Cybele

Reading notes

• The Art of Love §1.15 Cybeline Mother

  Cybele, the Great Mother, whose ecstatic Phrygian rites were performed by her self-castrated priests; curling-irons befit them, not real men.

• Letters from the Black Sea §1.1 Mother of the gods

  Cybele, the Phrygian Great Mother, whose eunuch priests (Galli) collected alms to flute-music; Ovid likens his own pleading for his book to their licensed begging.

• The Festivals §2.1 Phrygian Mother

  Cybele, the Great Mother of the gods, brought to Rome from Phrygia; her temple neighbored Juno Sospita's.

• The Festivals §4.4 Idaean Mother

  Cybele, the Phrygian Mother of the Gods (Magna Mater), worshipped with clashing music, lions, and a turreted crown.

• The Festivals §6.9 Cybele

  The Great Mother (Magna Mater) of Ida, at whose feast the gods reveled when Priapus accosted Vesta.

• Ibis §14 Cybelean mother

  Cybele, the Great Mother, whose ecstatic priests (the Galli) castrate themselves to the Phrygian music.

• Metamorphoses §10.290 mother of the gods

  Cybele, the Great Mother, to whom the pine is sacred.

• Metamorphoses §14.455 holy Mother of the gods

  Cybele, the Great Mother, whose sacred pines of Mount Ida built the Trojan fleet; she saves the ships from Turnus's fire and (next) turns them into sea-nymphs. Her rites use clashing bronze and the boxwood pipe.