Cybele

Cybele was the Great Mother of Anatolia.  There have been many names given to her, but the most common is Cybele.  Cybele represents the power of nature and the power of fertility.  In many works of art she is portrayed holding a tambourine, which showed her passion for singing and dancing.  She wore a towering crown, which portrayed her protection of many towns and cities.  Also, she was always accompanied by two lions, one on each side of her, because she was known as the mistress of wild animals. 

The first story is told by Arnobius of Sicca.  Arnobius was a recent convert to Christianity and was against Cybele.  According to his story, Cybele emerges from the rock of Mount Agdus where, she is met by the divine Father Jupiter.  Although she refuses his sexual advances, she still becomes impregnated from drops of semen that have fallen on the rock.  From this, Adgistis is born.  He is a wild, horrific child who is the alter ego of the Great Mother.  Liber and the other gods dislike Agdistis, so Liber gets him drunk and upon his drunkness, he castrates himself.  The blood coming from his wound falls to the ground and a tree grows.  The fruit from this tree makes Nana pregnant.  She gives birth to Attis.  Attis doesn’t accept Agdistis, so Agdistis inspires madness upon many people, including Attis.  At this stage of madness, Attis then castrates himself, while the blood from his wound grows a sacred pine tree.    As this is the story of Arnobius, he disagrees and questions many things, including the pine tree.  I personally, find this story to be outrageous.  I have a hard time believing any of this because it just seems as these events could never happen in reality.

Another story of Cybele is told by Livy.  Livy lived in the time of Jesus Christ, but was not a Christian.  He simply wrote this story to tell a positive history of Rome.  At the time, Rome was in the Second Punic War and the books of Sibylline stated that the foreign enemy could be defeated by Cybele, the Mother of Gods.  Through Attalus in Pergamun, the Romans worked it out so that the rock of Cybele could be taken into the city of Rome.  When transferring the rock back to Rome, the boat got stuck in shallow water.  Claudia Quinta, who at the time didn’t have a great reputation, rescued the statue and took it to Rome.  There was a recession to take the statue to Rome and once it arrived, it was taken to the temple of victory on Palatine.  Although she is not considered a Roman goddess, this statue of Cybele offered the Romans protection and is celebrated every year on the day before the Ides of April.  According to the book, we can probably accept that this story told by Livy is true.  I am more apt to believe this story because it definitely seems more genuine and real than that of Arnobius.  It may also seem more of a reality because it was written during the time of Jesus, which Livy would have been looking into the past in order to write it.

I found that the Cybele stories seemed to be interesting, yet very imaginative.  From a few of the entries, it seemed as if the people who lived in Cybele’s time and in her life were at times filled with anger, which in turn made them perform horrifying acts on themselves.  Being the Great Mother, these people must have thought they needed to do these types of things in order for her to accept them.

Back to ISSI page    Back to Home page

This work has been submitted by Lindsay McCann for Issues and Ideas 402 at Monmouth College.