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Provided with certificate of authenticity.
CERTIFIED AUTHENTIC
by Sergey Nechayev, PhD -
Numismatic Expert
Cybele (Phrygian:
Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubeleyan Mother", perhaps "Mountain
Mother";
Lydian Kuvava;
Greek: Κυβέλη
Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis), was the
Phrygian deification of the
Earth Mother. As with Greek
Gaia (the "Earth"), or her
Minoan equivalent
Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a
goddess of
caverns and
mountains,
walls and
fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially
lions and
bees). Phrygian Cybele is often identified with
the Hittite-Hurrian
goddess
Hebat, though this latter deity might have been
the origin of only Anatolian Kubaba. The Greeks frequently conflated the
two names, the
Anatolian "Kubaba" and the Phrygian "Kybele",
to refer to the Phrygian deity. Cybele is also sometimes spelled Sybil. Cybele,
or Sybil, is a title like Priest or Rabbi, associated with an 'office' or
'position' like President or Dean. Cybeles often have particular talents or
skills which have been developed which make them suitable, and sometimes famous,
for the work or service they provide.
Greek mythographers recalled that
Broteas, the son of
Tantalus, was the first to carve the Great
Mother's
image into a rock-face. At the time of
Pausanias (2nd century CE), a sculpture carved
into the rock-face of a spur of
Mount Sipylus was still held sacred by the
Magnesians.
At
Pessinos in Phrygia, an archaic image of Cybele
had been venerated as well as the cult of
Agdistis, in
203 BCE its aniconic cult object was removed to
Rome.
Her cult had already been adopted in 5th century BCE Greece, where she is
often referred to euphemistically as Meter Theon Idaia ("Mother of the
Gods, from Mount Ida") rather than by name. Mentions of Cybele's worship are
found in
Pindar and
Euripides, among other locations. Classical
Greek writers, however, either did not know of or did not mention the castrated
galli, although they did mention the castration
of
Attis. Cybele's cult in Greece was
closely associated with, and apparently resembled, the later cult of
Dionysus, whom Cybele is said to have initiated
and cured of
Hera's madness. They also identified Cybele
with the Mother of the Gods
Rhea.
Anatolian Cybele
The figurine found at
Çatalhöyük, (Archaeological Museum, Ankara),
dating about
6000 BCE, is generally conceded to depict a
corpulent and fertile
Mother Goddess in the process of giving birth
while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline
(leopard or panther) heads. The similarity to later
iconography of the Anatolian
Mother Goddess is striking.
By the
2nd millennium BCE the
Kubaba of Bronze Age Carchemish was known to
the Hittites and Hurrians:
- "[O]n the basis of inscriptional and
iconographical evidence it is possible to
trace the diffusion of her cult in the early Iron Age; the cult reached the
Phrygians in inner
Anatolia, where it took on special
significance" (Burkert, III.3.4, p. 177).
If the theory on the Luwian origin of Cybele's name is correct, Kubaba must
have merged with the various matar goddesses well before time the
Phrygian matar kubileya inscription was made around the first half of the
6th century BCE (Vassileva 2001). 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 lover
Attis (son of
Nana) was about to wed the daughter of the
king, when Agdistis-Cybele appeared in her awesome glory, and he castrated
himself.
In Archaic Phrygian images of Cybele of the 6th century, already betraying
the influence of Greek style (Burkert), her typical representation is in the
figuration of a building’s 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 polos (high cylindrical hat), and a veil
that falls over her shoulders and down her back. In Phrygia, her usual
attributes are the
bird of prey and a small
vase, and she is seen with attendant lions in
early Phrygian art. Later, the lions are shown
drawing her
chariot, which may be related as the sun
traversing the sky daily. Under Hellenic influence along the coastal lands of
Asia Minor, 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 hand holding the circular
frame drum, similar to a
tambourine, (tymbalon or tympanon),
which evokes the full
moon in its shape and is covered with the hide
of the sacred
lunar bull.
Greek Cybele
The goddess was known among the Greeks as Μήτηρ (Mētēr "Mother") or
Μήτηρ Ὀρεία ("Mountain-Mother"), or, with a particular Anatolian sacred
mountain in mind,
Idaea, inasmuch as she was supposed to have
been born on
Mount Ida in
Anatolia, or equally Dindymene or
Sipylene, with her sacred mountains
Mount Dindymon (in
Mysia and variously located) or
Mount Sipylus in mind. In
Roman mythology, her equivalent was Magna
Mater or "Great Mother". In most mythology her story is Phrygian.
