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.Johnstone, P.A., in , citing Herodotus, Histories, 4.76-7. The historicity of this account and that of Anacharsis himself are widely questioned. In Athenian tradition, the city's Metroon was founded to placate Cybele, who had visited a plague on 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, 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.Robertson, in . Many of Cybele's cults were funded privately, rather than by the polis, but she also had publicly established temples in many Greek cities, including Athens and Olympia. Her "vivid and forceful character" and association with the wild, set her apart from the Olympian deities.Roller, L., in . See also . 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. 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 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 dactyls and Telchines, magicians associated with metalworking. (and notes 110 – 115), 173.
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.Johnstone, P.A., in , citing Herodotus, Histories, 4.76-7. The historicity of this account and that of Anacharsis himself are widely questioned. In Athenian tradition, the city's Metroon was founded to placate Cybele, who had visited a plague on 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, 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.Robertson, in . Many of Cybele's cults were funded privately, rather than by the polis, but she also had publicly established temples in many Greek cities, including Athens and Olympia. Her "vivid and forceful character" and association w:ith the wild, set her apart from the Olympian deities.Roller, L., in . See also . 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. Conflation with Rhe!a 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, the?y 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 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 dactyls and Telchines, magicians associated with metalworking. (and notes 110 – 115), 173.