CHAPTER ONE
THE MYSTIC CULT OF CYBELE IN CLASSICAL GREECE
While the earliest testimonies concerning the cult of the Great Mother sometimes attest to her association with a nocturnal' and a mountain Z en vironment, they emphasise above all the presence of songs and the sounds of sacred instruments (cymbals, tambourines, flutes, bull-roarers) which were liable to arouse a state of sacred exaltation in the celebrants. If the "Homeric" hymn To the Mother of the gods shows us the goddess enjoying the XpO't I Cf. Pindar,lll Pyth., vv. 77-79: at night (tWUX.LCXL) the XOUPCXL together with Pan celebrate the goddess near the poet's door; Herodotus, His!. IV, 76: the Scythian Anacharsis performs a 1tcxwux.(, in honour of the Mother of the gods, as he saw it celebrated amongst the Cyzicenes (text in H. Hepding, Attis, seine Mythen und sein Ku/t (RGVV I), Giessen 1903,6). , Anacharsis retires to a mountainous region, amongst thick woods, to celebrate the "sacred wake" for Cybele to the sound of tambourines (Herodotus, loc. cit.). Cf. Euripides, Cretans fro 472 Nauck'. , Vv. 3-4 ed. J. Humbert, Homere. Hymnes, Paris 1967, 197. For the date cf. ibid., 195f.; T. W. Allen-W. R. Halliday-E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns, Oxford 1936', 394f. • Dithyr. II, fro 70 bed. B. Snell, Pindari Carmina cum/ragmentis, Leipzig 1964', vol. II, 74f. , Fragment from Semele (in Athenaeus 14, p. 636 A) in Nauck', 776f.: "And yet I hear that the turbanwearing women of Asian Cybele, the daughters of the rich Phrygians, with drums and bull-roarers and booming of bronze cymbals in their two hands make loud din ... celebrating her who is the wise minstrel of the gods and healer as well" (translation by Ch. B. Gulick, Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, vol. VI, London-Cambridge 1950, 431ff.). 6 Helena vV. 1301-1365, for a comment on which see my work quoted above, Introduction n. 1. 1 Cf. for example, Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes, V. 179f.; Sophocles, Antigone V. 1012f., Trachiniae V. 765ff. See also L. Ziehen S.V. orgia, PWRE 35 (1939), 1026-1029. • Vv. 237f.: "oprLCX S' cx~ U1to&fjaofLcxL, W, &v t1ttL'tCX / tUcxrtw, tpSov'tt, tfLov v60v o..ciaxoLaGt"; VV. 476f. (ed. J. Humbert, 50 and 57). 10 THE MYSTIC CULT OF CYBELE IN CLASSICAL GREECE virtue of the dramatic vicissitude to which she was subjected together with her daughter. The use of oP'YtCX to designate the Eleusinian rites, the !J.Uan1ptCX par ex cellence, continues also at a later period, from Euripides 9 to Aristophanes 10 and to the epigram of the hierophant Glaucus (2nd-3rd century A.D.) who recalls having shown oP'YtCX 1t~at\l .••• ~po'tor~ q>cxe.a£!J.~po'tcx a710u~. II In Herodotus the term in question alternates with !J.Uan1ptCX to denote the rites celebrated at Samothrace. I2 At all events we see that in the course of the 5th century the term acquires an ever more precise meaning, being applied preferably to ritual complexes of a cathartic type 13 or to cults with a reserved or frankly esoteric character. Thus, for example, Herodotus speaks of the oP'YtCX of Demeter Achaean whose sanc tuary and cult were reserved for the Gephyraeans, the other Athenians being excluded;'· Aristophanes calls the Thesmophoric festivals oP'YtCX ae.!J.va,IS typically esoteric rites exclusively reserved for women, and he uses the same term to define the rites of the Muses 16 which Strabo was later to associate with the cults of Dionysus, Apollo, Hecate and Demeter, as those to whom were due 'to oP'Ytcxa'ttXOV 1t~V XCXt 'to ~CXXXtXOV XCXt 'to XOptXOV XCXt 'to 1te.pt 'tdt~ 'te.).e.'tdt~ !J.ua'ttx6v. I7 Finally the ae.!J.vdt oP'YtCX of the Thracian goddess Cotyto are evoked in Aeschylus' Edonians as rites celebrated in a context of extreme religious en thusiasm, to the sound of tympana and bull-roarers. 18 In fact the term in question is used as early as the 5th century preferably to denote the Dionysiac rites characterised by similar manifestations of • Hercules v. 613: to the question of Amphitryon who asks him if the capture of Cerberus has taken place "after fighting or as a gift of the goddess", Heracles replies: "M.xX'!l . 'tOt fLua'twv o· oprt' lu't1lX'l)a' lowv". '0 Frogs v. 384f.: the chorus of the Eleusinian mystai invokes: "MlfL'I)'t£P, .xrvwv oprtwV / &vallo-a.". " IG II', 3661,3. Cf. also the E1eusinian inscription in G. Kaibel, Epigr. graec .• Add. 97 a, line 3, 518: the hierophant 't£At'tOt~ civtcp1lvt XOtt oprtOt n.xwuxOt fLUa'tOtt~; Arrian fro 107 in Eustath. Od. t 125, 1528, 14 ed. Jacoby, FHG II B, 871. 12 Hist. II, 51: "oa'tt~ Ot 'tOt KOt~t£pwv oprtOt fLtfLU'I)'tOtt, 'tOt :EOtfLo9pTjtXt~ lnt'ttAtouat ..... oU'to~ Wvl)p olOe 'to Airw". Further on, recalling the hieros logos recounted by the Pelasgians with regard to Hermes, he says: "'tOt lv 'tolat tV :EOtfLo9p'l)(X'!l fLua't'l)p(Otat OtoTjAW'tOtt (text in N. Turchi, Fontes historiae mysteriorum aevi hellenistici, Roma 1930, 103, n° 156). " Herodotus, discussing the significance of the prohibition for the Egyptian priests to in troduce woollen garments into the sanctuaries or to be buried with such garments, notes the similarity with the behaviour of the Orphics, Pythagoreans and Bacchantes and concludes that ouOt rOtp 'tOU'twv 'twv oprtWV fLt'ttXOV'tOt oat6v ta'tt lv tlptvlotat ttlLOtat 9OtIP9ijva;t (Hist. II, 81). " Hist. Y, 61. " Thesmoph. V. 948; cf. vV. 1148-1152. " Frogs V. 356. 17 Geogr. X, 3, 10. II Fr. 57 Nauck' p. 20. Cf. Ch. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, vol. II, Konigsberg 1829, 1014-1039; R. Pettazzoni, I misteri, Bologna 1924. 25f.