CABEIRL

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 917 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BUN-CAL

CABEIRL in Greek mythology, a group of

minor

deities, of whose character and

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

nothing certain is known. Their

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

seats of

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

were the islands of Lemnos, Imbros and Samothrace, the coast of Troas, Thessalia and Boeotia. The name appears to be of Phoenician origin, signifying the "

great

GREAT

" gods, and the Cabeiri seem to have been deities of the sea who protected sailors and navigation, as such often identified with the Dioscuri, the symbol of their presence being St Elmo's fire. Originally the Cabeiri were two in number, an older identified with

Hephaestus

HEPHAESTUS

(or Dionysus), and a younger identified with Hermes, who in the Samothracian mysteries was called Cadmilus or Casmilus. Their cult at an early date was united with that of Demeter and Kore, with the result that two pairs of Cabeiri appeared,

Hephaestus

HEPHAESTUS

and Demeter, and Cadmilus and Kore. According to Mnaseas' (quoted by the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius 917) they were four in number: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, Casmilus. It is there stated that Axieros is Demeter; Axiokersa, Persephone ; Axiokersos, Hades; and Casmilus, Hermes. The substitution of Hades for Hephaestus is due to the fact that Hades was regarded as the husband of Persephone. Cabeiro, who is mentioned in the logographers Acusilaus and Pherecydes as the wife of Hephaestus, is identical with Demeter, who indeed is expressly called KaOeipLa in Thebes. Roman antiquarians identified the Cabeiri with the three Capitoline deities or with the

Penates

PENATES (from Lat. palms, eatables, food)

. In Lemnos an annual festival of the Cabeiri was held, lasting nine days, during which all the fires were extinguished and fire brought from Delos. From this fact and from the statement of Strabo x. p. 473, that the father of the Cabeiri was Camillus, a son of Hephaestus, the Cabeiri have been thought to be, like the Corybantes, Curetes and Dactyli, demons of volcanic fire. But this view is not now generally held. In Lemnos they fostered the vine and fruits of the field, and from their connexion with Hermes in Samothrace it would also seem that they promoted the fruitfulness of cattle.
By far the most important seat of their worship was Samothrace. Here, as early as the 5th century B. c., their mysteries, possibly under Athenian influence, attracted

great

GREAT

attention, and initiation was looked upon as a general safeguard against all misfortune. But it was in the period after the death of Alexander the Great that their cult reached its height. Demetrius Poliorcetes, Lysimachus and Arsinoe regarded the Cabeiri with especial favour, and initiation was sought, not only by large numbers of pilgrims, but by persons of distinction. Initiation included also an asylum or

refuge

REFUGE

within the strong walls of Samothrace, for which purpose it was used among others by Arsinoe, who, to show her gratitude, afterwards caused a monument to be erected there, the ruins of which were explored in
' A grammarian of Patrae in Achaea (or Patara in Lycia), pupil of Eratosthenes (275195 a.c.), and author of a periplus and a collection of Delphic oracles.
1874 by an Austrian archaeological expedition. In 1888 interesting details as to the Boeotian cult of the Cabeiri were obtained by the excavations of their temple in the neighbourhood of Thebes, conducted by the German archaeological institute. The two male deities worshipped were Cabeiros and a boy: the Cabeiros resembles Dionysus, being represented on vases as lying on a couch, his head surrounded with a garland of ivy, a drinking cup in his right hand; and accompanied by

maenads

MAENADS (Gr. MatvaSes, frenzied women)

and satyrs. The boy is probably his cup-bearer. The Cabeiri were held in even greater esteem by the Romans, who regarded themselves as descendants of the Trojans, whose ancestor Dardanus (himself identified in heroic legend with one of the Cabeiri) came from Samothrace. The identification of the three Capitoline deities with the

Penates

PENATES (from Lat. palms, eatables, food)

, and of these with the Cabeiri, tended to increase this feeling.
See C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (1829); F. G. Welcker, Die Aeschylische Trilogie and die Kabirenweihe zu Lemnos (1824) ; J. P. Rossignol, Les Metaux dans l'antiquite (1863), discussing the gods of Samothrace (the Dactyli, the Cabeiri, the Corybantes, the Curetes, and the Telchines) as workers in metal, and the religious origin of metallurgy; O. Rubensohn, Die Mysterienheiligtumer in Eleusis and Samothrake (1892); W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie (s.v. " Megaloi Theoi "); L.

Preller

PRELLER, FRIEDRICH (1804–1878)
PRELLER, LUDWIG (1809–1861)

, Griechische Mythologie (4th ed., appendix) ; and the article by F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquites.

End of Article: CABEIRL

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BUN_CAL/CABEIRL.html">
CABEIRL
</a>

(Previous)
CABBAGE

(Next)
CABER TOSSING (Gaelic cabar, a pole or beam)

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email