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{{short description|Anatolian mother goddess}}
{{Other uses}}
{{redirect|Magna Mater}}{{Infobox deity
| type = Greek
| name = Cybele
| image = Unknown - Statue of a Seated Cybele with the Portrait Head of her Priestess - 57.AA.19.jpg
| caption = Cybele enthroned, with [[lion]], [[cornucopia]], and [[mural crown]]. Roman marble, c. 50 AD. [[J. Paul Getty Museum|Getty Museum]]
| god_of = Mother Goddess
| consort = [[Attis]]
| animals = Lions
| festivals = ''[[Megalesia]]'', ''[[Hilaria]]''
| symbols = Mountains, [[conifer cone|conifer cones]], [[Tympanum (hand drum)|tympanon]]
| other_names = Magna Mater
| cult_center = [[Athens]], [[Rome]], [[Ostia Antica|Ostia]]
| temples = [[Metroon|Metroons]]
}}
'''Cybele''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|ɪ|b|əl|iː}} {{respell|SIB-ə-lee}};<ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|Cybele|access-date=December 15, 2019}}</ref> {{langx|xpg|Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya}} 'Kubeleya Mother', perhaps 'Mountain Mother';<ref name=Beekes/> {{langx|xld|Kuvava}}; {{langx|el|Κυβέλη}} ''Kybélē'', {{lang|grc|Κυβήβη}} ''Kybēbē'', {{lang|grc|Κύβελις}} ''Kybelis'') is an [[Anatolia]]n [[mother goddess]]; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest Neolithic at [[Çatalhöyük]]. She is [[Phrygia]]'s only known goddess, and likely, its [[national deity]].<ref>Jarus, Owen, ''[https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/2-600-year-old-inscription-in-turkey-finally-deciphered-and-it-mentions-goddess-known-simply-as-the-mother 2,600-year-old inscription in Turkey finally deciphered — and it mentions goddess known 'simply as the Mother']'', Live Science, November 18, 2024 </ref> Greek colonists in [[Asia Minor]] adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant [[Magna Graeca| western Greek colonies]] around the sixth century BC.

In [[Ancient Greece|Greece]], Cybele met with a mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess [[Gaia (mythology) |Gaia]], of her possibly [[Minoan civilization |Minoan]] equivalent [[Rhea (mythology) |Rhea]], and of the harvest–mother goddess [[Demeter]]. Some city-states, notably [[Athens]], evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic [[Mystery religion |mystery-goddess]] who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood, the [[Galli]].{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=228-232}} Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine [[Phrygia]]n castrate shepherd-consort [[Attis]], who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.

In [[Ancient Rome |Rome]], Cybele became known as '''Magna Mater''' ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the [[Sibylline Books|Sibylline oracle]] in 205 BC recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's [[Second Punic War|second war against Carthage]] (218 to 201 BC). [[Roman mythology |Roman mythographers]] reinvented her as a [[Troy|Trojan]] goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince [[Aeneas]]. As Rome eventually established [[hegemony]] over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughout [[Roman Empire|Rome's empire]]. Greek and Roman writers debated and disputed the meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods, which remain controversial subjects in modern scholarship.

== Anatolia==
[[File:Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük on black background.jpg|thumb|[[Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük]], flanked by large felines as arm-rests, {{circa|6,000 BC}}]]
No contemporary text or myth survives to attest the original character and nature of Cybele's Phrygian cult. She may have evolved from a [[Seated Goddess of Catalhuyuk|statuary type]] found at [[Çatalhöyük]] in [[Anatolia]], of a "corpulent and fertile" female figure accompanied by large felines, dated to the [[6th millennium BC]] and identified by some as a [[mother goddess]].{{refn|With reference to Cybele's origins and precursors, S.A. Takács describes "A terracotta statuette of a seated (mother) goddess giving birth with each hand on the head of a leopard or panther," ''Cybele, Attis and related cults: essays in memory of M.J. Vermaseren'' 1996:376;  of this iconic type [[Walter Burkert]] says "The iconography found leads directly to the image of Kybele sitting upon her throne between two lions" (Burkert, ''Homo Necans'' (1983:79)).}} In [[Gordion Furniture and Wooden Artifacts|Phrygian art]] of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for her [[libation]]s or other offerings.<ref>Elizabeth Simpson, "Phrygian Furniture from Gordion", in [[Georgina Herrmann]] (ed.), ''The Furniture of Ancient Western Asia'', Mainz 1996, pp. 198–201.</ref>

The inscription ''Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya''<ref name=Beekes>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]], ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 794 (''s.v.'' "Κυβέλη").</ref> at a Phrygian rock-cut shrine, dated to the first half of the 6th century BC, is usually read as "Mother of the mountain", a reading supported by ancient classical sources,<ref name=Beekes/><ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=67–68}}. This displaces the root meaning of "Cybele" as "she of the hair": see [[C.H.E. Haspels]], ''The Highlands of Phrygia'', 1971, I 293 no 13, noted in {{harvnb|Burkert|1985}} notes 17 and 18.</ref> and consistent with Cybele as any of several similar [[tutelary deity|tutelary goddesses]], each known as "mother" and associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities:{{sfn|Motz|1997|page=115}} a goddess thus "born from stone".<ref>Johnstone, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=109}}.</ref> She is ancient Phrygia's only known goddess,{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=53}} the divine companion or consort of its mortal rulers, and was probably the highest deity of the Phrygian state. Her name, and the development of religious practices associated with her, may have been influenced by the [[Kubaba (goddess)|Kubaba]] cult of the deified [[Sumer]]ian queen [[Kubaba]].<ref>Kubaba was a queen of [[Kish (Sumer)|Kish]]'s Third dynasty. She was worshipped at [[Carchemish]], and her name was [[Hellenization|Hellenized]] as ''Kybebe''. {{harvnb|Motz|1997|pages=105–106}} takes this as the likely source of ''kubilya'' (cf. {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=67–68}}, where kubileya = mountain).</ref>

In the 2nd century AD, the geographer [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] attests to a [[Magnesia ad Sipylum|Magnesian]] ([[Lydia]]n) cult to "the mother of the gods", whose image was carved into a rock-spur of [[Mount Sipylus]]. This was believed to be the oldest image of the goddess, and was attributed to the legendary [[Broteas]].<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'': "the Magnesians, who live to the north of Spil Mount, have on the rock Coddinus the most ancient of all the images of the Mother of the gods. The Magnesians say that it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalus." The image was probably Hittite in origin; see {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=200}}.</ref> At [[Pessinos]] in Phrygia, the mother goddess—identified by the Greeks as Cybele—took the form of an unshaped stone of black meteoric iron,<ref>Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=364}}.</ref> and may have been associated with or identical to [[Agdistis]], Pessinos' mountain deity.<ref>Schmitz, Leonard, in Smith, William, [[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]], 1867, p. 67. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150605071716/https://nlp.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DA%3Aentry+group%3D9%3Aentry%3Dagdistis-bio-1 link to perseus.org].</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1994|pages=248–56}}, suggests "Agdistis" as Cybele's personal name at Pessinos.</ref> This was the aniconic stone that was removed to Rome in 204 BC.

Images and iconography in funerary contexts, and the ubiquity of her Phrygian name ''Matar'' ("Mother"), suggest that she was a mediator between the "boundaries of the known and unknown": the civilized and the wild, the worlds of the living and the dead.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=110–114}} Her association with hawks, lions, and the stone of the mountainous landscape of the Anatolian wilderness, seem to characterize her as mother of the land in its untrammeled natural state, with power to rule, moderate or soften its latent ferocity, and to control its potential threats to a settled, civilized life. Anatolian elites sought to harness her protective power to forms of ruler-cult; in Phrygia, the [[Midas monument]] connects her with king [[Midas]], as her sponsor, consort, or co-divinity.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=69-71}} As protector of cities, or city states, she was sometimes shown wearing a [[mural crown]], representing the city walls.<ref>Takacs, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=376}}</ref> At the same time, her power "transcended any purely political usage and spoke directly to the goddess' followers from all walks of life".<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=111, 114, 140}}; for quotation, see p. 146.</ref>

Some Phrygian [[shaft tomb|shaft monuments]] are thought to have been used for [[libation]]s and blood offerings to Cybele, perhaps anticipating by several centuries the pit used in her [[taurobolium]] and [[criobolium]] sacrifices during the Roman imperial era.<ref>Vecihi Özkay, "The Shaft Monuments and the 'Taurobolium' among the Phrygians", ''Anatolian Studies'', Vol. 47, (1997), pp. 89–103, British Institute at Ankara.</ref> Over time, her Phrygian cults and iconography were transformed, and eventually subsumed, by the influences and interpretations of her foreign devotees, at first Greek and later Roman.