Walter Burkert, who treats Cybele among
"foreign gods" in Greek Religion, notes that "The cult of the Great
Mother, Meter, presents a complex picture insofar as indigenous, Minoan-Mycenean
tradition is here intertwined with a cult taken over directly from the Phrygian
kingdom of Asia Minor"The inscription matar occurs frequently in her
Phrygian sites (Burkert). Kubileya is usually read as a Phrygian
adjective "of the
mountain", so that the inscription may be read
Mother of the Mountain, and this is supported by Classical sources
(Roller 1999, pp. 67–68). Another theory is that her name can be traced to the
Luwian
Kubaba, the deified queen of the Third
Dynasty of
Kish worshiped at
Carchemish and
Hellenized to Kybebe (Munn 2004, Motz
1997, pp. 105–106). With or without the etymological connection, Kubaba and
Matar certainly merged in at least some aspects, as the genital mutilation later
connected with Cybele's cult is associated with Kybebe in earlier texts, but in
general she seems to have been more a collection of similar tutelary goddesses
associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities, and called
simply "mother" (Motz), as are head-nuns in modern day convents.
Later, Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually
castrated themselves, after which they were
given women's clothing and assumed female identities, who were referred to by
one 3rd-century commentator,
Callimachus, in the feminine as Gallai,
but to whom other contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred
to as Gallos or
Galli. There is no mention of these
followers in Classical references although they related that her
priestesses led the people in orgiastic
ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing, and drinking. She was associated
with the mystery religion concerning her son,
Attis, who was castrated, died of his wounds,
and resurrected by his mother. The
dactyls were part of her retinue. Other
followers of Cybele, the Phrygian kurbantes or
Corybantes, expressed her ecstatic and
orgiastic cult in music, especially drumming, clashing of
shields and
spears, dancing, singing, and shouting—all at
night.
Athenian A Cybele seated on her
throne with a tymbalon, (4th century BCE, Athens)
Cybele and Attis
The goddess appears alone, 8th–6th centuries BCE. But later she is joined by
Attis, a vegetation spirit who was born and
died each year,
was the son of
Nana and the consort of Cybele. Cybele in
jealousy drove him mad after he married Sangarius, and he in an ecstasy,
castrated himself and subsequently died. Grieving, Cybele brought him back to
life as a fir tree.The
evergreen tree and
violets were sacred in the cult of Cybele and
Attis This tale is told by Catullus in carmen 63. He later became a solar
deity.
Some ecstatic followers of Cybele, known in Rome as
galli, willingly castrated themselves in
imitation of
Attis. For Roman devotees of Cybele Mater Magna
who were not prepared to go so far, the testicles 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 a
bull's testes from Rome to Cybele's shrine at Lyon, France.
Aegean Cybele
The worship directed by the Cybeles 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 made some useful
observations:
- Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable to
things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so
many of the foreign rites ... the Phrygian [rites of Rhea-Cybele are
mentioned] by
Demosthenes, when he casts the reproach
upon Aeschines' mother and Aeschines himself, that he was with her when she
conducted initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march,
and that many a time he cried out evoe saboe, and hyes attes,
attes hyes; for these words are in the ritual of
Sabazios and the Mother [Rhea]. (Strabo,
book X, 3:18)
In
Ancient Egypt at
Alexandria, Cybele was worshiped 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 10th century BCE,
and the city's ecstatic celebration, the
Ephesia, honored her.
The recently discovered temple of the Cybele in
Balchik, NE Bulgaria (ca 300 BC -
ca 500 AD)
The goddess was not welcome among the
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.
Atalanta and
Hippomenes were turned into lions by Cybele or
Zeus as punishment for having sex in one of her or his temples
because the Greeks believed that lions could not mate with other lions. Another
account says that
Aphrodite turned them into lions for forgetting
to do her tribute. As lions they then drew Cybele's chariot.
Cumaean Sibyl
The ageless
Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over
the
Apollonian
oracle at
Cumae, a
Greek colony located northwest of modern day
Naples,
Italy.
