Cybele and Attis

Cybele, an ancient fertility goddess whose worship is thought to have spread from Anatolia to Greece in the Archaic period (c. 800-500) and further during the Hellenistic period (c. 300-50), is known by many names, including

• Great Mother
• Dindymene
• Kubaba
• A(n)gdistis, and
• Mater Deum Magna Idaea (Great Idaean Mother of the Gods).
  In Greece the worship of Cybele was associated with that of Rhea, the mother of Zeus and wife of Cronus.

Besides fertility, represented by fruit in art, Cybele is associated with cities, and so, on her crown there is a gate. In the picture of Cybele, from Oskar Seyffert's Diciontary of Classical Antiquities, copied here, lions flank Cybele to suggest her strength. Sometimes leopards accompany Cybele.

Mysterious rites were performed in the name of Cybele -- as they were for the other earth mother type goddesses, like Demeter and Isis. Worship of the Great Mother involved substantial sacrifice in order to commemorate the great myth of death and rebirth. No ordinary man could be her priest.

"Well then, the Pergameni took Ancyra and Pessinus which lies under Mount Agdistis, where they say that Attis lies buried."
- Pausanias 1.4.5

Next page > > The Story of Attis and Cybele

• Cybele and Attis
• God of the Day - Magna Mater - Great Goddess
• Navaratri: Nine Divine Nights
• Early Mother's Days - Mother's Day History
• Lucretius: The Worship of Cybele