==Greek Cybele==
From around the 6th century BC, cults to the Anatolian mother-goddess were introduced from Phrygia into the ethnically Greek colonies of western Anatolia, mainland [[Greece]], the Aegean islands and the westerly colonies of [[Magna Graecia]]. The Greeks called her ''Mātēr'' or ''Mētēr'' ("Mother"), or from the early 5th century ''Kubélē''; in [[Pindar]], she is "Mistress Cybele the Mother".<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=125}}, citing [[Pindar]], fragment 80 (Snell), ''[[Despoina]] Kubéla Mātēr'' ({{lang|grc|[δέσπ]οιν[αν] Κυβέ[λαν] ματ[έρα]}}).</ref> In [[Homeric Hymn]] 14 she is "the Mother of all gods and all human beings."  Cybele was readily assimilated with several Greek goddesses, especially [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], as ''Mētēr theōn'' ("Mother of the gods"), whose raucous, ecstatic rites she may have acquired. As an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess [[Demeter]], whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, [[Persephone]]; but she also continued to be identified as a foreign deity, with many of her traits reflecting Greek ideas about [[Barbarian#In_classical_Greco-Roman_contexts|barbarians]] and the wilderness, as ''Mētēr oreia'' ("Mother of the Mountains").{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=144-145, 170–176}} She is depicted as a [[Potnia Theron]] ("Mistress of animals"),<ref>''Potnia Therōn'' (Πότνια Θηρῶν) can sometimes be found as a title in ancient sources, but is used in modern scholarship for an iconographic schema, in which a female figure is flanked by or grips two animals.</ref> with her mastery of the natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap, or draw her chariot.{{sfn|Roller|1999|p=135}} This schema may derive from a goddess figure from [[Minoan religion]].{{sfn|Roller|1999|p=122}} [[Walter Burkert]] places her among the "foreign gods" of Greek religion, a complex figure combining a putative Minoan-Mycenaean tradition with the Phrygian cult imported directly from Asia Minor.<ref name="Burkert177">{{harvnb|Burkert|1985|page=177}}</ref>

[[File:AGMA Cybèle.jpg|thumb|upright|Seated Cybele within a ''naiskos'' (4th century BC, [[Stoa of Attalus|Ancient Agora Museum, Athens)]]]]
Cybele's early Greek images are small votive representations of her monumental rock-cut images in the Phrygian highlands. She stands alone within a [[naiskos]], which represents her temple or its doorway, and is crowned with a ''polos'', a high, cylindrical hat. A long, flowing [[chiton (costume)|chiton]] covers her shoulders and back. She is sometimes shown with lions in attendance. Around the 5th century BC, [[Agoracritos]] created a fully Hellenised and influential image of Cybele that was set up in the Metroon in the [[Athenian agora]]. It showed her enthroned, with a lion attendant, holding a ''[[patera|phiale]]'' (a dish for making [[libation]]s to the gods) and a ''[[Tympanum (hand drum)|tympanon]]'' (a hand drum). Both were Greek innovations to her iconography and reflect key features of her ritual worship introduced by the Greeks which would be salient in the cult's later development.{{sfn|Roller|1994|page=249}}{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=145-149}}

For the Greeks, the tympanon was a marker of foreign cults, suitable for rites to Cybele, her close equivalent Rhea, and [[Dionysus]]; of these, only Cybele holds the tympanon. She appears with Dionysus, as a secondary deity in [[Euripides]]' ''[[Bacchae]]'', 64 – 186, and [[Pindar]]'s ''Dithyramb'' II.6 – 9.  In the [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|''Bibliotheca'' formerly attributed to Apollodorus]], Cybele is said to have cured Dionysus of his madness.{{sfn|Roller|1999|p=157}} 

[[File:AiKhanoumPlateSharp.jpg|thumb|left|Cybele in a chariot driven by [[Nike (goddess)|Nike]] and drawn by lions toward a votive sacrifice (right); above are heavenly symbols including a [[Sun God|solar deity]], [[Ai-Khanoum plaque|Plaque]] from [[Ai Khanoum]], [[Bactria]] ([[Afghanistan]]), 2nd century BC; Gilded silver, ⌀ 25 cm]]
Their cults shared several characteristics: the foreigner-deity arrived in a chariot, drawn by exotic [[big cats]] (Dionysus by tigers or panthers, Cybele by lions), accompanied by wild music and an ecstatic entourage of exotic foreigners and people from the lower classes. At the end of the 1st century BC [[Strabo]] notes that Rhea-Cybele's popular rites in Athens were sometimes held in conjunction with Dionysus' procession.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'', book&nbsp;X, 3:18</ref> Both were regarded with caution by the Greeks, as being foreign,{{sfn|Roller|1994|page=253}} to be simultaneously embraced and "held at arm's length".{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=143}}

Cybele was also the focus of [[mystery religions|mystery cult]], private rites with a [[chthonic]] aspect connected to [[Greek hero cult|hero cult]] and exclusive to those who had undergone initiation, although it is unclear who Cybele's initiates were.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=225-227}} [[Relief]]s show her alongside young female and male attendants with torches, and with vessels for purification. Literary sources describe joyous abandonment to the loud, percussive music of tympanon, castanets, clashing cymbals, and flutes, and to the frenzied "Phrygian dancing", perhaps a form of circle-dancing by women, to the roar of "wise and healing music of the gods".<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=149–151}} and footnotes 20 – 25, citing ''Homeric Hymn'' 14, Pindar, ''Dithyramb'' II.10 (Snell), Euripides, ''Helen'', 1347; ''Palamedes'' (Strabo 10.3.13); ''Bacchae'',  64 – 169, Strabo 10.3.15 – 17 ''et al''.</ref>

In literary sources, the spread of Cybele's cult is presented as a source of conflict and crisis. [[Herodotus]] says that when [[Anacharsis]] returned to [[Scythia]] after traveling and acquiring knowledge among the Greeks in the 6th century BC, his brother, the Scythian king, put him to death for celebrating Cybele's mysteries.<ref>Johnstone, P.A., in {{harvnb|Lane|1996}}, citing [[Herodotus]], ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'', 4.76-7.</ref> The historicity of this account and that of Anacharsis himself are widely questioned.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=156-157}} In [[Athens|Athenian]] tradition, the city's [[Metroon]] was founded to placate Cybele, who had visited a plague on [[ancient Athens|Athens]] when one of her wandering priests was killed for his attempt to introduce her cult. The earliest source is the ''Hymn to the Mother of the Gods'' (362 AD) by the [[Roman emperor]] [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]], but references to it appear in [[scholia]] from an earlier date. The account may reflect real resistance to Cybele's cult, but Lynne Roller sees it as a story intended to demonstrate Cybele's power, similar to myth of [[Dionysus]]' arrival in Thebes recounted in ''[[The Bacchae]]''.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=162–167}}{{sfn|Roscoe|1996|page=200}}<ref>Robertson, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=258}}.</ref> Many of Cybele's cults were funded privately, rather than by the [[polis]],<ref name="Burkert177"/>{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=140–144}} but she also had publicly established temples in many Greek cities, including Athens and Olympia.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=161–163}} Her "vivid and forceful character" and association with the wild, set her apart from the [[Olympian gods|Olympian deities]].<ref>Roller, L., in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=306}}. See also {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=129, 139}}.</ref> Her association with Phrygia led to particular unease in Greece after the [[Persian Wars]], as Phrygian symbols and costumes were increasingly associated with the [[Achaemenid Empire]].{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=168-169}} 
 
[[Conflation]] with Rhea led to Cybele's association with various male demigods who served Rhea as attendants, or as guardians of her son, the infant [[Zeus]], as he lay in the cave of his birth. In cult terms, they seem to have functioned as intercessors or intermediaries between goddess and mortal devotees, through dreams, waking trance, or ecstatic dance and song. They include the armed [[Kouretes|Curetes]], who danced around Zeus and clashed their shields to amuse him; their supposedly Phrygian equivalents, the youthful [[Corybantes]], who provided similarly wild and martial music, dance and song; and the [[dactyl (mythology)|dactyls]] and [[Telchines]], magicians associated with metalworking.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=171-172}} (and notes 110 – 115), 173.</ref>

