealed to the Julio-Claudians as an expression of their claim to Trojan ancestry. It may be that Claudius established observances mourning the death of Attis, before he had acquired his full significance as

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6006-512: The Homeric poems she appears usually in forms of oath. In Iliad the sacrifice of a black lamb is offered to Gaia and she is invoked in the formula of an oath. Homer considers her a physical distinct existence not clearly conceived in anthropomorphic form. Gaia does not seem to have any personal activity. In Iliad Alpheia beats with her hands the bountiful ("polyphorbos") earth, but she calls Hades and Persephone to avenge her against her son In

6149-635: The Magna Mater ("Great Mother") of Phrygian Pessinos. As this cult object belonged to a Roman ally, the Kingdom of Pergamum , the Roman Senate sent ambassadors to seek the king's consent; en route, a consultation with the Greek oracle at Delphi confirmed that the goddess should be brought to Rome. The goddess arrived in Rome in the form of Pessinos' black meteoric stone. Roman legend connects this voyage, or its end, to

6292-600: The Persian Wars , as Phrygian symbols and costumes were increasingly associated with the Achaemenid empire . Conflation with Rhea led to Cybele's association with various male demigods who served Rhea as attendants, or as guardians of her son, the infant Zeus , as he lay in the cave of his birth. In cult terms, they seem to have functioned as intercessors or intermediaries between goddess and mortal devotees, through dreams, waking trance, or ecstatic dance and song. They include

6435-608: The Sapaean Thracian kingdom , and after 46 AD in the province of Thracia . Cabyle was one of the most important cities of Thrace following the reforms of Emperor Diocletian in 4th century AD. In late 4th century Cabyle was seized by the Goths . It was finally destroyed by the Avars and never settled again. During the Middle Ages there was a small settlement located in the territory of

6578-545: The Spanish football national team celebrate their triumphs around the fountain, thus establishing the goddess as a symbol of Madrid and the Real Madrid football club. Gaia (mythology) In Greek mythology , Gaia ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ ə , ˈ ɡ aɪ ə / ; Ancient Greek : Γαῖα , romanized :  Gaîa , a poetic form of Γῆ ( Gê ), meaning 'land' or 'earth'), also spelled Gaea ( / ˈ dʒ iː ə / ),

6721-573: The Thracians . The town was a major trade and military center between the 3rd and the 2nd centuries BC. The town is noted by numerous ancient authors including Demosthenes , Polybius , Strabo , Pliny the Elder , and Stephanus of Byzantium . In 71 BC the city was conquered by the Roman Republic by the troops of Marcus Lucullus and after 45 BC it was included in the Roman client state of

6864-439: The Titans , as Hesiod tells it: She lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus , Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus , Theia and Rhea , Themis , and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys . After them was born Cronos ( Cronus ) the wily, youngest, and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire. According to Hesiod, Gaia conceived further offspring with her son, Uranus, first

7007-713: The Twelve Olympians and in Rome as the Di Consentes . Manilius has Cybele and Jupiter as co-rulers of Leo (the Lion), in astrological opposition to Juno , who rules Aquarius . Modern scholarship remarks that as Cybele's Leo rises above the horizon, Taurus (the Bull) sets; the lion thus dominates the bull. Some of the possible Greek models for Cybele's Megalensia festival include representations of lions attacking and dominating bulls. The festival date coincided, more or less, with events of

7150-399: The ancient city. Its site is located near the modern city of Kabile , less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away from Yambol , south-eastern Bulgaria . It was proclaimed part of the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria . The territory of the city and the surrounding area was proclaimed a territory of national importance in 1965 and converted to an archaeological reserve. The area of the reserve

7293-455: The polis , in Rome she was the city's protector, contained within her Palatine precinct, along with her priesthood, at the geographical heart of Rome's most ancient religious traditions. She was promoted as patrician property; a Roman matron – albeit a strange one, "with a stone for a face" – who acted for the clear benefit of the Roman state. Augustan ideology identified Magna Mater with Imperial order and Rome's religious authority throughout

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7436-679: The quindecimvir Volusianus , who was twice consul; and possibly the Emperor Julian . Taurobolium dedications to Magna Mater tend to be more common in the Empire's western provinces than elsewhere, attested by inscriptions in (among others) Rome and Ostia in Italy, Lugdunum in Gaul, and Carthage in Africa. "Attis" may have been a name or title of Cybele's priests or priest-kings in ancient Phrygia. Most myths of

7579-555: The "return" of the Mother of all Gods to her once-exiled people would have been particularly welcome, even if her spouse and priesthood were not; its accomplishment would have reflected well on the principals involved and, in turn, on their descendants. The upper classes who sponsored the Magna Mater's festivals delegated their organisation to the plebeian aediles , and honoured her and each other with lavish, private festival banquets from which her Galli would have been conspicuously absent. Whereas in most of her Greek cults she dwelt outside

7722-477: The 160s AD, citizens who sought initiation to her mysteries could offer either of two forms of bloody animal sacrifice – and sometimes both – as lawful substitutes for self-castration. The Taurobolium sacrificed a bull, the most potent and costly victim in Roman religion; the Criobolium used a lesser victim, usually a ram. A late, melodramatic and antagonistic account by the Christian apologist Prudentius has

