Rhea was increasingly identified with the Phrygian Cybele from the 5th century BCE onward. Both were mountain mothers with lion-drawn chariots and ecstatic cults, and Greek writers often treated them as one goddess under two names.
Some traditions identify Agdistis with Cybele. In Pausanias's account, after the gods castrated the hermaphroditic Agdistis, the being became female and was worshipped as the Great Mother under the name Cybele.
Magna Mater is the Roman adoption of the Phrygian-Greek goddess Cybele. Her sacred stone was brought from Pessinus to Rome in 204 BCE, and Roman writers consistently identified the two as the same deity.
In Ovid's account, Cybele transformed Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions for making love in her sacred precinct. The lions were then yoked to Cybele's chariot, forever in the service of the Mother of the Gods.
Attis was Cybele's beloved consort whose myth of madness, self-castration beneath a pine tree, and death formed the theological core of her cult. Cybele drove him mad with jealousy when he was betrothed to another, then mourned him with terrible grief.
The Corybantes were Cybele's ecstatic attendants who danced in armor, clashing shields and weapons during her rites. Their frenzied dances accompanied her processions and were believed to induce divine possession.
The Curetes were sometimes identified as attendants of Cybele, conflated with her Corybantes. Their role protecting the infant Zeus with clashing weapons paralleled the Corybantes' armored dances in Cybele's rites.
Cybele transformed Hippomenes and Atalanta into lions for profaning her sacred temple. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cybele yoked the two lions to her chariot as eternal servants.
Marsyas was associated with the ecstatic worship of Cybele in Phrygia, where the aulos was central to her rites. Some traditions name him as a devotee or companion of the Great Mother.
In Pausanias's account, Cybele drove Attis mad when he was betrothed to the daughter of King Midas of Pessinus. The wedding feast became the scene of Attis's self-castration and death.
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