=== Cybele and Attis ===
{{main|Attis}}
[[File:Attis Altieri Chiaramonti Inv1656.jpg|thumb|upright|Roman Imperial Attis wearing a [[Phrygian cap]] and performing a cult dance]]
Cybele's major mythographic narratives attach to her relationship with Attis, who is described by ancient Greek and Roman sources and cults as her youthful consort, and as a Phrygian deity. In Phrygia, "Attis" was not a deity, but both a commonplace and priestly name, found alike in casual graffiti, the dedications of personal monuments, as well as at several of Cybele's Phrygian shrines and monuments. His divinity may therefore have begun as a Greek invention based on what was known of Cybele's Phrygian cult.<ref>Roller believes that the name "Attis" was originally associated with the Phrygian Royal family and inherited by a Phrygian priesthood or theocracy devoted to the Mother Goddess, consistent with Attis' mythology as deified servant or priest of his goddess. Greek cults and Greek art associate this "Phrygian" costume with several non-Greek, "oriental" peoples, including their erstwhile foes, the Persians and Trojans. In some Greek states, Attis was met with outright hostility; but his vaguely "Trojan" associations would have been counted in his favour for the eventual promotion of his Roman cult. See {{harvnb|Roller|1994|pages=248–256}}. See also {{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|pages=198-199}}, and Johnstone, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=106-107}}.</ref> His earliest certain image as deity appears on a 4th-century BC Greek [[stele]] from [[Piraeus]], near [[Athens]]. It shows him as the Hellenised stereotype of a rustic, eastern barbarian; he sits at ease, sporting the Phrygian cap and shepherd's crook of his later Greek and Roman cults. Before him stands a Phrygian goddess (identified by the inscription as [[Agdistis]]) who carries a tympanon in her left hand. With her right, she hands him a jug, as if to welcome him into her cult with a share of her own libation.<ref>Both names are inscribed on the stele. Roller offers Agdistis as Phrygian Kybele's personal name. See {{harvnb|Roller|1994|pages=248–56}}. For discussion and critique on this and other complex narrative, cultic and mythological links among Cybele, Agdistis, and Attis, see Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, Brill, 2002 [https://books.google.com/books?id=oE8vW4BX9kwC ''Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429091739/https://books.google.com/books?id=oE8vW4BX9kwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0 |date=2016-04-29 }} Brill, 2002.</ref> Later images of Attis show him as a shepherd, in similar relaxed attitudes, holding or playing the [[syrinx]] (panpipes).<ref>The syrinx was a simple rustic instrument, associated with [[Pan (god)|Pan]], Greek god of shepherds, flocks, wild and wooded places, and unbridled sexuality. See Johnston, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=107–111}}, and {{harvnb|Roller|1994|pages=177–180}}. Pan is a "natural companion" for Cybele, and there is evidence of their joint cults.</ref> In [[Demosthenes]]' ''[[On the Crown]]'' (330 BC), ''attes'' is "a ritual cry shouted by followers of mystic rites".<ref>Demosthenes, ''On the Crown'', 260: cf the cry ''iache'', invoking the god [[Iacchus]] in Demeter's [[Eleusinian Mysteries]]; {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=181}}</ref>

Attis seems to have accompanied the diffusion of Cybele's cult through Magna Graecia; there is evidence of their joint cult at the Greek colonies of [[Marseille#Prehistory and classical antiquity|Marseille]] (Gaul) and [[Locri|Lokroi]] (southern Italy) from the 6th and 7th centuries BC. After [[Alexander the Great]]'s conquests, "wandering devotees of the goddess became an increasingly common presence in Greek literature and social life; depictions of Attis have been found at numerous Greek sites".{{sfn|Roscoe|1996|page=200}} When shown with Cybele, he is always the younger, lesser deity, or perhaps her priestly attendant. In the mid 2nd century, letters from the king of Pergamum to Cybele's shrine at Pessinos consistently address its chief priest as "Attis".{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=113-114}}{{sfn|Roller|1994|page=254}} <!-- Attis is therefore a form of Gallus. Or is he? Some scholarship doubts this. Expd minimally on Paris (re his character in Epic cycle, as shepherd, also as weak, effeminate, self-control and moral issues). Also Pan (shepherd, panic etc), Phrygian cap as symbol of rustic freedom from compulsions and constraints of the "modern" civilised, regulated polis and urbs.  -->

== Roman Cybele ==

=== Republican era ===
[[File:Toulouse - Musée Saint-Raymond - inv 31001 - 20101022.jpg|thumb|Votive altar inscribed to ''Mater Deum'', the Mother of the Gods, from southern Gaul<ref>''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]'' 12.5374.</ref>]]
Romans knew Cybele as ''Magna Mater'' ("Great Mother"), or as ''Magna Mater deorum Idaea'' ("great Idaean mother of the gods"), equivalent to the Greek title ''Meter Theon Idaia'' ("Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida"). Rome officially adopted her cult during the [[Second Punic War]] (218 to 201 BC), after dire [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigium|prodigies]], including a meteor shower, a failed harvest, and famine, seemed to warn of Rome's imminent defeat. The [[Roman Senate]] and its [[Quindecimviri sacris faciundis|religious advisers]] consulted the [[Sibylline Books|Sibylline oracle]] and decided that Carthage might be defeated if Rome imported the ''Magna Mater'' ("Great Mother") of Phrygian Pessinos.<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|1994|page=168}}, following Livy 29, 10 – 14 for Pessinos (ancient Galatia) as the shrine from which she was brought. Varro's ''Lingua Latina'', 6.15 has [[Pergamum]]. Ovid Fasti 4.180–372 has it brought directly from Mt. Ida. For discussion of problems attendant on such precise claims of origin, see Tacaks, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=370–373}}.</ref> As this cult object belonged to a Roman ally, the [[Kingdom of Pergamon|Kingdom of Pergamum]], the Roman Senate sent ambassadors to seek the king's consent; en route, a consultation with the [[Pythia|Greek oracle at Delphi]] confirmed that the goddess should be brought to Rome.<ref>Boatwright et al., ''The Romans, from Village to Empire'' {{ISBN|978-0-19-511875-9}}</ref> The goddess arrived in Rome in the form of Pessinos' black meteoric stone. Roman legend connects this voyage, or its end, to the matron [[Claudia Quinta]], who was accused of unchastity but proved her innocence with a miraculous feat on behalf of the goddess. [[Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica (consul 191 BC)|Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica]], supposedly the "best man" in Rome, was chosen to meet the goddess at [[Ostia Antica (archaeological site)|Ostia]]; and Rome's most virtuous matrons (including [[Quinta Claudia|Claudia Quinta]]) conducted her to the [[Temple of Victory|temple of Victoria]], to await the completion of her temple on the [[Palatine Hill]]. Pessinos' stone was later used as the face of the statue of the goddess.<ref>Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=363–364}}: "a rather bizarre looking statue with a stone for a face", [[Prudentius]] describes the stone as small, and encased in silver.</ref> In due course, the famine ended and [[Hannibal]] was defeated.

[[File:Tetradrachm Smyrna 160-150 obverse CdM Paris.jpg|thumb|left|Silver tetradrachm of Smyrna]]
Most modern scholarship agrees that Cybele's consort, [[Attis]], and her eunuch Phrygian priests ([[Galli]]) would have arrived with the goddess, along with at least some of the wild, ecstatic features of her Greek and Phrygian cults. The histories of her arrival deal with the piety, purity, and status of the Romans involved, the success of their religious stratagem, and power of the goddess herself; she has no consort or priesthood, and seems fully Romanised from the first.<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|1994|pages=168, 178 – 9}}. See also Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=357–359}}. Attis' many votive statuettes at Cybele's Roman temple are evidence of his early, possibly private Roman cult.</ref> Some modern scholars assume that Attis must have followed much later; or that the Galli, described in later sources as shockingly effeminate and flamboyantly "un-Roman", must have been an unexpected consequence of bringing the goddess in blind obedience to the Sibyl; a case of "biting off more than one can chew".<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|1994|page=177}}, citing Vermaseren, M.J., ''Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult'', Thames and Hudson, 1977, p. 96.</ref> Others note that Rome was well versed in the adoption (or sometimes, [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#evocatio|the "calling forth", or seizure]]) of foreign deities,<ref>Several major Greek deities were adopted by Rome at about this time, including the Greek gods [[Aesclepius]] and [[Apollo]]. A version of [[Demeter]]'s [[Thesmophoria]] was incorporated within the Roman cults to [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] at around the same; Greek priestesses were brought to run the cult "for the benefit of the Roman state".</ref> and the diplomats who negotiated Cybele's move to Rome would have been well-educated, and well-informed.<ref>Takacs, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=373}}, remarks that to presume Roman ignorance of the cult's true nature "makes Roman nobles look like buffoons, which they hardly were".</ref> 

Romans believed that Cybele, considered a Phrygian outsider even within her Greek cults, was the mother-goddess of ancient [[Troy]] (Ilium). Some of Rome's leading [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] families claimed Trojan ancestry; so the "return" of the Mother of all Gods to her once-exiled people would have been particularly welcome, even if her spouse and priesthood were not; its accomplishment would have reflected well on the principals involved and, in turn, on their descendants.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=282}} The upper classes who sponsored the Magna Mater's festivals delegated their organisation to the [[Aediles|plebeian aediles]], and honoured her and each other with lavish, private festival banquets from which her Galli would have been conspicuously absent.<ref>Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=337–339}}.</ref> Whereas in most of her Greek cults she dwelt outside the ''polis'', in Rome she was the city's protector, contained within her Palatine precinct, along with her priesthood, at the geographical heart of Rome's most ancient religious traditions.<ref>In Roman tradition, the she-wolf who found Romulus and Remus sheltered them in her lair on the Palatine, the [[Lupercal]]. See also {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=273}}</ref> She was promoted as patrician property; a Roman matron – albeit a strange one, "with a stone for a face" – who acted for the clear benefit of the Roman state.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=282–285}}. For statue description, see Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=363–364}}.</ref><ref>cf the Roman response in 186 BC to the popular, unofficial, ecstatic [[Bacchanalia]] cults (originating as festivals to [[Dionysus]], similar in form to Cybele's Greek cults), [[Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus|suppressed]] with great ferocity by the Roman state, very soon after the official introduction of Cybele's cult.</ref>

[[File:Cybele formiae.jpg|thumb|upright|1st century BC marble statue of Cybele from [[Formia]], [[Lazio]]]]