The excellent story of the acquisition of the
Sibylline Books by
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the semi-legendary
last king of the
Roman Kingdom, or
Tarquinius Priscus, is one of the famous mythic
elements of Roman history. Centuries ago, concurrent with the 50th
Olympiad not long before the expulsion of
Rome's kings, an old woman "who was not a native of the country" (Dionysius)
arrived
incognita in Rome. She offered nine books of
prophecies to King Tarquin; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to
the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining
six to Tarquin at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she
burned three more and repeated her offer. Tarquin then relented and purchased
the last three at the full original price, whereupon she "disappeared from among
men" (Dionysius). The books were thereafter kept in the
Temple of Jupiter on the
Capitoline Hill, Rome, to be consulted only in
emergencies. The temple burned down in the 80s BC, and the books with it,
necessitating a re-collection of Sibylline prophecies from all parts of the
empire (Tacitus 6.12). These were carefully sorted and those determined to be
legitimate were saved in the rebuilt temple. The Emperor Augustus had them moved
to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, where they remained for most of
the remaining Imperial Period. The Books were burned in AD 405 by the General
Flavius Stilicho, who was a Christian and
regarded the books as Pagan and therefore evil. At the time of the Visigothic
invasion five years later in AD 410, certain Pagan apologists bemoaned the loss
of the books, claiming that the invasion of the city was evidence of the wrath
of the Pagan gods over the destruction of the books. The Cumaean Sibyl is
featured in the works of, among others, Virgil (The Eclogues, The
Æneid),
Ovid (Metamorphoses)
and
Petronius (The
Satyricon).
Roman Cybele
The Cybele with her attributes, (Getty Museum), a Roman marble, c.
50 CE
According to Livy in 210 BCE, an archaic version of Cybele, from Pessinos in
Phrygia, as mentioned above, that embodied the Great Mother was
ceremoniously and reverently moved to Rome, marking the official beginning of
her cult there. Rome was embroiled in the
Second Punic War at the time (218 to 201 BCE).
An inspection had been made of the
Sibylline Books and some oracular verses had
been discovered that announced that if a foreign foe should carry war into
Italy, that foe could be driven out and conquered if the Mater Magna were
brought from Pessinos to Rome. The Romans also consulted the
Greek oracle at Delphi, which also recommended
bringing the Magna Mater "from her sanctuary in Asia Minor to Rome."[13]
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was ordered to
go to the port of
Ostia, accompanied by all the matrons,
to meet the goddess. He was to receive her image 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.Plutarch
relates that in
103 BCE, Battakes, a high priest sent by the
Cybele, journeyed to Rome to announce a prediction of
Gaius Marius' victory over the Cimbri and
Teutoni.
A. Pompeius, plebeian tribune, together with a
band of ruffians, chased Battakes off of the
Rostra. Pompeius supposedly died of a fever a
few days later.
Under the emperor
Augustus, Cybele enjoyed great prominence
thanks to her inclusion in Augustan ideology. Augustus restored Cybele's temple,
which was located next to his own palace on the
Palatine Hill. On the cuirass of the
Prima Porta of Augustus, the tympanon of Cybele
lies at the feet of the goddess
Tellus.
Livia, the wife of Augustus, ordered
cameo-cutters to portray Cybele with her
likeness. The Malibu statue of Cybele bears the visage of Livia. The cult seems
to have been fully accepted under
Claudius as the festival of Magna Mater and
Attis are included within the stes religious calendar. At the same time the
chief priest of the cult (the
archigallus) was permitted to be a Roman
citizen, so long as he was not a
eunuch.
Under the Roman Empire the most important festival of Cybele was the
Hilaria, taking place between March 15 and
March 28. It symbolically commemorated the death of
Attis and his resurrection by Cybele, involving
days of mourning followed by rejoicing. Celebrations also took place on 4 April
with the Megalensia festival, the anniversary of the arrival of the
goddess (i.e. the Black Stone) in Rome. On the 10th April, the anniversary of
the consecration of her temple on the Palatine, a procession of her image was
carried to the
Circus Maximus where races were held. These two
dates seem to be incorporated within the same festival, though the evidence for
what took place in between is lacking.
