Lat. Cybele, Cybebe, Cybela].
Ancient Phrygian deity, often called the Great Mother by both Greeks and Romans. She was linked with many other female divinities, especially Rhea and Artemis. By the time her cult reached Greece (5th century bce) it had become fused with the liturgy of Dionysus, reflecting the cult of divine mother and son in Asia and Crete. The male figure worshipped in specific conjunction with Cybele was, however, her youthful consort Attis. His cult, which became important only in Rome under Claudius (emperor 41–54 ce), included the use of the syrinx; he was originally a shepherd-god.
An extensive fragment of a Dithyramb by Pindar, from the first half of the 5th century bce, mentions tympana and crotala (clappers, usually in pairs) sounding in honour of ‘the august Great Mother’ (Bowra, frag.61.6–8). A Homeric hymn which must date from approximately the same period refers to these two instruments as well as the aulos (To the Mother of the Gods, xiv.3). In the Bacchae, produced about 405 bce, Euripides gave particular prominence to the tympanum as the invention of Dionysus and Rhea (i.e. Cybele; 59, 120–34), linking it with the use of Phrygian auloi (127–8, 159–61) and describing its deep, booming tone (156, barubromōn). Cult statues or paintings of the goddess usually showed her with the tympanum (for illustration see Tympanum (i)). The Athenian minor tragic poet Diogenes described the Phrygian women worshippers of Cybele as using rhomboi (bullroarers) in addition to the usual tympana and cymbals (Nauck, frag.1.34 = Athenaeus, xiv, 636a; cf iv, 148c–d; v, 198d; viii, 361e; and xiv, 621b–c). According to Menander, the begging priests of Cybele's cult used cymbals to summon her (Kock, frag.245); Firmicus Maternus (4th century ce) described a similar use of the tibia.
Ovid described the introduction of Cybele's rites to Rome in 204 bce and listed the instruments regularly used, including the Phrygian double aulos with one recurved bell-shaped mouth (Fasti, iv.181). Apuleius (2nd century) described the music used by followers of the ‘Syrian goddess’ Atargatis, whose cult resembled that of Cybele and was characterized by the presence of eunuch priests. He also mentioned a choraula (in this context a cornu player), dancing in triple rhythm, the tibia and various percussion instruments (Metamorphoses, viii.26–7). The scene depicted on a Roman terracotta suggests that a long-handled spherical rattle (the Greek platagē) was used in the rites of Cybele.
Only members of her priesthood and trained instrumentalists performed the rites; and since the hymns were required to be sung in Greek (Servius on Virgil, Georgics, ii.394), they were performed by professional singers called hymnologi.
Clement of Alexandria in his Protrepticus quoted a ritual formula recited by those being initiated into the mysteries of Cybele: ‘I ate from the tympanum; I drank from the cymbal’ (2.14), where the round tympanum is an image of the earth as primal element, while the concave cymbal is a chalice.
See also Aulos, §I; Greece, §I, 5; and Rome, §I.
A. Nauck, ed.: Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1865, 2/1899/R1964 with suppl. by B. Snell)
T. Kock, ed.: Comicorum atticorum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1880)
C. Sachs: Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente (Berlin, 1929/R)
C.M. Bowra, ed.: Pindari carmina cum fragmentis (Oxford, 1935, 2/1947)
W.K.C. Guthrie: The Greeks and their Gods (London, 1950, 4/1956), 31, 59–60, 151–7
G. Wille: Musica romana (Amsterdam, 1967), 56–62, 393–4
J. Devreker: ‘Un instrument métroaque de plus dans le culte de Cybèle?’, Hommages à Marcel Renard, ed. J. Bibauw (Brussels, 1969), ii, 214–19
W. Fauth: ‘Kybele’, Der kleine Pauly, ed. K. Ziegler and W. Sontheimer, iii (Stuttgart, 1969), 383–9
G. Comotti: La musica nella cultura greca e romana (Turin, 1979, 2/1991); (Eng. trans., 1989), 72–5
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN