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Asia Minor and the introduction of the Worship of Kybele, Mā, and Mithra- into Rome
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In 205 B.C., while Hannibal was still standing on Italian soil, the Great Goddess from Pessinus in Phrygia, a town then situated in the land of the Celtic Galatians, was brought to Rome in the shape of a black stone. The Sibylline books are said to have advised this transplantation of Kybele to the banks of the Tiber. These Sibylline books were copies of oracles given by the Sibyl of Cumæ in Campania, where she acted as priestess of Apollo. Now it has been shown that the Sibyl, who is mentioned by Herakleitos, is originally probably identical with the Sipylene, i.e. the Goddess from Mount Sipylos. This is one of the designations of the Great Phrygian Goddess called in Rome Mater deum Magna Idaea, the Great Mother of the Gods from Mount Ida. The origin of the Sibyl is placed in Phrygia by Herakleides of Pontos, and Pausanias mentions Erythrai, near Smyrna, situated not far from the Sipylos range, as well as Marpessos on Mount Ida as birthplaces of the Sibyl. The Sibyl of Cumæ therefore counselled the introduction into Rome of the worship of a goddess with whom she must have been connected since ancient times; Apollo himself comes from Asia Minor.
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References
page 23 note 1 For the relation of the name Kybele to Kybebe, Kubaba, see Albright, W. F., Archiv f. Qrientforschung, v, 1929, 230Google Scholar; Bossert, , O.L.Z., 1931, 316 f.Google Scholar, v. Blumenthal, I.c., 786.
page 23 note 2 Buckler, , Journ. of Hellenic Studies, xxxvii, 1917, 113Google Scholar; cf. Herakleitos, fr. 92. A huge rook-hewn representation of the Goddess is still to be seen on Mount Sipyles to the east of Magnesia, cf. Pausanias, iii, 22, 4.
page 23 note 3 Apud Clemens Alex, stromata, i, 108.
page 23 note 4 x, 12.
page 24 note 1 Sulla, ix.
page 24 note 2 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 11, 1380; 104, 105 (Grenfell and Hunt) says that Isis is called: ν Πρσαις' Ανατην, according to Pr. Cumont's emendation of Αατενην and ν Σοσοις Nαναν.
page 24 note 3 C.I.L. vi, 2233.
page 24 note 4 C.I.L. vi, 2234.
page 24 note 5 Strabo, xii, 2, 7.
page 25 note 1 Tibullua i, 6, 43 fi.; Horace, Sat. ii, 3, 223; Martial xii, 57, 11; Juvenal, Sat. iv, 123 f.; vi, 511 ff.
page 25 note 2 Plutarch, Pompeius, xxiv; Lactantius Placidus, Ad stat. Theb. iv, 71.
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