Cybele

Atalanta wished to remain a huntress and a virgin like Artemis, but many men sought her in marriage. At her father’s urging, she agreed to marry the man who could outrun her. She declared that defeated suitors would die, and many failed to escape this penalty. Hippomenes accepted the challenge despite the danger. Some sources call him Melanion. His parentage also varies. One account makes him a great-grandson of Poseidon, while other sources give him a different descent.

Hippomenes asked Aphrodite for help. She gave him golden apples. One source says that they came from her sanctuary on Cyprus, while another connects them with the garden of the Hesperides. During the race, Hippomenes threw the apples aside one after another. Atalanta stopped to retrieve each of them. The delay caused by the last apple allowed Hippomenes to reach the finish first. He therefore won the race and married Atalanta.

In Hyginus’s account, Aphrodite became angry because the couple failed to honour her for this help. She caused them to have sex in Cybele’s temple. Cybele punished the violation by changing Atalanta into a lioness and Hippomenes into a lion. She then harnessed them to her chariot. They became the lions shown with the goddess in images.

Ovid gives a different account in the Metamorphoses. The couple had sex in a precinct of Zeus, and Zeus changed them into lions because they had defiled his sacred place. Since lions are said not to mate with lions, the transformation prevented Atalanta and Hippomenes from enjoying each other again.

Diodorus Siculus records that a drop of Zeus’s semen fell upon the ground. After some time, the earth produced Agdistis, a powerful deity with male and female reproductive organs. Fearing this being, the gods cut off the male organ. Agdistis was left as a female goddess, Cybele. An almond tree grew from the severed organ. Its fruit fell into the lap of Nana, the daughter of a local river god. Contact with the fruit made Nana pregnant, and she gave birth to a handsome boy called Attis.

When Attis grew up, Cybele fell in love with him. He did not return her affection. On the day of Attis’s marriage, Cybele came to the wedding ceremony in place of the bride he intended to marry. Attis was driven into a state of madness and castrated himself.

Cybele asked that Attis be made immortal. Her request was granted, and Attis was transformed into a pine tree. In this tradition, Agdistis’s transformation into Cybele, Nana’s contact with the almond fruit, and Cybele’s unreturned love for Attis lead directly to his self-castration and transformation.

As Attis prepared to marry another woman, Cybele appeared at the wedding in place of the intended bride. Her jealousy, or her divine presence, drove him into a frenzy. Attis fled beneath a pine tree and castrated himself. Arnobius records that he died there from the loss of blood. Another account says that Cybele asked for him to become immortal, after which he was transformed into a pine tree.

Earlier, a drop of Zeus’s semen had fallen upon the ground. The earth produced Agdistis, a being with male and female reproductive organs. Fearing Agdistis’s power, the gods cut off the male organ. Agdistis then became the female goddess Cybele. An almond tree grew from the severed organ, and one of its fruits fell into the lap of Nana, daughter of a local river god. Nana became pregnant from this contact and gave birth to Attis.

Attis was abandoned but was saved by shepherds, according to one account. He grew into a handsome youth. Cybele fell in love with him, though her affection was not returned. When he sought marriage with another woman, the events at the wedding led to his madness and self-mutilation beneath the pine tree.

Attis’s death and transformation were linked with his worship. The priests of Cybele included eunuchs who had undergone voluntary castration, following the example of her lover or consort. Some accounts give another ending. Attis was killed by a boar rather than by his own act beneath the pine tree. The people of Pessinus were said to preserve the account of his self-mutilation, while their avoidance of pork was connected with the story of his death by a boar.

The Argonauts sacrificed to Cybele on Mount Dindymon. They performed the sacrifice while the wilderness around the mountain remained hostile. The account places the rite at the centre of the event. It gives no named opponent, battle, or other action by the Argonauts at this moment. Their act is the offering made before the change in the mountain and its surroundings.

Cybele responded to the sacrifice by calming the hostile wilderness. The wild danger that had surrounded the Argonauts was quieted through her power. The passage does not describe the form of the hostility, nor does it name any creature or force involved in it. It records only that the wilderness was hostile before the goddess acted and calm after her response.

Once the wilderness had been calmed, a spring burst from Mount Dindymon. The water came from the mountain itself, appearing as the result of Cybele’s intervention. The account does not give the spring a name, state how the Argonauts used it, or add any later event. It records the sequence plainly: the Argonauts sacrificed to Cybele, the goddess calmed the hostile wilderness, and a spring burst from Dindymon. The Argonauts belong to the company led by Jason in the voyage for the Golden Fleece, but this episode names no individual among them and gives no further detail about their actions at the mountain.