=== Imperial era ===
Augustan ideology identified Magna Mater with Imperial order and Rome's religious authority throughout the empire. Augustus claimed a Trojan ancestry through his adoption by [[Julius Caesar]] and the divine favour of [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]]; in the iconography of [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)|Imperial cult]], the empress [[Livia]] was Magna Mater's earthly equivalent, Rome's protector and symbolic "Great Mother"; the goddess is portrayed with Livia's face on [[cameo (carving)|cameos]]<ref>P. Lambrechts, "Livie-Cybele," ''La Nouvelle Clio'' 4 (1952): 251–60.</ref> and statuary.<ref>C. C. Vermeule, "Greek and Roman Portraits in North American Collections Open to the Public," ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' 108 (1964): 106, 126, fig. 18.</ref> By this time, Rome had absorbed the goddess's Greek and Phrygian homelands, and the Roman version of Cybele as Imperial Rome's protector was introduced there.<ref>In Greece and Phrygia, most cults to the goddess were popular, and privately funded; her former, ancient role as goddess of the former Phrygian State was as defunct as the state itself. See {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=317}}.</ref>

Imperial Magna Mater protected the empire's cities and agriculture — [[Ovid]] "stresses the barrenness of the earth before the Mother's arrival.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=280}}, citing Ovid, ''Fasti'', 4. 299; cf "Phrygian Mater and Greek Meter, for whom fertility was rarely an issue, and whose association with wild and unstructured mountain landscape was directly at odds with agriculture and the settled countryside".</ref> Virgil's ''[[Aeneid]]'' (written between 29 and 19 BC) embellishes her "Trojan" features; she is ''Berecyntian Cybele'', mother of [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] himself, and protector of the [[Troy|Trojan]] prince [[Aeneas]] in his flight from the destruction of Troy. She gives the Trojans her sacred tree for shipbuilding, and begs Jupiter to make the ships indestructible. These ships become the means of escape for Aeneas and his men, guided toward Italy and a destiny as ancestors of the Roman people by [[Venus (mythology)|Venus Genetrix]]. Once arrived in Italy, these ships have served their purpose and are transformed into sea nymphs.<ref>Virgil, ''Aeneid'', Book IX, lines 79 - 83</ref>

Stories of Magna Mater's arrival were used to promote the fame of its principals, and thus their descendants. [[Claudia Quinta]]'s role as Rome's ''castissima femina'' (purest or most virtuous woman) became "increasingly glorified and fantastic"; she was shown in the costume of a [[Vestal Virgin]], and Augustan ideology represented her as the ideal of virtuous Roman womanhood. The emperor [[Claudius]] claimed her among his ancestors.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=282, 314}} Claudius promoted Attis to the Roman pantheon and placed his cult under the supervision of the [[Quindecimviri sacris faciundis|quindecimviri]] (one of Rome's priestly colleges).{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=315-316}}

=== Festivals and cults ===

====Megalesia in April====
{{Main|Megalesia}}
[[File:Chronography of 354 Mensis Aprilis.png|thumb|upright|Illustration of the month of April based on the [[Calendar of Filocalus]] (354 AD), perhaps either a Gallus or a theatrical performer for the Megalesia<ref>Michele Renee Salzman, ''On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity'' (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 83–91, rejecting the scholarly tradition that the image represents an old man in an unknown rite for Venus</ref>]]
The ''Megalesia'' festival to Magna Mater commenced on April 4, the anniversary of her arrival in Rome. The festival structure is unclear, but it included [[ludi scaenici]] (plays and other entertainments based on religious themes), probably performed on the deeply stepped approach to her temple; some of the plays were commissioned from well-known playwrights. On April 10, her image was taken in public procession to the [[Circus Maximus]], and [[chariot race]]s were held there in her honour; a statue of Magna Mater was permanently sited on the racetrack's dividing barrier, showing the goddess seated on a lion's back.<ref>It was probably copied from a Greek original; the same appears on the [[Pergamon Altar]]. See {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=315}}.</ref>

Roman bystanders seem to have perceived Megalesia as either characteristically "[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ritus graecus|Greek]]";<ref>In the late Republican era, [[Cicero]] describes the hymns and ritual characteristics of Megalensia as Greek. See Takacs, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=373}}.</ref> or Phrygian. At the cusp of Rome's transition to Empire, the Greek [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] describes this procession as wild Phrygian "mummery" and "fabulous clap-trap", in contrast to the Megalesian sacrifices and games, carried out in what he admires as a dignified "traditional Roman" manner; Dionysius also applauds the wisdom of Roman religious law, which forbids the participation of any Roman citizen in the procession, and in the goddess's [[Greco-Roman mysteries|mysteries]];<ref>Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus, ''Roman Antiquities'', trans. Cary, Loeb, 1935, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/2A*.html 2, 19, 3 – 5.] See also commentary in {{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=293}} and note 39: "... one can see how a Phrygian [priest] in an elaborately embroidered robe might have clashed noticeably with the plain, largely monochromatic Roman tunic and toga"; cf Augustus's "efforts to stress the white toga as the proper dress for Romans."</ref> Slaves are forbidden to witness any of this.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=296}}, citing Cicero,  ''De Haruspicum Responsis'', 13. 28.</ref> In the late republican era, [[Lucretius]] vividly describes the procession's armed "war dancers" in their three-plumed helmets, clashing their shields together, bronze on bronze,<ref>Recalling the Kouretes and Corybantes of Cybele's Greek myths and cults.</ref> "delighted by blood"; yellow-robed, long-haired, perfumed Galli waving their knives, wild music of thrumming tympanons and shrill flutes. Along the route, rose petals are scattered, and clouds of incense arise.<ref>See Robertson, N., in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=292–293}}. See also Summers, K., in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=341, 347–349}}.</ref> The goddess's sculpted image wears the Mural Crown and is seated within a sculpted, lion-drawn chariot, carried high on a bier.<ref>Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=348–350}}.</ref> The Roman display of Cybele's Megalesia procession as an exotic, privileged public pageant offers signal contrast to what is known of the private, socially inclusive Phrygian-Greek mysteries on which it was based.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=317}}

===='Holy week' in March====
{{See also|Hilaria}}
The [[Principate]] brought the development of an extended festival or "holy week"<ref>Maria Grazia Lancellotti, ''Attis, Between Myth and History: King, Priest, and God'' (Brill, 2002), p. 81; [[Bertrand Lançon]], ''Rome in Late Antiquity'' (Routledge, 2001), p. 91; Philippe Borgeaud, ''Mother of the Gods: From Cybele to the Virgin Mary'', translated by Lysa Hochroth (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), pp. 51, 90, 123, 164.</ref> for Cybele and Attis in March (Latin ''[[Martius (month)|Martius]])'', from the [[Ides (calendar)|Ides]] to nearly the end of the month. Citizens and freedmen were allowed limited forms of participation in rites pertaining to Attis, through their membership of two [[Collegium (ancient Rome)|colleges]], each dedicated to a specific task; the ''Cannophores'' ("reed bearers") and the ''Dendrophores'' ("tree bearers").<ref>Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater", ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'', Vol. 97, (1966), p. 195 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2936006] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202192925/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2936006|date=2016-12-02}}</ref>

