Kybéle Gregorjanska – female
(also Kybebe; Latin Cybele) The Phrygian Magna Mater; in origin, probably a mountain goddes with dwarfs as servants. From Mount Ida she received her epithet of Idaea Mater, and in myth she also appears as → Agdistis. Her cult spread far and wide across the Aegean, and she herself was aligned with the mother goddesses of the Greeks, → Demeter and → Rheia. In the year 205/204 BC the black stone sacred to her was brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome. In art, she is shown in a chariot drawn by lions and panthers. Her attributes are a mirror and a pomegranate, often also a key. As protective deity of towns, she is also entitled to wear a castellated crown. She is accompanied by a demonic retinue of ecstatically dancing → Korybantes. Kybéle was venerated as queen of nature and of fertility; her priests were the castrated Galloi. Her own cult was bound up with that of her lover → Attis. The faithful believed that through her mysteries they would achieve rebirth to a new life. |