7865-599: The 6th and 7th centuries BC. After Alexander the Great 's conquests, "wandering devotees of the goddess became an increasingly common presence in Greek literature and social life; depictions of Attis have been found at numerous Greek sites". When shown with Cybele, he is always the younger, lesser deity, or perhaps her priestly attendant. In the mid 2nd century, letters from the king of Pergamum to Cybele's shrine at Pessinos consistently address its chief priest as "Attis". Romans knew Cybele as Magna Mater ("Great Mother"), or as Magna Mater deorum Idaea ("great Idaean mother of

8008-685: The Athenian suburb of Agrae was associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries . At the end of the fifth century BC, a Metroon was established at Olympia . It is a small hexastyle temple, the third to be built on the site after the archaic Heraion and the mid-fifth century Temple of Zeus . In the Roman period it was used for the Imperial cult . In the fourth century, further Metroa are attested at Smyrna and Colophon , where they also served as state archives, as in Athens. Magna Mater's temple stood high on

8151-462: The Galatians. The following year, perhaps in response to this gesture of goodwill, the Roman senate formally recognised Illium as the ancestral home of the Roman people, granting it extra territory and tax immunity. In 103, a Battakes traveled to Rome and addressed its senate, either for the redress of impieties committed at his shrine, or to predict yet another Roman military success. He would have cut

8294-459: The Galli performed it, or exactly what was removed, or even whether all Galli performed it. Some Galli devoted themselves to their goddess for most of their lives, maintained relationships with relatives and partners throughout, and eventually retired from service. Galli remained a presence in Roman cities well into the Empire's Christian era. Some decades after Christianity became the sole Imperial religion , St. Augustine saw Galli "parading through

8437-560: The Galli were forbidden Roman citizenship and rights of inheritance; like their eastern counterparts, they were technically mendicants whose living depended on the pious generosity of others. For a few days of the year, during the Megalesia, Cybele's laws allowed them to leave their quarters, located within the goddess' temple complex, and roam the streets to beg for money. They were outsiders, marked out as Galli by their regalia, and their notoriously effeminate dress and demeanour, but as priests of

8580-460: The Gigantes, who were born from Uranus's blood, could not be killed by the gods alone, but they could be killed with the help of a mortal. Hearing this, Gaia sought for a certain plant that would protect the Gigantes even from mortals. Before Gaia or anyone else could get it, Zeus forbade Eos (Dawn), Selene (Moon) and Helios (Sun) to shine, harvested all of the plant himself, and had Athena summon

8723-475: The Hellenised stereotype of a rustic, eastern barbarian; he sits at ease, sporting the Phrygian cap and shepherd's crook of his later Greek and Roman cults. Before him stands a Phrygian goddess (identified by the inscription as Agdistis ) who carries a tympanon in her left hand. With her right, she hands him a jug, as if to welcome him into her cult with a share of her own libation. Later images of Attis show him as

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8866-449: The Phrygian highlands. She stands alone within a naiskos , which represents her temple or its doorway, and is crowned with a polos , a high, cylindrical hat. A long, flowing chiton covers her shoulders and back. She is sometimes shown with lions in attendance. Around the 5th century BC, Agoracritos created a fully Hellenised and influential image of Cybele that was set up in the Metroon in

9009-568: The Roman agricultural calendar (around April 12) when farmers were advised to dig their vineyards, break up the soil, sow millet , "and – curiously apposite, given the nature of the Mother's priests – castrate cattle and other animals." The Paseo del Prado axis in Madrid has as one of its extremes the Plaza de Cibeles ("Cybele's Square") with the Fountain of Cybele at its center. Fans of Real Madrid CF and

9152-508: The Roman imperial era. Over time, her Phrygian cults and iconography were transformed, and eventually subsumed, by the influences and interpretations of her foreign devotees, at first Greek and later Roman. From around the 6th century BC, cults to the Anatolian mother-goddess were introduced from Phrygia into the ethnically Greek colonies of western Anatolia, mainland Greece , the Aegean islands and

9295-423: The Roman pantheon and placed his cult under the supervision of the quindecimviri (one of Rome's priestly colleges). The Megalesia festival to Magna Mater commenced on April 4, the anniversary of her arrival in Rome. The festival structure is unclear, but it included ludi scaenici (plays and other entertainments based on religious themes), probably performed on the deeply stepped approach to her temple; some of

9438-482: The Roman version of Cybele as Imperial Rome's protector was introduced there. Imperial Magna Mater protected the empire's cities and agriculture — Ovid "stresses the barrenness of the earth before the Mother's arrival. Virgil's Aeneid (written between 29 and 19 BC) embellishes her "Trojan" features; she is Berecyntian Cybele , mother of Jupiter himself, and protector of the Trojan prince Aeneas in his flight from

9581-430: The Romans involved, the success of their religious stratagem, and power of the goddess herself; she has no consort or priesthood, and seems fully Romanised from the first. Some modern scholars assume that Attis must have followed much later; or that the Galli, described in later sources as shockingly effeminate and flamboyantly "un-Roman", must have been an unexpected consequence of bringing the goddess in blind obedience to