* March 15 (Ides): ''Canna intrat'' ("The Reed enters"), marking the birth of Attis and his exposure in the reeds along the Phrygian river [[Sakarya River|Sangarius]],<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Adversus Iudaeos'' 8; [[Lactantius]], ''De Mortibus Persecutorum'' 2.1; Gary Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion: One Thousand Years of Religious History'' (Routledge, 2012), p. 88; Lancellotti, ''Attis, Between Myth and History'', p. 81.</ref> where he was discovered—depending on the version—by either shepherds or Cybele herself.<ref>Michele Renee Salzman, ''On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity'' (University of California Press, 1990), p. 166.</ref> The reed was gathered and carried by the ''cannophores''.<ref>Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater", ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'', Vol. 97, (1966), p. 195.</ref>
* March 22: ''Arbor intrat'' ("The Tree enters"), commemorating the death of Attis under a pine tree. The ''dendrophores'' ("tree bearers") cut down a tree,{{sfn|Alvar|2008|pages=288–289}} suspended from it an image of Attis,<ref>[[Firmicus Maternus]], ''De errore profanarum religionum'', 27.1; Rabun Taylor, "Roman Oscilla: An Assessment", ''RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics'' 48 (Autumn 2005), p. 97.</ref> and carried it to the temple with lamentations. The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius.<ref>[[John Lydus]], ''De Mensibus'' 4.59; [[Suetonius]], ''Otho'' 8.3; Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88.</ref> A three-day period of mourning followed.<ref>Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88.</ref> [[File:9595 - Milano - Museo archeologico - Patera di Parabiago - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto 13 Mar 2012.jpg|thumb|Cybele and [[Attis]] (seated right, with [[Phrygian cap]] and [[shepherd's crook]]) in a chariot drawn by four lions, surrounded by dancing Corybantes (detail from the [[Parabiago plate]]; embossed silver, {{circa|200}}–400 AD, found in [[Mediolanum|Milan]], now at the [[Archaeological Museum of Milan]])]]
* March 23: on the [[Tubilustrium]], an archaic holiday to [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]], the tree was laid to rest at the temple of the Magna Mater, with the traditional beating of the shields by Mars' priests the [[Salii]] and the lustration of the trumpets perhaps assimilated to the noisy music of the Corybantes.<ref>Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' pp. 166–167.</ref>
* March 24: ''Sanguem'' or ''Dies Sanguinis'' ("Day of Blood"), a frenzy of mourning when the devotees whipped themselves to sprinkle the altars and effigy of Attis with their own blood; some performed the self-castrations of the Galli. The "sacred night" followed, with Attis placed in his ritual tomb.<ref>Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' p. 167; Lancellotti, ''Attis, Between Myth and History'', p. 82.</ref>
* March 25 ([[March equinox|vernal equinox]] on the Roman calendar): ''[[Hilaria]]'' ("Rejoicing"), when Attis was reborn.<ref>Macrobius, ''Saturnalia'' 1.21.10; Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88.</ref> Some early Christian sources associate this day with the [[resurrection of Jesus]].<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Adversus Iudaeos'' 8; [[Lactantius]], ''De Mortibus Persecutorum'' 2.1; Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88; Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' p. 168.</ref> [[Damascius]] attributed a "liberation from Hades" to the Hilaria.<ref>Damascius, ''Vita Isidori excerpta a Photio Bibl. (Cod. 242),'' edition of R. Henry (Paris, 1971), p. 131; Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' p. 168.</ref>
* March 26: ''Requietio'' ("Day of Rest").<ref>Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' p. 167.</ref>
* March 27: ''Lavatio'' ("Washing"), noted by [[Ovid]] and probably an innovation under Augustus,<ref name="alvar2867">{{harvnb|Alvar|2008|pages=286–287}}</ref> Literary references indicate that the ''lavatio'' was "well established" by the [[Flavian dynasty|Flavian period]]; <ref>Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion'', p. 89.</ref> when Cybele's sacred stone was taken in procession from the Palatine temple to the [[Porta Capena]] and down the [[Appian Way]] to the stream called [[Almone|Almo]], a [[tributary]] of the [[Tiber]]. There the stone and sacred iron implements were bathed "in the Phrygian manner" by a red-robed priest. The ''quindecimviri'' attended. The return trip was made by torchlight, with much rejoicing. The ceremony alluded to, but did not reenact, Cybele's original reception in the city, and seems not to have involved Attis.<ref name="alvar2867"/>
* March 28: ''Initium Caiani'', sometimes interpreted as initiations into the mysteries of the Magna Mater and Attis at the [[Gaianum]], near the Phrygianum sanctuary at the [[Vatican Hill]].<ref>Salzman, ''On Roman Time,'' pp. 165, 167. Lawrence Richardson, ''A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 180, suggests that ''Initium Caiani'' might instead refer to the "entry of Gaius" ([[Caligula]]) into Rome on March 28, 37 AD, when he was acclaimed as ''[[princeps]]''. The Gaianum was a track used by Caligula for chariot exercises. Salzman (p. 169) sees the Gaianum as a site alternative to the Phrygianum, access to which would have been obstructed in the 4th century by the construction of [[Old St. Peter's Basilica|St. Peter's]].</ref>

Scholars are divided as to whether the entire series was more or less put into place under Claudius,<ref>Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88, noting [[Jérôme Carcopino]] as the chief proponent of this view.</ref> or whether the festival grew over time.{{sfn|Alvar|2008|page=286}} The Phrygian character of the cult would have appealed to the Julio-Claudians as an expression of their claim to Trojan ancestry.<ref>Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' pp. 89–92.</ref> It may be that Claudius established observances mourning the death of Attis, before he had acquired his full significance as a resurrected god of rebirth, expressed by rejoicing at the later ''Canna intrat'' and by the Hilaria.<ref>Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater", ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'' 97 (1966), p. 202.</ref> The full sequence at any rate is thought to have been official in the time of [[Antoninus Pius]] (reigned 138–161), but among extant ''[[List of ancient Roman fasti|fasti]]'' appears only in the [[Calendar of Philocalus]] (354 AD).<ref>Forsythe, ''Time in Roman Religion,'' p. 88</ref><ref name="alvar2867"/>

====Minor cults====
Significant anniversaries, stations, and participants in the 204 arrival of the goddess – including her ship, which would have been thought a sacred object – may have been marked from the beginning by minor, local, or private rites and festivals at Ostia, Rome, and [[Victoria (mythology)|Victoria's temple]]. Cults to Claudia Quinta are likely, particularly in the Imperial era.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=314}} Rome seems to have introduced evergreen cones (pine or fir) to Cybele's iconography, based at least partly on Rome's "Trojan ancestor" myth, in which the goddess gave Aeneas her sacred tree for shipbuilding. The evergreen cones probably symbolised Attis' death and rebirth.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=279}}<ref>Takacs, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=373}}.</ref> Despite the archaeological evidence of early cult to Attis at Cybele's Palatine precinct, no surviving Roman literary or epigraphic source mentions him until [[Catullus]], whose poem 63 places him squarely within Magna Mater's mythology, as the hapless leader and prototype of her Galli.<ref>Summers, K., in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=377 ff.}}; for Catullus, see Takacs, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=367 ff.}}. For online Latin text and English translation of Catullus's poem 63, see [https://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/VRomaCatullus/063.html vroma.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140528114911/https://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/VRomaCatullus/063.html |date=2014-05-28 }}</ref>

====Taurobolium and Criobolium====
[[File:Lyon-Autel-CIL-XIII-1756.jpg|thumb|upright|Eroded inscription from [[Lugdunum]] (modern [[Lyon]], in France) commemorating a taurobolium for the Mother of the Gods under the title ''Augusta''<ref>''Taurobolium Matris Deum Augustae'': ''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]'' 13.1756.</ref>]]
[[File:CIL XIII 1752.jpg|thumb|upright|Inscription set up by the dendrophores of Lugdunum for the wellbeing of the emperor, his ''[[numen]]'', and his divine household, marking a taurobolium; the presence of an ''[[archigallus]]'' is noted<ref>''CIL'' 13.1752.</ref>]]
Rome's strictures against castration and citizen participation in Magna Mater's cult limited both the number and kind of her initiates. From the 160s AD, citizens who sought initiation to her mysteries could offer either of two forms of bloody animal sacrifice – and sometimes both – as lawful substitutes for self-castration. The [[Taurobolium]] sacrificed a bull, the most potent and costly [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#victima|victim]] in Roman religion; the [[Criobolium]] used a lesser victim, usually a ram.<ref>See {{harvnb|Duthoy|1969|page=1 ff.}} Possible Greek precursors for the taurobolium are attested around 150 BC in Asia Minor, including [[Pergamum]], and at Ilium (the traditional site of ancient [[Troy]]), which some Romans assumed as their own and Cybele's "native" city. The form of taurobolium presented by later Roman sources probably developed over time, and was not unique to Magna Mater – one was given at [[Puteoli]] in 134 AD to honour [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] Caelestia (C.I.L. X.1596) – but anti-pagan polemic represents it as hers. Some scholarship defines the Criobolium as a rite of Attis; but some dedication slabs show the bull's garlanded head (Taurobolium) with a ram's (Criobolium), and no mention of Attis.</ref><ref>See also Vecihi Özkay, "The Shaft Monuments and the 'Taurobolium' among the Phrygians", ''Anatolian Studies'', Vol. 47, (1997), pp. 89–103, British Institute at Ankara, for speculation that some Phrygian shaft monuments anticipate the Taurobolium pit.</ref>

A late, melodramatic and antagonistic account by the Christian apologist [[Prudentius]] has a priest stand in a pit beneath a slatted wooden floor; his assistants or junior priests dispatch a bull, using a sacred spear. The priest emerges from the pit, drenched with the bull's blood, to the applause of the gathered spectators. This description of a Taurobolium as blood-bath is, if accurate, an exception to usual Roman sacrificial practice;<ref>Prudentius is the sole original source for this version of a Taurobolium. Beard, p. 172, referring to it; "[this is] quite contrary to the practice of traditional civic sacrifice in Rome, in which the blood was carefully collected and the officiant never sullied." {{harvnb|Duthoy|1969|page=1 ff.}}, believes that in early versions of these sacrifices, the animal's blood may have simply have been collected in a vessel; and that this was elaborated into what Prudentius more-or-less accurately describes. {{harvnb|Cameron|2010|page=163}}, outright rejects Prudentius' testimony as anti-pagan hearsay, sheer fabrication, and polemical embroidery of an ordinary bull-sacrifice.</ref> it may have been no more than a bull sacrifice in which the blood was carefully collected and offered to the deity, along with its organs of generation, the testicles.<ref>{{harvnb|Cameron|2010|page=163 cf.}}, the self-castration of Attis and the Galli.</ref>