The most famous rite of Magna Mater introduced by the Romans was the
taurobolium, the initiation ceremony in
which a candidate took their place in a pit beneath a wooden floor. A bull was
sacrificed on the wooden floor so that the blood would run through gaps in the
slats and drench the initiate in a symbolic shower of blood. This act was
thought to cleanse an initiate of sin as well as signify a 'rebirth' and re-energisation.
A cheaper version, known as a criobolium, involved the sacrifice of a
ram. The first recorded
taurobolium took place at
Puteoli in AD 134 in honour of
Venus Caelestia.
In
Roman mythology, Cybele was given the name
Magna Mater deorum Idaea ("great
Idaean mother of the gods"), in recognition of
her
Phrygian origins (although this title was given
to
Rhea also).
Roman devotion to Cybele ran deep. Not coincidentally, when a Christian
basilica was built over the site of a temple to Cybele to occupy the
site, the sanctuary was rededicated to the Mother of God, as the
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. However,
later, Roman citizens were forbidden to become priests of Cybele, who were
eunuchs like those of their Asiatic Goddess.
The worship of Cybele was exported to the empire, even as far away as
Mauretania, where, just outside
Setif, the ceremonial "tree-bearers" and the
faithful (religiosi) restored the temple of Cybele and Attis after a
disastrous fire in 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.) The popularity of
the Cybele cult in the city of Rome and throughout the empire is thought to have
inspired the author of
Book of Revelation to allude to her in his
portrayal of the mother of harlots who rides the Beast. Cybele drew ire
from Christians throughout the Empire; famously,
St. Theodore of Amasea is said to have spent
the time granted to him to recant his beliefs, burning a temple of Cybele
instead. Today, a modern monumental statue of Cybele can be found in one of the
principal traffic circles of
Madrid, the
Plaza de Cibeles (illustration, lower right).
In Roman poetry
In Rome, her Phrygian origins were recalled by
Catullus, whose famous poem (number 63) 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."
In the second book of his De rerum natura,
Lucretius appropriately uses the image of
Cybele, the Great Mother, as a metaphor for the Earth. His description of the
followers of the goddess is thought to be based on autopsy of the celebration of
her cult in Rome.
Cybele in the
Aeneid
In his
Aeneid, which was written in the 1st
century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE),
Virgil called her Berecyntian Cybele,
alluding to her place of origin. He described her as the mother of the gods.
In his late version of the legendary story, the
Trojans are in
Italy and have kept themselves safe in a walled
city, following
Aeneas's orders. The leader of the
Rutuli,
Turnus, then ordered his men to burn the ships
of the Trojans. At this point in the new legend, there is a
flashback to
Mount Olympus years before the
Trojan War: After Cybele had given her sacred
trees to the Trojans so that they could build their ships, she went
to Zeus and begged him to make the ships indestructible.
Zeus granted her request by saying that when the ships had
finally fulfilled their purpose (bringing
Aeneas and his army to Italy) they would be
turned into sea
nymphs rather than be destroyed; so, as Turnus
approached with fire, the ships came to life, dove beneath the sea, and emerged
as nymphs. Of course, Cybele was a powerful goddess who had existed long before
the "birth" of Zeus, and she would have been worshipped in that area from
antiquity, so this new legend may contain elements of much older myths that have
been lost — such as the trees that turned into sea nymphs.
Background
and career
Born in Caesarea (modern
Cherchell,
Algeria) in the
Roman province of
Mauretania
to an
equestrian family, Macrinus received an education which allowed him to
ascend to the Roman political class. Over the years he earned a reputation as a
skilled lawyer. Under the emperor
Septimius Severus he became an important bureaucrat. Severus' successor
Caracalla
appointed him
prefect of the
Praetorian guard. While Macrinus likely enjoyed the trust of Caracalla, this
may have changed when, according to tradition, he was prophesied to depose and
succeed the emperor. Rumors spread regarding Macrinus' alleged desire to take
the throne for himself. Given Caracalla's tendency towards murdering political
opponents, Macrinus probably feared for his own safety should the emperor become
aware of this prophecy. According to Dio, Caracalla had already taken the step
of re-assigning members of Macrinus' staff.
In the spring of 217, Caracalla was in the eastern provinces
preparing a campaign against the
Parthian Empire. Macrinus was among his staff, as were other members of the
praetorian guard. In April, the emperor went to visit a temple of
Luna near the
spot of the
battle of Carrhae, accompanied only by his personal bodyguard, which
included Macrinus. Events are not clear, but it is certain that Caracalla was
murdered at some point on the trip (perhaps on
April 8).