9724-503: The Sibyl; a case of "biting off more than one can chew". Others note that Rome was well versed in the adoption (or sometimes, the "calling forth", or seizure ) of foreign deities, and the diplomats who negotiated Cybele's move to Rome would have been well-educated, and well-informed. Romans believed that Cybele, considered a Phrygian outsider even within her Greek cults, was the mother-goddess of ancient Troy (Ilium). Some of Rome's leading patrician families claimed Trojan ancestry; so

9867-474: The Taurobolium ensured that its initiates were from Rome's highest class, and even the lesser offering of a Criobolium would have been beyond the means of the poor. Among the Roman masses, there is evidence of private devotion to Attis, but virtually none for initiations to Magna Mater's cult. In the religious revivalism of the later Imperial era, Magna Mater's notable initiates included the deeply religious, wealthy, and erudite praetorian prefect Praetextatus ;

10010-465: The Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion, Polus, Saturn , Ops , Moneta , Dione, and the Furies ( Alecto , Megaera , and Tisiphone ). By Tartarus, Terra then becomes the mother of the Giants, which are listed as Enceladus , Coeus, Ophion , Astraeus , Pelorus, Pallas, Emphytus, Rhoecus, Ienios, Agrius, Palaemon, Ephialtes , Eurytus, Theomises, Theodamas, Otos, Typhon, Polybotes, Menephiarus, Abseus, Colophomus, and Iapetus. According to

10153-766: The Titans. But afterwards, Gaia, in union with Tartarus , bore the youngest of her sons Typhon , who would be the last challenge to the authority of Zeus. According to the Roman mythographer Hyginus , Terra (Earth, the Roman equivalent of Gaia), Caelus (Sky, the Roman equivalent of Uranus) and Mare (Sea) are the children of Aether and Dies (Day, the Roman equivalent of Hemera ). With Aether, Terra produces Dolor (Pain), Dolus (Deception), Ira (Anger), Luctus (Mourning), Mendacium (Lying), Iusiurandum (Oath), Vltio (Vengeance), Intemperantia (Self-indulgence), Altercatio (Quarreling), Oblivio (Forgetfulness), Socordia (Sloth), Timor (Fear), Superbia (Arrogance), Incestum (Incest), Pugna (Fighting), Oceanus (Ocean), Themis, Tartarus, Pontus,

10296-421: The archaeological evidence of early cult to Attis at Cybele's Palatine precinct, no surviving Roman literary or epigraphic source mentions him until Catullus , whose poem 63 places him squarely within Magna Mater's mythology, as the hapless leader and prototype of her Galli. Rome's strictures against castration and citizen participation in Magna Mater's cult limited both the number and kind of her initiates. From

10439-462: The armed Curetes , who danced around Zeus and clashed their shields to amuse him; their supposedly Phrygian equivalents, the youthful Corybantes , who provided similarly wild and martial music, dance and song; and the dactyls and Telchines , magicians associated with metalworking. Cybele's major mythographic narratives attach to her relationship with Attis, who is described by ancient Greek and Roman sources and cults as her youthful consort, and as

10582-600: The base of the steps, at the proscenium's edge. The first temple was damaged by fire in 111 BC, and was repaired or rebuilt. It burnt down in the early Imperial era, and was restored by Augustus ; it burned down again soon after, and Augustus rebuilt it in more sumptuous style; the Ara Pietatis relief shows its pediment. The goddess is represented by her empty throne and crown, flanked by two figures of Attis reclining on tympanons ; and by two lions who eat from bowls, as if tamed by her unseen presence. The scene probably represents

10725-482: The blood was carefully collected and offered to the deity, along with its organs of generation, the testicles. The Taurobolium and Criobolium are not tied to any particular date or festival, but probably draw on the same theological principles as the life, death, and rebirth cycle of the March "holy week". The celebrant personally and symbolically took the place of Attis, and like him was cleansed, renewed or, in emerging from

10868-466: The broad-bossomed), is mentioned at Delphi by Mnaseas . A temple of Ge was built to the south of the temple of Apollo . "Eutysternos" is a surname of Ge and it had an earlier use by Hesiod. It was also given to her in her worship at the Achaean Aegai. In Eumenides , the priestess announced her first prayers to "Gaia the first prophetess". At Aegai there was a very old image of the earth-goddess, and

11011-516: The city's Metroon was founded to placate Cybele, who had visited a plague on Athens when one of her wandering priests was killed for his attempt to introduce her cult. The earliest source is the Hymn to the Mother of the Gods (362 AD) by the Roman emperor Julian , but references to it appear in scholia from an earlier date. The account may reflect real resistance to Cybele's cult, but Lynne Roller sees it as

11154-514: The cult-title Themis . In the Ashmolean Museum a vase shows Pandora (all-giving) rising from the earth and according to some scholars she may be identified with Gaia . "Anesidora" (sending up gifts) on a vase in the British Museum is an epithet of Gaia. Traditionally "gaia" means "earth" and chthon , "under or "beneath the earth" however chthon has occasionally the same meaning with

