Biography Cybele

Cybele (Kubelh, Lat. Cybele; Tsibela, sometimes Kibeba, Kubhbh) – originally frigyskaya goddess, the personification of Mother Nature, honor, and in most areas of Asia Minor (especially in the mountains of Ida, in Lydia, Bithynia and Galatia).

Companions of the goddess, the Phrygian name of which was Ammas were considered Korybantes, Kuretem and ideyskie dactyl, her favorite is a handsome youth Attis; Kabiri also in some respects to her cult. Through the Greek colonies in Asia Minor, K. cult early penetrated into Greece, where she was otozhestvlena with Cretan mother of Zeus, Reay, and is commonly called "the great mother of gods."

In Athens, she was devoted to the temple, with its sculpture, Phidias or Agorakrita. In Thebes, the temple she built the poet Pindar. In Rome, in 204 BC, the Chr., According to the dictum Sibylline books, was solemnly transported the special embassy ancient symbol of the cult of the goddess, dark-colored stone (probably – a meteorite), from her temple in Pessinunte. Since then, the cult of the goddess, under the name "great mother" (Mater magna), became public, he headed a special panel of priests.

Himself Romans was first allowed to participate in the rites of worship K.; distributed between them, he began only during the empire. Especially a lot of people attracted vicarious sacrifice K. – tavrobolii and kriobolii (initiation into the cult by irrigation bovine or sheep blood).

The ancient art represented in the form of K. richly dressed matrons, with a mural crown on her head in one hand at her tympanum, and the other is sometimes the ears or scepter, she sits on a throne, surrounded by lions, or in a chariot drawn by lions, sometimes brought on horseback on a lion. Wed Gohler, "De Matris Magnaeapud Romanos cultu" (Meissen, 1886).