The Taurobolium and Criobolium are not tied to any particular date or festival, but probably draw on the same theological principles as the life, death, and rebirth cycle of the March "holy week". The celebrant personally and symbolically took the place of Attis, and like him was cleansed, renewed or, in emerging from the pit or tomb, "reborn".{{sfn|Duthoy|1969|page=119}} These regenerative effects were thought to fade over time, but they could be renewed by further sacrifice. Some dedications transfer the regenerative power of the sacrifice to non-participants, including [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)|emperors, the Imperial family and the Roman state]]; some mark a [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#dies natalis|''dies natalis'']] (birthday or anniversary) for the participant or recipient. Dedicants and participants could be male or female.<ref>{{harvnb|Duthoy|1969|page=61 ff., 107, 101-104, 115}} Some Taurobolium and Criobolium markers show a repetition between several years and more than two decades after.</ref>

The sheer expense of the Taurobolium ensured that its initiates were from Rome's highest class, and even the lesser offering of a Criobolium would have been beyond the means of the poor. Among the Roman masses, there is evidence of private devotion to Attis, but virtually none for initiations to Magna Mater's cult.<ref>Fear, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|pages=41, 45}}.</ref>

In the religious revivalism of the later Imperial era, Magna Mater's notable initiates included the deeply religious, wealthy, and erudite [[praetorian prefect]] [[Vettius Agorius Praetextatus|Praetextatus]]; the [[Quindecimviri sacris faciundis|quindecimvir]] [[Gaius Caeionius Rufius Volusianus|Volusianus]], who was twice consul; and possibly the [[Julian the Apostate|Emperor Julian]].{{sfn|Duthoy|1969|page=1}} Taurobolium dedications to Magna Mater tend to be more common in the Empire's western provinces than elsewhere, attested by inscriptions in (among others) Rome and [[Ostia Antica|Ostia]] in Italy, [[Lugdunum]] in Gaul, and [[Carthage]] in Africa.<ref>{{harvnb|Duthoy|1969|page=1 ff.}} (listing the relevant inscriptions).</ref>

== Priesthoods ==
{{See also|Galli|Sacerdos Matris Deum Magnae Idaeae}}
"Attis" may have been a name or title of Cybele's priests or priest-kings in ancient Phrygia.<ref>As it was of her priest at Pessinus in the 2nd century BC: see {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=178–181}}.</ref> Most myths of the deified [[Attis]] present him as founder of Cybele's Galli priesthood but in Servius' account, written during the Roman Imperial era, Attis castrates a king to escape his unwanted sexual attentions, and is castrated in turn by the dying king. Cybele's priests find Attis at the base of a pine tree; he dies and they bury him, emasculate themselves in his memory, and celebrate him in their rites to the goddess. This account might attempt to explain the nature, origin, and structure of Pessinus' theocracy.<ref>Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, ''Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,'' Brill, 2002, p. 6, citing Servius, ''Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid,'' 9.115.</ref> A [[Ancient Greek literature#Hellenistic poetry|Hellenistic poet]] refers to Cybele's priests in the feminine, as ''Gallai''.<ref>"Gallai of the mountain mother, raving [[thyrsus]]-lovers," {{lang|grc|Γάλλαι μητρὸς ὀρείης φιλόθυρσοι δρομάδες}}, tentatively attributed to [[Callimachus]] as fr. inc. auct. 761 [[Rudolf Pfeiffer|Pfeiffer]].</ref> The Roman poet [[Catullus]] refers to Attis in the masculine until his emasculation, and in the feminine thereafter.<ref>See Catullus 63: [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/catullus.shtml#63 Latin text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106095741/http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/catullus.shtml#63 |date=2012-11-06 }}</ref> Various Roman sources refer to the Galli as a middle or [[third gender]] (''medium genus'' or ''tertium sexus'').{{sfn|Roscoe|1996|page=203}} The Galli's voluntary emasculation in service of the goddess was thought to give them powers of prophecy.<ref>The Christian apologist [[Firmicus Maternus]] describes them as [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#monstrum|unnatural monstrosities]] and [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigium|prodigies]], filled "with an unholy spirit so as to seemingly predict the future to idle men"; see {{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=196}}.</ref>

[[File:Archigallus of Cherchel.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Statue of an [[Archigallus]] (high priest of Cybele) 2nd–3rd century AD ([[Archaeological Museum of Cherchell]])]]
[[Pessinus]], site of the temple whence the Magna Mater was brought to Rome, was a theocracy whose leading Galli may have been appointed via some form of adoption, to ensure "dynastic" succession. The highest ranking Gallus was known as "Attis", and his junior as "Battakes".<ref>Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, ''Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,'' Brill, 2002, pp 101 – 104. This priestly "dynasty" may have begun around the 3rd century BC.</ref> The Galli of Pessinus were politically influential; in 189 BC, they predicted or prayed for Roman victory in Rome's imminent war against the Galatians. The following year, perhaps in response to this gesture of goodwill, the Roman senate formally recognised [[Troy|Illium]] as the ancestral home of the Roman people, granting it extra territory and tax immunity.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=206}} In 103, a Battakes traveled to Rome and addressed its senate, either for the redress of impieties committed at his shrine, or to predict yet another Roman military success. He would have cut a remarkable figure, with "colourful attire and headdress, like a crown, with regal associations unwelcome to the Romans". Yet the senate supported him; and when a plebeian tribune who had violently opposed his right to address the senate died of a fever (or, in the alternative scenario, when the prophesied Roman victory came) Magna Mater's power seemed proven.<ref>See {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=290–291}}, citing Diodorus's description of Battakes, and the latter's prediction of Roman victory in Plutarch, "Life of Marius," 17.</ref>

[[Image:Statue of Gallus priest.jpg|thumb|upright=.75|Statue of a Gallus (priest of Cybele) late 2nd century ([[Capitoline Museums]])]]
In Rome, the Galli and their cult fell under the supreme authority of the [[pontifices]], who were usually drawn from Rome's highest ranking, wealthiest citizens.<ref>Beard, 1994, p. 173 ff.</ref> The Galli themselves, although imported to serve the day-to-day workings of their goddess's cult on Rome's behalf, represented an inversion of Roman priestly traditions in which senior priests were citizens, expected to raise families, and personally responsible for the running costs of their temples, assistants, cults, and festivals. As eunuchs, incapable of reproduction, the Galli were forbidden Roman citizenship and rights of inheritance; like their eastern counterparts, they were technically mendicants whose living depended on the pious generosity of others. For a few days of the year, during the Megalesia, Cybele's laws allowed them to leave their quarters, located within the goddess' temple complex, and roam the streets to beg for money. They were outsiders, marked out as Galli by their regalia, and their notoriously effeminate dress and demeanour, but as priests of a state cult, they were sacred and inviolate. From the start, they were objects of Roman fascination, scorn, and religious awe.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=318–319}} No Roman, not even a slave, could castrate himself "in honour of the Goddess" without penalty; in 101 BC, a slave who had done so was exiled.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=292}} Augustus selected priests from among his own freedmen to supervise Magna Mater's cult, and brought it under Imperial control.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=315}}, citing [[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]l 6.496.</ref> [[Claudius]] introduced the senior priestly office of [[Galli#Archigallus|Archigallus]], who was not a eunuch and held full Roman citizenship.<ref>Fear, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=47}}.</ref>

The religiously lawful circumstances for a Gallus's self-castration remain unclear; some may have performed the operation on the Dies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood") in Cybele and Attis' March festival. [[Pliny the elder|Pliny]] describes the procedure as relatively safe, but it is not known at what stage in their career the Galli performed it, or exactly what was removed,<ref>{{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=203}}, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 11.261; 35.165, and noting that "Procedures called "castration" in ancient times encompassed everything from vasectomy to complete removal of penis and testicles.</ref> or even whether all Galli performed it. Some Galli devoted themselves to their goddess for most of their lives, maintained relationships with relatives and partners throughout, and eventually retired from service.<ref>{{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=203}}, and note 34, citing as example, the thanksgiving dedication to the Mother Goddess by a Gallus from [[Cyzicus]] (in Anatolia), in gratitude for her intervention on behalf of the soldier Marcus Stlaticus, his partner "(''oulppiou'', a term also applied to a husband or wife)".</ref> Galli remained a presence in Roman cities well into the Empire's Christian era. Some decades after [[State church of the Roman Empire|Christianity became the sole Imperial religion]], St. Augustine saw Galli "parading through the squares and streets of Carthage, with oiled hair and powdered faces, languid limbs and feminine gait, demanding even from the tradespeople the means of continuing to live in disgrace".<ref>St. Augustine, Book 7, 26, in Augustine, (trans. R W Dyson), [[City of God (book)|''The city of God against the pagans, Books 1 – 13'']],  Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.299.</ref>

== Temples ==
{{See also|Metroon|Temple of Cybele (Palatine)|Temples of Cybele in Rome}}
[[File:Metroon del Agora de Atenas.JPG|thumb|Remains of the [[Metroon]] in Athens]]