11297-510: The cusp of Rome's transition to Empire, the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes this procession as wild Phrygian "mummery" and "fabulous clap-trap", in contrast to the Megalesian sacrifices and games, carried out in what he admires as a dignified "traditional Roman" manner; Dionysius also applauds the wisdom of Roman religious law, which forbids the participation of any Roman citizen in

11440-507: The deified Attis present him as founder of Cybele's Galli priesthood but in Servius' account, written during the Roman Imperial era, Attis castrates a king to escape his unwanted sexual attentions, and is castrated in turn by the dying king. Cybele's priests find Attis at the base of a pine tree; he dies and they bury him, emasculate themselves in his memory, and celebrate him in their rites to

11583-487: The destruction of Troy. She gives the Trojans her sacred tree for shipbuilding, and begs Jupiter to make the ships indestructible. These ships become the means of escape for Aeneas and his men, guided toward Italy and a destiny as ancestors of the Roman people by Venus Genetrix . Once arrived in Italy, these ships have served their purpose and are transformed into sea nymphs. Stories of Magna Mater's arrival were used to promote

11726-442: The earth goddess was worshipped together with the sky-god (Zeus). At Thebes there was cult of "Gaia Makaira Telesforos". Telesforos means "bringing fruits to perfection". The earth goddess had powers over the ghosts and the dreams which come from the underworld, therefore she acquired oracular powers. These conceptions are evident in her cults at Delphi , Athens and Aigai of Achaea. An inscription "ieron eurysternou" (sunctuary of

11869-404: The earth, Hittite : tekan , Tocharian : tkam , Phrygian zemelo , Proto-Slavonic : *zem-yã , Avestan : za (locative: zemi ), Vedic : ksam , Latin : hum-us , Albanian : dhé . In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (probably transliterated as Ma-ga , "Mother Gaia") also contains the root ga- . The Greeks invoked Gaia in their oaths, and she should be aware if one broke his oath. In

12012-508: The earth, and everything born from aether returns to the sky. Nothing is destroyed, but it is transformed to another form.". An inscription on a gravestone in Potidaia mentions: " Aether receives the souls and "chthon" receives the bodies". According to Plutarch: " The name of Ge is beloved to every Greek and she is traditionally honoured like any other god": Hesiod 's Theogony tells how, after Chaos , "wide-bosomed" Gaia (Earth) arose to be

12155-522: The earth. Pherecydes uses the name Chthonie for the primeval goddess who later became Ge and Musaeus the same name for the oracular goddess of Delphi. Homer uses the for chthon the epithets "euryodeia" (broad-seated) and "polyvoteira" (all-nourishing) which can also be used for the earth. In some plays of Aeschylus "chthon" is the earth-goddess Gaia. The tragic poets usually describe Gaia as mother of all, all-nourishing and all-productive who must be honoured. In Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound , Gaia

12298-414: The empire. Augustus claimed a Trojan ancestry through his adoption by Julius Caesar and the divine favour of Venus ; in the iconography of Imperial cult , the empress Livia was Magna Mater's earthly equivalent, Rome's protector and symbolic "Great Mother"; the goddess is portrayed with Livia's face on cameos and statuary. By this time, Rome had absorbed the goddess's Greek and Phrygian homelands, and

12441-503: The everlasting seat of the immortals who possess Olympus above. And after Gaia came "dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth", and next Eros the god of love. Hesiod goes on to say that Gaia brought forth her equal Uranus (Heaven, Sky) to "cover her on every side". Gaia also bore the Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea), "without sweet union of love" (i.e., with no father). Afterward, with Uranus, her son, she gave birth to

12584-403: The fame of its principals, and thus their descendants. Claudia Quinta 's role as Rome's castissima femina (purest or most virtuous woman) became "increasingly glorified and fantastic"; she was shown in the costume of a Vestal Virgin , and Augustan ideology represented her as the ideal of virtuous Roman womanhood. The emperor Claudius claimed her among his ancestors. Claudius promoted Attis to

12727-560: The fifth century BC onward. The Metroon at Athens was established in the early fifth century BC on the west side of the Athenian Agora , next to the Boule (town council). It was a rectangular building with three rooms and an altar in front. It was destroyed during the Persian sack of Athens in 480 BC, but repaired around 460 BC. The cult was deeply integrated into civic life; the Metroon was used as

12870-483: The floor opens to the width of a cubit, and they say that along this bed flowed off the water after the deluge that occurred in the time of Deukalion, and into it they cast every year wheat mixed with honey ... The ancient sanctuary of Zeus Olympios the Athenians say was built by Deukalion (Deucalion), and they cite as evidence that Deukalion lived at Athens a grave which is not far from the present temple. In Athens, there

13013-566: The giant one-eyed Cyclopes : Brontes ("Thunder"), Steropes ("Lightning"), and Arges ("Bright"); then the Hecatonchires : Cottus, Briareos, and Gyges, each with a hundred arms and fifty heads. As each of the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires were born, Uranus hid them in a secret place within Gaia, causing her great pain. So Gaia devised a plan. She created a grey flint (or adamantine ) sickle. And Cronus used