Caracalla's body was brought back from the temple by his bodyguards, along with
the corpse of a fellow bodyguard. The story as told by Macrinus was that the
dead guard had killed Caracalla. By
April 11,
Macrinus proclaimed himself emperor. Macrinus also nominated his son
Diadumenianus
Caesar and successor and conferred upon him the name "Antoninus", thus
connecting him with the relatively stable reigns of the
Antonine emperors of the 2nd century.
Reign
(April 217 - June 218)
Despite his equestrian background, Macrinus was confirmed in
his new role by the
Senate.
According to S.N. Miller, this may have been due to both his background as an
accomplished jurist and his deferential treatment of the senatorial class. He
found it necessary, however, to replace several provincial governors with men of
his own choosing. Caracalla's mother
Julia
Domna was initially left in peace, but when she started to conspire with the
military he ordered her to leave
Antioch.
Being at that time in an advanced stage of breast cancer (Cassius Dio) she chose
instead to starve herself to death. In urgent matters of foreign policy, Macrinus displayed a
tendency towards conciliation and a reluctance to engage in military conflict.
He averted trouble in the province of
Dacia by
returning hostages that had been held by Caracalla, and he ended troubles in
Armenia by granting that country's throne to
Tiridates, whose father had also been imprisoned under Caracalla. Less
easily managed was the problem of
Mesopotamia, which had been invaded by the
Parthians in
the wake of Caracalla's demise. Meeting the Parthians in battle during the
summer of 217, Macrinus achieved a
costly draw near the town of
Nisibis and as a result was forced to enter negotiations through which was
obliged to pay the enormous
indemnity
of 200 million sesterces to the Parthian ruler
Artabanus IV in return for peace. Macrinus' reluctance to engage in warfare, and his failure to
gain victory over even a historically inferior enemy such as the Parthians
caused considerable resentment among the soldiers. This was compounded by the
rolling back of the privileges they had enjoyed under Caracalla and the
introduction of a pay system by which recruits received less than veterans.
After only a short while, the legions were searching for a rival emperor. At a high point of his popularity monuments were built to
revere Macrinus. The grand
tetrastyle
Capitoline Temple, in
Volubilis
was erected to honour Emperor Macrinus in 217 AD.
His popularity also suffered in Rome. Not only had the new
emperor failed to visit the city after taking power, but a late-summer
thunderstorm caused widespread fires and flooding, and Macrinus' appointee as
urban prefect proved unable to repair the damage to the satisfaction of the
populace and had to be replaced.
Downfall
This discontent was fostered by the surviving members of the
Severan dynasty, headed by
Julia
Maesa (Caracalla's aunt) and her daughters
Julia Soaemias and
Julia Mamaea. Having been evicted from the imperial palace and ordered to
return home by Macrinus, the Severan women plotted from their home near
Emesa in
Syria to place another Severan on the imperial throne. They used their
hereditary influence over the cult of
sun-deity
Elagabalus (the Latinised form of
El-Gabal) to proclaim Soaemias' son
Elagabalus
(named for his family's patron deity) as the true successor to Caracalla. The
rumor was spread, with the assistance of the Severan women, that Elagabalus was
in fact Caracalla's illegitimate son, and thus the child of a union between
first cousins. On
May 18,
Elagabalus was proclaimed emperor by the
Legio III Gallica at its camp at
Raphana. A
force under his tutor Gannys marched on
Antioch and
engaged a force under Macrinus on
June 8,
218. Macrinus,
deserted by most of his soldiers, was soundly defeated in the
battle, and fled towards Italy disguised as a courier. He was captured near
Chalcedon
and later executed in
Cappadocia.
His son Diadumenianus, sent for safety to the Parthian court, was captured at
Zeugma and also put to death. Macrinus' short reign, while important for its historical
"firsts", was cut short due to the inability of this otherwise accomplished man
to control or satisfy the soldiery. In his death at the hands of Roman soldiers,
Macrinus reinforced the notion of the soldiers as the true brokers of power in
the third-century empire and highlighted the importance of maintaining the
support of this vital faction. His reign was followed by another seventeen years
of rule under the Severan emperors
Elagabalus
and
Severus Alexander.
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