=== Greece ===
The earliest known temple for Cybele in the Greek world is the [[Daskalopetra monument]] on [[Chios]], which dates to the sixth or early fifth centuries BC.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pp=137-138}} A Sanctuary of Cybele is also to be found in the city of [[Mytilene]], [[Lesbos]].  The original structure dates back at least to the seventh century BC, with structural additions up until the fifth to sixth century AD.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sanctuary of Cybele in Mytilene {{!}} Ψηφιακή ενοποίηση των αρχ/κών χώρων της Λέσβου |url=https://www.efales-ar.gr/en/ancient_site/sanctuary-of-cybele/ |access-date=2025-09-05 |language=en-US}}</ref> In Greek, a temple to Cybele was often called a ''[[Metroon]]''. Several Metroa were established in Greek cities from the fifth century BC onward. The Metroon at Athens was established in the early fifth century BC on the west side of the [[Athenian Agora]], next to the [[Boule (ancient Greece)|Boule]] (town council). It was a rectangular building with three rooms and an altar in front. It was destroyed during the [[Greco-Persian_Wars#Sack_of_Athens|Persian sack of Athens]] in 480 BC, but repaired around 460 BC. The cult was deeply integrated into civic life; the Metroon was used as the state [[archive]] and Cybele was one of the four main deities, to whom serving councillors sacrificed, along with Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. The highly influential fifth-century BC statue of Cybele enthroned by Agoracritus was located in this building. The building was rebuilt around 150 BC, with separate rooms for cult worship and archival storage, and it remained in use until Late Antiquity.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=162-163, 216-217}} A second Metroon in the Athenian suburb of Agrae was associated with the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]].{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=175}} At the end of the fifth century BC, a Metroon was established at [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. It is a small hexastyle temple, the third to be built on the site after the archaic [[Temple of Hera, Olympia|Heraion]] and the mid-fifth century [[Temple of Zeus, Olympia|Temple of Zeus]]. In the Roman period it was used for the [[Imperial cult of ancient Rome|Imperial cult]].{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=161-162}} In the fourth century, further Metroa are attested at [[Smyrna]] and [[Colophon (city)|Colophon]], where they also served as state archives, as in Athens.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=163}}

=== Rome and its provinces ===
Magna Mater's temple stood high on the slope of the [[Palatine Hill|Palatine]], overlooking the valley of the [[Circus Maximus]] and facing the temple of [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] on the slopes of the [[Aventine Hill|Aventine]]. It was accessible via a long upward flight of steps from a flattened area or proscenium below, where the goddess's [[Ludi|festival games]] and [[Ludi scaenici|plays]] were staged. At the top of the steps was a statue of the enthroned goddess, wearing a mural crown and attended by lions. Her altar stood at the base of the steps, at the proscenium's edge. The first temple was damaged by fire in 111 BC, and was repaired or rebuilt. It burnt down in the early Imperial era, and was restored by [[Augustus]]; it burned down again soon after, and Augustus rebuilt it in more sumptuous style; the [[Temple of Cybele (Palatine)|Ara Pietatis]] relief shows its pediment.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=309–310}} The goddess is represented by her empty throne and crown, flanked by two figures of Attis reclining on [[Tympanum (hand drum)|tympanon]]s; and by two lions who eat from bowls, as if tamed by her unseen presence. The scene probably represents a ''[[sellisternium]]'', a form of banquet usually reserved for goddesses, in accordance with "[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ritus graecus|Greek rite]]" as practiced in Rome.<ref>The sellisternium and various other elements of ritus Graecus "proved Rome's profound religious and cultural rooting in the Greek world". See Scheid, John, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p.226.</ref> This feast was probably held within the building, with attendance reserved for the aristocratic sponsors of the goddesses rites; the flesh of her sacrificial animal provided their meat.

From at least 139 AD, Rome's port at [[Ostia Antica|Ostia]], the site of the goddess's arrival, had a fully developed sanctuary to Magna Mater and Attis, served by a local Archigallus and college of ''dendrophores'' (the ritual tree-bearers of "Holy Week").<ref>Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater," ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'', Vol. 97, (1966), p. 199.</ref>

Ground preparations for the building of St. Peter's basilica on the Vatican Hill uncovered a shrine, known as the Phrygianum, with some 24 dedications to Magna Mater and Attis.{{sfn|Cameron|2010|page=142}} Many are now lost, but most that survive were dedicated by high-status Romans after a taurobolium sacrifice to Magna Mater. None of these dedicants were priests of the Magna Mater or Attis, and several held priesthoods of one or more different cults.{{sfn|Cameron|2010|pages=144-149}}

Near [[Setif]] ([[Mauretania]]), the ''dendrophores'' and the faithful (''religiosi'') restored their temple of Cybele and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 AD. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and her processional chariot; the latter received a new canopy with tassels in the form of [[fir]] cones.<ref>Robin Lane Fox, ''Pagans and Christians'', p. 581.</ref> Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; when [[Theodore of Amasea|St. Theodore of Amasea]] was granted time to recant his beliefs, he spent it by burning a temple of Cybele instead.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia  | title = St. Theodore of Amasea  | encyclopedia = Catholic Encyclopedia  | publisher = Encyclopedia Press  | location = New York  | year = 1914  | url = https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14573a.htm  | access-date = 2007-07-16  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180626135532/https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14573a.htm  | archive-date = 2018-06-26  | url-status = live  }}</ref>

==Myths, theology, and cosmology==
[[File:Bronze statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions MET DP307791.jpg|thumb|Bronze fountain statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions 2nd century AD, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]

Rome characterised the Phrygians as barbaric, effeminate orientals, prone to excess. While some Roman sources explained Attis' death as punishment for his excess devotion to Magna Mater, others saw it as punishment for his lack of devotion, or outright disloyalty.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=256-257}} Only one account of Attis and Cybele (related by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]) omits any suggestion of a personal or sexual relationship between them; Attis achieves divinity through his support of ''Meter'''s cult, is killed by a boar sent by Zeus, who is envious of the cult's success, and is rewarded for his commitment with godhood.<ref name="auto1">{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=241-244}}</ref> 

The most complex, vividly detailed, and lurid accounts of Magna Mater and Attis were produced as anti-pagan polemic in the late 4th century by the Christian apologist [[Arnobius]], who presented their cults as a repulsive combination of blood-bath, incest, and sexual orgy, derived from the myths of Agdistis.<ref name="auto1"/> This has been presumed the most ancient, violent, and authentically Phrygian version of myth and cult, closely following an otherwise lost orthodox, approved version preserved by the priest-kings at Pessinous and imported to Rome. Arnobius claimed several scholarly sources as his authority; but the oldest versions are also the most fragmentary and, during an interval of several centuries, apt to diverge into whatever version suited a new audience, or potentially, new acolytes.<ref name="auto1"/> Greek versions of the myth recall those concerning the mortal [[Adonis]] and his divine lovers,  - [[Aphrodite]], who had some claim to cult as a 'Mother of all",  or her rival for Adonis' love, [[Persephone]] - showing the grief and anger of a powerful goddess, mourning the helpless loss of her mortal beloved.<ref name="auto">{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=244-255}}</ref>

The emotionally charged literary version presented in [[Catullus 63]] follows Attis' initially ecstatic self-castration into exhausted sleep, and a waking realisation of all he has lost through his emotional slavery to a domineering and utterly self-centered goddess; it is narrated with a rising sense of isolation, oppression, and despair, virtually an inversion of the liberation promised by Cybele's Anatolian cult.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=304-305}} Contemporaneous with this, more or less, Dionysius of Halicarnassos pursues the idea that the "Phrygian degeneracy" of the Galli, personified in Attis, be removed from the Megalensia to reveal the dignified, "truly Roman" festival rites of the Magna Mater. Somewhat later, Vergil expresses the same deep tension and ambivalence regarding Rome's claimed Phrygian, Trojan ancestors, when he describes his hero Aeneas as a perfumed, effeminate Gallus, a half-man who would, however, "rid himself of the effeminacy of the Oriental in order to fulfill his destiny as the ancestor of Rome." This would entail him and his followers shedding their Phrygian language and culture, to follow the virile example of the Latins.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=302-304}} In Lucretius' description of the goddess and her acolytes in Rome, her priests provide an object lesson in the self-destruction wrought when passion and devotion exceed rational bounds; a warning, rather than an offer.<ref name="auto"/> 

For Lucretius, Roman Magna Mater "symbolised the world order": her image held reverentially aloft in procession signifies the Earth, which "hangs in the air". She is the mother of all, ultimately the Mother of humankind, and the yoked lions that draw her chariot show an otherwise ferocious offspring's duty of obedience to the parent.<ref>Summers, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=339-340, 342}}; Lucretius claims the authority of "the old Greek poets" but describes the Roman version of Cybele's procession; to most of his Roman readers, his interpretations would have seemed familiar ground.</ref> She herself is uncreated, and thus essentially separate from and independent of her creations.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=297 – 299}}, citing Lucretius, ''De Rerum Natura'', 2,598 – 660.</ref>