13156-471: The goddess was thought to give them powers of prophecy. Pessinus , site of the temple whence the Magna Mater was brought to Rome, was a theocracy whose leading Galli may have been appointed via some form of adoption, to ensure "dynastic" succession. The highest ranking Gallus was known as "Attis", and his junior as "Battakes". The Galli of Pessinus were politically influential; in 189 BC, they predicted or prayed for Roman victory in Rome's imminent war against

13299-453: The goddess. At Olympia her altar was called "Gaios". The altars were given the name of a deity in primitive stages of religion. At Olympia like in Dodona it seems that she was honoured together with the sky-god Zeus . At Aigai she had an oracular power. According to Pliny the priestess drank a small quantity of the blood of a bull before entering the secret cave. At Patras in the oracle of "Ge",

13442-462: The goddess. This account might attempt to explain the nature, origin, and structure of Pessinus' theocracy. A Hellenistic poet refers to Cybele's priests in the feminine, as Gallai . The Roman poet Catullus refers to Attis in the masculine until his emasculation, and in the feminine thereafter. Various Roman sources refer to the Galli as a middle or third gender ( medium genus or tertium sexus ). The Galli's voluntary emasculation in service of

13585-555: The gods"), equivalent to the Greek title Meter Theon Idaia ("Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida"). Rome officially adopted her cult during the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC), after dire prodigies , including a meteor shower, a failed harvest, and famine, seemed to warn of Rome's imminent defeat. The Roman Senate and its religious advisers consulted the Sibylline oracle and decided that Carthage might be defeated if Rome imported

13728-502: The gods". In literary sources, the spread of Cybele's cult is presented as a source of conflict and crisis. Herodotus says that when Anacharsis returned to Scythia after traveling and acquiring knowledge among the Greeks in the 6th century BC, his brother, the Scythian king, put him to death for celebrating Cybele's mysteries. The historicity of this account and that of Anacharsis himself are widely questioned. In Athenian tradition,

13871-459: The helpless loss of her mortal beloved. The emotionally charged literary version presented in Catullus 63 follows Attis' initially ecstatic self-castration into exhausted sleep, and a waking realisation of all he has lost through his emotional slavery to a domineering and utterly self-centered goddess; it is narrated with a rising sense of isolation, oppression, and despair, virtually an inversion of

14014-447: The land in its untrammeled natural state, with power to rule, moderate or soften its latent ferocity, and to control its potential threats to a settled, civilized life. Anatolian elites sought to harness her protective power to forms of ruler-cult; in Phrygia, the Midas monument connects her with king Midas , as her sponsor, consort, or co-divinity. As protector of cities, or city states, she

14157-657: The latter received a new canopy with tassels in the form of fir cones. Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; when St. Theodore of Amasea was granted time to recant his beliefs, he spent it by burning a temple of Cybele instead. Rome characterised the Phrygians as barbaric, effeminate orientals, prone to excess. While some Roman sources explained Attis' death as punishment for his excess devotion to Magna Mater, others saw it as punishment for his lack of devotion, or outright disloyalty. Only one account of Attis and Cybele (related by Pausanias ) omits any suggestion of

14300-571: The liberation promised by Cybele's Anatolian cult. Contemporaneous with this, more or less, Dionysius of Halicarnassos pursues the idea that the "Phrygian degeneracy" of the Galli, personified in Attis, be removed from the Megalensia to reveal the dignified, "truly Roman" festival rites of the Magna Mater. Somewhat later, Vergil expresses the same deep tension and ambivalence regarding Rome's claimed Phrygian, Trojan ancestors, when he describes his hero Aeneas as

14443-473: The lower classes. At the end of the 1st century BC Strabo notes that Rhea-Cybele's popular rites in Athens were sometimes held in conjunction with Dionysus' procession. Both were regarded with caution by the Greeks, as being foreign, to be simultaneously embraced and "held at arm's length". Cybele was also the focus of mystery cult , private rites with a chthonic aspect connected to hero cult and exclusive to those who had undergone initiation, although it

14586-483: The matron Claudia Quinta , who was accused of unchastity but proved her innocence with a miraculous feat on behalf of the goddess. Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica , supposedly the "best man" in Rome, was chosen to meet the goddess at Ostia ; and Rome's most virtuous matrons (including Claudia Quinta ) conducted her to the temple of Victoria , to await the completion of her temple on the Palatine Hill . Pessinos' stone

14729-487: The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods, which remain controversial subjects in modern scholarship. No contemporary text or myth survives to attest the original character and nature of Cybele's Phrygian cult. She may have evolved from a statuary type found at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia , of a "corpulent and fertile" female figure accompanied by large felines, dated to the 6th millennium BC and identified by some as

14872-491: The mortal Heracles , who assisted the Olympians in defeating the Gigantes. According to Hesiod , in his lost poem Astronomia , Orion , while hunting with Artemis and her mother Leto , claimed that he would kill every animal on earth. Gaia, angered by his boasting, sent a giant scorpion to kill him, and after his death, he and the scorpion were placed among the stars by Zeus. According to Ovid , Gaia for some reason sent

15015-423: The most fragmentary and, during an interval of several centuries, apt to diverge into whatever version suited a new audience, or potentially, new acolytes. Greek versions of the myth recall those concerning the mortal Adonis and his divine lovers, - Aphrodite , who had some claim to cult as a 'Mother of all", or her rival for Adonis' love, Persephone - showing the grief and anger of a powerful goddess, mourning

15158-399: The mythographer Apollodorus , however, Gaia and Tartarus were the parents of Echidna . The god Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena , but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. Athena wiped off the semen and threw it on the ground, which impregnated Gaia. Gaia then gave birth to Erichthonius of Athens , whom Athena adopted as her own child. Nonnus describes

15301-547: The name of which is Eumolpia, and it is assigned to Musaeus , son of Antiophemus. In it the poet states that the oracle belonged to Poseidon and Earth in common; that Earth gave her oracles herself, but Poseidon used Pyrcon as his mouthpiece in giving responses. The verses are these: "Forthwith the voice of the Earth-goddess uttered a wise word, And with her Pyrcon, servant of the renowned Earth-shaker." They say that afterwards Earth gave her share to Themis, who gave it to Apollo as

15444-460: The natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap, or draw her chariot. This schema may derive from a goddess figure from Minoan religion . Walter Burkert places her among the "foreign gods" of Greek religion, a complex figure combining a putative Minoan-Mycenaean tradition with the Phrygian cult imported directly from Asia Minor. Cybele's early Greek images are small votive representations of her monumental rock-cut images in

15587-460: The other of Aphrodite ... Next to the grove is a sanctuary of Demeter; she and her daughter [Persephone] are standing, but the image of Ge (Earth) is seated." The Temple of Zeus Olympios in Athens reportedly had an enclosure of Ge Olympia: [Within the sanctuary of Zeus Olympios in the lower town of Athens:] Within the precincts are antiquities: a bronze Zeus, a temple of Kronos (Cronus) and Rhea and an enclosure of Ge (Earth) surnamed Olympia. Here

15730-400: The parent. She herself is uncreated, and thus essentially separate from and independent of her creations. In the early Imperial era, the Roman poet Manilius inserts Cybele as the thirteenth deity of an otherwise symmetrical, classic Greco-Roman zodiac , in which each of twelve zodiacal houses (represented by particular constellations) is ruled by one of twelve deities, known in Greece as

15873-449: The pit or tomb, "reborn". These regenerative effects were thought to fade over time, but they could be renewed by further sacrifice. Some dedications transfer the regenerative power of the sacrifice to non-participants, including emperors, the Imperial family and the Roman state ; some mark a dies natalis (birthday or anniversary) for the participant or recipient. Dedicants and participants could be male or female. The sheer expense of

16016-480: The plays were commissioned from well-known playwrights. On April 10, her image was taken in public procession to the Circus Maximus , and chariot races were held there in her honour; a statue of Magna Mater was permanently sited on the racetrack's dividing barrier, showing the goddess seated on a lion's back. Roman bystanders seem to have perceived Megalesia as either characteristically " Greek "; or Phrygian. At

16159-420: The poems of Hesiod she is personified. Gaia has a significant role in the evolution of the world. She is the nurse of Zeus, and she has the epithet "Kourotrophos". Kourotrophos was the name of an old goddess who was subordinate to Ge. Dieterich believed that Kourotrophos and Potnia theron construct precisely the mother goddess. Ge is also personified in the myths of Erichthonius and Pluto . Erichthonius

16302-418: The procession, and in the goddess's mysteries ; Slaves are forbidden to witness any of this. In the late republican era, Lucretius vividly describes the procession's armed "war dancers" in their three-plumed helmets, clashing their shields together, bronze on bronze, "delighted by blood"; yellow-robed, long-haired, perfumed Galli waving their knives, wild music of thrumming tympanons and shrill flutes. Along

16445-453: The route, rose petals are scattered, and clouds of incense arise. The goddess's sculpted image wears the Mural Crown and is seated within a sculpted, lion-drawn chariot, carried high on a bier. The Roman display of Cybele's Megalesia procession as an exotic, privileged public pageant offers signal contrast to what is known of the private, socially inclusive Phrygian-Greek mysteries on which it

16588-411: The sacred marriage between heaven and earth. Ouranos and Gaia are cosmic powers and natural processes. In Chrysippus of Euripides Gaia is the mother of all in a philosophical poetic thought. "Gaia receives the drops of rain bearing the mortals and bearing food and beasts, therefore she is rightly called "mother of all". Aether of Zeus bears men and gods. Everything which is born by the earth returns to

16731-524: The same meaning with gaia . Some of her epithets are similar in some Indo-European languages. The universitality of the goddess is expressed by the prefix pan ,( πάν ). Some of the epithets of Gaia and Demeter are similar showing the identity of their nature. Gaia is believed by some sources to be the original deity behind the Oracle at Delphi . It was thus said: "That word spoken from tree-clad mother Gaia's (Earth's) navel-stone [Omphalos]." Depending on