In the early Imperial era, the Roman poet [[Marcus Manilius|Manilius]] inserts Cybele as the thirteenth deity of an otherwise symmetrical, classic Greco-Roman [[zodiac]], in which each of twelve [[House (astrology)|zodiacal houses]] (represented by particular constellations) is ruled by one of twelve deities, known in Greece as the [[Twelve Olympians]] and in Rome as the [[Di Consentes]]. Manilius has Cybele and [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] as co-rulers of [[Leo (astrology)|Leo]] (the Lion), in astrological opposition to [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], who rules [[Aquarius (astrology)|Aquarius]].<ref>Hannah, Robert, "Manilius, the Mother of the Gods and the "Megalensia": an Astrological Anomaly resolved ?" ''Latomus'', T. 45, Fasc. 4 (OCTOBRE-DÉCEMBRE 1986), pp. 864–872, Societe d’Etudes Latines de Bruxelles [https://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41538820?uid=3737968&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102512423927], citing Manlius, ''Astronomica'', (trans. GP Goold,  London, 1977) 2. 439 – 437.</ref> Modern scholarship remarks that as Cybele's Leo rises above the horizon, Taurus (the Bull) sets; the lion thus dominates the bull. Some of the possible Greek models for Cybele's Megalensia festival include representations of lions attacking and dominating bulls. The festival date coincided, more or less, with events of the Roman agricultural calendar (around April 12) when farmers were advised to dig their vineyards, break up the soil, sow [[millet]], "and – curiously apposite, given the nature of the Mother's priests – castrate cattle and other animals."<ref>Hannah, p. 872, citing [[Varro]], ''De Re Rustica'', 1. 30; [[Columella]], ''De Re Rustica'', 11. 2. 32 – 35; [[Pliny the Elder]], Historia Naturalis, 18. 246 – 249.</ref>

==In popular culture==
[[File:Carmena recibe al Real Madrid C.F., campeón de la Copa de Europa 2017 (04).jpg|thumb|A crowd gathers in Plaza de Cibeles to celebrate the victory at the [[2017 UEFA Champions League final]]. The fountain is fenced to keep the fans from damaging the monument.|alt=Vantage photograph of a fenced crowd in white jerseys. Some areas are void of people.]]
The [[Paseo del Prado]] axis in Madrid has as one of its extremes the [[Plaza de Cibeles]] ("Cybele's Square") with the [[Fountain of Cybele]] at its center.
Fans of [[Real Madrid CF]] and the [[Spanish football national team]] celebrate their triumphs around the fountain, thus establishing the goddess as a symbol of Madrid and the Real Madrid football club.{{Sfn|Ortiz García|2006|pp=199–200}}

On November 7, 2025, singer-songwriter and drag queen [https://www.flamygrant.com/ Flamy Grant] released a single [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GozA61KOttI “Magna Mater”] inspired by the mythology of Cybele.
{{clear}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Mythology|Asia}}
* [[Agdistis]]
* [[Atargatis]]
* [[Attis]]
* [[Mother goddess]]
* [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]
* [[Temple of Cybele (Palatine)]]

== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist|2}}

==References==
* {{cite book|last1=Alvar|first1=Jaime|author-link=Jaime Alvar Ezquerra|title=Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras|translator-last1=Gordon|translator-first1=Richard|year=2008|publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]]|series=Religions in the Graeco-Roman World|volume=165|isbn=978-90-04-13293-1}}
* {{cite book |last1=Beard|first1=Mary|author-link=Mary Beard (classicist)|title=Shamanism, history, and the state|contribution=The Roman and the foreign: the cult of the "great mother" in imperial Rome|year=1994|editor-last=Thomas|editor-first=Nicholas|editor2-last=Humphrey|editor2-first=Caroline|publication-place=Ann Arbor|publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]]|pages=164–190|oclc=29522597|isbn=978-04-72-10512-0}}
* {{cite book |last1=Burkert|first1=Walter|author-link=Walter Burkert|title=Greek Religion|year=1985|publication-place=Cambridge|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|chapter=III.3.4|isbn=978-06-74-36281-9}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cameron|first1=Alan|author-link=Alan Cameron (classicist)|title=The Last Pagans of Rome|year=2010|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-01-99-74727-6}}
* {{cite book |last1=Duthoy|first1=Robert|title=The Taurobolium: Its evolution and terminology|series=Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain|volume=10|publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]]|year=1969|isbn=978-90-04-00559-4}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Lane|editor-first=Eugene|editor-link=Eugene N. Lane|title=Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren|series=Religions in the Graeco-Roman World|volume=131|publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]]|year=1996|isbn=978-90-04-10196-8}}
* {{cite book |last1=Motz|first1=Lotte|author-link=Lotte Motz|title=The Faces of the Goddess|year=1997|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|publication-place=US|isbn=978-01-95-08967-7}}
* {{Cite journal|volume=61|issue=2|year=2006|last=Ortiz García|journal=Disparidades. Revista de Antropología|title=La Diosa Blanca y el Real Madrid. Celebraciones deportivas y espacio urbano|doi=10.3989/rdtp.2006.v61.i2.21|first=Carmen|publisher=[[Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas]]|location=Madrid|issn=0034-7981|url=http://dra.revistas.csic.es/index.php/dra/article/view/21/21|pages=191–208|doi-access=free|hdl=10261/7766|hdl-access=free}}
* {{cite journal|last=Roller|first=Lynn Emrich|title=Attis on Greek Votive Monuments; Greek God or Phrygian?|url=https://studylib.net/doc/8800169/attis-on-greek-votive-monuments---the-american-school-of-... |via=Studylib |journal=Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens|volume=63|number=2|year=1994|pages=245–262|jstor=148115 }}
* {{cite book |last=Roller |first=Lynn Emrich |title=In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, California |year=1999 |isbn=0-520-21024-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofgodmot00roll }}
* {{cite journal|last=Roscoe|first=Will|author-link=Will Roscoe|title=Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion|journal=History of Religions|volume=35|number=3|year=1996|pages=195–230|doi=10.1086/463425 |s2cid=162368477 }}.

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* Blank, Thomas (2024). ''[https://doi.org/10.25162/9783515133876 Religiöse Geheimniskommunikation in der Mittleren und Späten Römischen Republik. Separatheit, gesellschaftliche Öffentlichkeit und zivisches Ordnungshandeln]''. Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge, vol. 82. Stuttgart: Steiner, {{ISBN|978-3-515-13386-9}}, on the Roman Magna Mater pp. 123–207.
* D’Andria, Francesco, Mahmut Bilge Baştürk, and James Hargrave (2019). "The Cult of Cybele in Hierapolis of Phrygia". In: ''Phrygia in Antiquity: From the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period: Proceedings of an International Conference''. Edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze. Peeters, pp. 479–500. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1q26v1n.28.
* Knauer, Elfried R. (2006). "The Queen Mother of the West: A Study of the Influence of Western Prototypes on the Iconography of the Taoist Deity." In: ''Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World''. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press, {{ISBN|0-8248-2884-4}}. Pp.&nbsp;62–115. (An article showing the probable derivation of the Daoist goddess, Xi Wangmu, from Kybele/Cybele)
*{{cite book |last1=Laroche|first1=Lotte|title=Koubaba, déesse anatolienne, et le problème des origines de Cybèle|series=Eléments orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne|publisher=Presses Universitaires de France|publication-place=Paris|year=1960|pages=113–128}}
* Munn, Mark (2008). "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context". In: ''Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbours''. Edited by Billie Jean Collins, Mary R.Bachvarova, and Ian C. Rutherford. Oxford: Oxbow. pp. 159-164. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cd0nsg.22.
* Roller, Lynne E. (1994). "The Phrygian Character of Kybele: The Formation of an Iconography and Cult Ethos in the Iron Age". In: ''Anatolian Iron Ages 3: The Proceedings of the Third Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium Held at Van, 6-12 August 1990''. Edited by A. Çilingiroğlu and D. H. French. London: British Institute at Ankara. pp. 189-98. www.jstor.org/stable/10.18866/j.ctt1pc5gxc.29.
* {{cite journal |last=Vassileva |first=Maya |title=Further considerations on the cult of Kybele |journal=Anatolian Studies |volume=51| pages = 51–64 |year=2001 |doi=10.2307/3643027 |publisher=British Institute at Ankara |jstor=3643027|s2cid=162629321 }}
* Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef (1977). ''Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult'' trans. from Dutch by A. M. H. Lemmers. Thames and Hudson.
* Virgil (2003). ''The Aeneid'' trans from Latin by David West. Penguin Putnam Inc.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Cybele}}
*[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243491/Great-Mother-of-the-Gods Britannica Online Encyclopædia]
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Great Mother of the Gods|volume=12|pages=401–403|first=Grant|last=Showerman|author-link=Grant Showerman}}
*[https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/romrelig2.html Ancient History Sourcebook: Roman Religiones Licitae and Illicitae, c. 204 BC-112 AD] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141117114039/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/romrelig2.html |date=2014-11-17 }}
* [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000208 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Cybele)] 

{{Roman religion|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Cybele| ]]
[[Category:Hellenistic Anatolian deities]]
[[Category:Phrygian goddesses]]
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Roman goddesses]]
[[Category:Mountain goddesses]]
[[Category:Mother goddesses]]
[[Category:Life-death-rebirth goddesses]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]
[[Category:Lion goddesses]]
[[Category:Çatalhöyük]]
[[Category:Legendary progenitors]]