16874-532: The sanctuaries of other gods. Close to the sanctuary of Eileithyia in Tegea was an altar of Ge; Phlya and Myrrhinos had an altar to Ge under the name Thea Megale (Great goddess); as well as Olympia which additionally, similar to Delphi, also said to have had an oracle to Gaia: On what is called the Gaion (Gaeum, Sanctuary of Ge) [at Olympia] is an altar of Ge (Earth); it too is of ashes. In more ancient days they say that there

17017-497: The scorpion to kill Leto instead, and Orion was killed trying to protect her. When Boreas , the god of the north wind, killed Pitys , an Oread nymph , for rejecting his advances and preferring Pan over him, Gaia pitied the dead girl and transformed her into a pine tree. According to little-known myth, Elaea was an accomplished athlete from Attica who was killed by her fellow athletes, because they had grown envious of her and her skills; but Gaia turned her into an olive tree as

17160-487: The self-destruction wrought when passion and devotion exceed rational bounds; a warning, rather than an offer. For Lucretius, Roman Magna Mater "symbolised the world order": her image held reverentially aloft in procession signifies the Earth, which "hangs in the air". She is the mother of all, ultimately the Mother of humankind, and the yoked lions that draw her chariot show an otherwise ferocious offspring's duty of obedience to

17303-508: The senior priestly office of Archigallus , who was not a eunuch and held full Roman citizenship. The religiously lawful circumstances for a Gallus's self-castration remain unclear; some may have performed the operation on the Dies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood") in Cybele and Attis' March festival. Pliny describes the procedure as relatively safe, but it is not known at what stage in their career

17446-417: The service was in the hands of a virgin woman. The serpent represented the earth deity and was related to the chthonic oracular cult. This is evident at Delphi. Traditionally the oracle belonged originally to Poseidon and Ge and the serpent Python represents the earth spirit. Ge was probably present at the oracle of Trophonius at Livadeia . The prophecies were usually given by the priestesses and not by

17589-528: The sickle to castrate his father Uranus as he approached his mother, Gaia, to have sex with her. From Uranus' spilled blood, Gaia produced the Erinyes , the Giants , and the Meliae (ash-tree nymphs). From the testicles of Uranus in the sea came forth Aphrodite . By her son, Pontus, Gaia bore the sea-deities Nereus , Thaumas , Phorcys , Ceto , and Eurybia . Because Cronus had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he

17732-525: The slope of the Palatine , overlooking the valley of the Circus Maximus and facing the temple of Ceres on the slopes of the Aventine . It was accessible via a long upward flight of steps from a flattened area or proscenium below, where the goddess's festival games and plays were staged. At the top of the steps was a statue of the enthroned goddess, wearing a mural crown and attended by lions. Her altar stood at

17875-399: The source, Gaia passed her powers on to Poseidon , Apollo , or Themis . Pausanias wrote: Many and different are the stories told about Delphi, and even more so about the oracle of Apollo. For they say that in the earliest times the oracular seat belonged to Earth, who appointed as prophetess at it Daphnis, one of the nymphs of the mountain. There is extant among the Greeks an hexameter poem,

18018-456: The spouse of Zeus. Homer uses the form "eureia chthon " (broad earth). Hesiod speaks for the broad-breasted earth, ("eurysternos") the sure seat of all immortals. The same epithet appears in her cults at Delphi and Aegae in Achaea. In the Homeric hymn her conception is more clear and detailed. She is the Mother of the Gods, the goddess that brings forth life and blesses men with children. She

18161-513: The squares and streets of Carthage, with oiled hair and powdered faces, languid limbs and feminine gait, demanding even from the tradespeople the means of continuing to live in disgrace". The earliest known temple for Cybele in the Greek world is the Daskalopetra monument on Chios , which dates to the sixth or early fifth centuries BC. In Greek, a temple to Cybele was often called a Metroon . Several Metroa were established in Greek cities from

18304-418: The state archive and Cybele was one of the four main deities, to whom serving councillors sacrificed, along with Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. The highly influential fifth-century BC statue of Cybele enthroned by Agoracritus was located in this building. The building was rebuilt around 150 BC, with separate rooms for cult worship and archival storage, and it remained in use until Late Antiquity. A second Metroon in

18447-492: The supreme authority of the pontifices , who were usually drawn from Rome's highest ranking, wealthiest citizens. The Galli themselves, although imported to serve the day-to-day workings of their goddess's cult on Rome's behalf, represented an inversion of Roman priestly traditions in which senior priests were citizens, expected to raise families, and personally responsible for the running costs of their temples, assistants, cults, and festivals. As eunuchs, incapable of reproduction,

18590-410: The title was later applied in Greek texts to Artemis . The mother goddess Cybele from Anatolia (modern Turkey ) was partly identified by the Greeks with Gaia, but more so with Rhea. Beliefs and worship amongst modern pagans (also known as neopagans ) regarding Gaia vary, ranging from the belief that Gaia is the Earth to the belief that she is the spiritual embodiment of the earth or the goddess of

18733-611: The tympanon. She appears with Dionysus, as a secondary deity in Euripides ' Bacchae , 64 – 186, and Pindar 's Dithyramb II.6 – 9. In the Bibliotheca formerly attributed to Apollodorus , Cybele is said to have cured Dionysus of his madness. Their cults shared several characteristics: the foreigner-deity arrived in a chariot, drawn by exotic big cats (Dionysus by tigers or panthers, Cybele by lions), accompanied by wild music and an ecstatic entourage of exotic foreigners and people from

18876-525: The westerly colonies of Magna Graecia . The Greeks called her Mātēr or Mētēr ("Mother"), or from the early 5th century Kubélē ; in Pindar , she is "Mistress Cybele the Mother". In Homeric Hymn 14 she is "the Mother of all gods and all human beings." Cybele was readily assimilated with several Greek goddesses, especially Rhea , as Mētēr theōn ("Mother of the gods"), whose raucous, ecstatic rites she may have acquired. As an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she

19019-468: Was Cabyle. Cabyle used to be one of the most important centers of south-eastern Thrace. It was established around 2000 BC on the Zaychi Vrah Heights. In 341 BC Cabyle was conquered by the army of Philip II of Macedon and was later included in the Empire of Alexander of Macedon . It was colonised by Philip with rebellious Macedonians. In the 3rd century BC it was governed again by

19162-580: Was a statue of Gaia on the Acropolis depicting her beseeching Zeus for rain as well as an image of her close to the court of the Areopagos in Athens, alongside the statues of Plouton and Hermes, "by which sacrifice those who have received an acquittal on the Areopagos". Some modern sources, such as Mellaart , Gimbutas , and Walker , claim that Gaia as Mother Earth is a later form of a pre-Indo-European Great Mother , venerated in Neolithic times. Her existence

19305-680: Was a temple of Ge Eurusternos on the Crathis near Aegae in Achaia with "a very ancient statue": It is a journey of about thirty stades [from the stream of Krathis (Crathis) near the ruins of Aigai (Aegae) in Akhaia] to what is called the Gaion (Gaeum), a sanctuary of Ge (Earth) surnamed Eurysternos (Broad-bossomed), whose wooden image is one of the very oldest. The woman who from time to time is priestess henceforth remains chaste and before her election must not have had intercourse with more than one man. The test applied

19448-669: Was an oracle also of Ge (Earth) in this place. On what is called the Stomion (Mouth) the altar to Themis has been built. Her statues were naturally to be found in the temples of Demeter, such as the Temple of Demeter in Achaia: "They [the Patraians of Akhaia (Achaea)] have also a grove by the sea, affording in summer weather very agreeable walks and a pleasant means generally of passing the time. In this grove are also two temples of divinities, one of Apollon,

19591-554: Was based. The Principate brought the development of an extended festival or "holy week" for Cybele and Attis in March (Latin Martius ) , from the Ides to nearly the end of the month. Citizens and freedmen were allowed limited forms of participation in rites pertaining to Attis, through their membership of two colleges , each dedicated to a specific task; the Cannophores ("reed bearers") and

19734-431: Was destined to be overthrown by one of his children, he swallowed each of the children born to him by his Titan older sister, Rhea. But when Rhea was pregnant with her youngest child, Zeus , she sought help from Gaia and Uranus. When Zeus was born, Rhea gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling-clothes in his place, which Cronus swallowed, and Gaia took the child into her care. With the help of Gaia's advice, Zeus defeated

19877-423: Was later used as the face of the statue of the goddess. In due course, the famine ended and Hannibal was defeated. Most modern scholarship agrees that Cybele's consort, Attis , and her eunuch Phrygian priests ( Galli ) would have arrived with the goddess, along with at least some of the wild, ecstatic features of her Greek and Phrygian cults. The histories of her arrival deal with the piety, purity, and status of

20020-467: Was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess Demeter , whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, Persephone ; but she also continued to be identified as a foreign deity, with many of her traits reflecting Greek ideas about barbarians and the wilderness, as Mētēr oreia ("Mother of the Mountains"). She is depicted as a Potnia Theron ("Mistress of animals"), with her mastery of

20163-543: Was performed to Ge, and the citizents brought offerings to the graves of the dead. An ancient Gaia cult existed at the "Marathonian Tetrapolis" near Athens . In the month Poseideon a pregnant cow was sacrificed to "Ge in the acres" and in Gamelion a sheep to" Ge-near the oracle". Both sacrifices were followed by rituals and the second was related to Daeira a divinity connected with the Eleusinian mysteries. At Eleusis Ge received

20306-435: Was sometimes shown wearing a mural crown , representing the city walls. At the same time, her power "transcended any purely political usage and spoke directly to the goddess' followers from all walks of life". Some Phrygian shaft monuments are thought to have been used for libations and blood offerings to Cybele, perhaps anticipating by several centuries the pit used in her taurobolium and criobolium sacrifices during

20449-459: Was the aniconic stone that was removed to Rome in 204 BC. Images and iconography in funerary contexts, and the ubiquity of her Phrygian name Matar ("Mother"), suggest that she was a mediator between the "boundaries of the known and unknown": the civilized and the wild, the worlds of the living and the dead. Her association with hawks, lions, and the stone of the mountainous landscape of the Anatolian wilderness, seem to characterize her as mother of

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