CORYBANTES (Gr. Kopb(3avrer)

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 212 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: COR-CRE

CORYBANTES (Gr. Kopb(3avrer) , in Greek mythology, half divine, half demonic beings, bearing the same relation to the Asiatic

Great

GREAT

Mother

MOTHER

of the Gods that the Curetes

bear

to Rhea. From their first

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

in literature, they are already often identified or confused with them, and are distinguished only by their Asiatic origin and by the more pronouncedly orgiastic nature of their

rites

RITES

. Various accounts of their origin are given: they were earth-born, sons of Cronus, sons of Zeus and Calliope, sons of Rhea, of Ops, of the

Great

GREAT

Mother

MOTHER

and a mystic father, of Apollo and Thalia, of

Athena

ATHENA (the Attic form of the Homeric Athene, also called Athenaia, Pallas Athene, Pallas)

and Helios. Their names and number were as indistinct even to the ancients as those of the Curetes and Idaean Dactyli. Like the Curetes, Dactyli, Telchines and Cabeiri (q.v.), however, they represent primitive gods of procreative significance, who survived in the historic period as subordinate deities associated with a form of the Great Mother goddess, their relation to the Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele, being comparable with that of

Attis

ATTIS

(q.v.). They may have been represented or impersonated by priests in her

rites

RITES

Attis

ATTIS

was, but they were also, like him, not actual priests in the first instance, but objects of

worship

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

in which a frenzied dance, with accompaniment of

flute

FLUTE

music, the beating of tambourines, the clashing of cymbals and castanets, wild cries and self-infliction of woundsthe whole culminating in a state of ecstasy and exhaustionwere the most prominent features. The dance of the Corybantic priests, like that of the priests who represented the!Curetes, may have originated in a primitive faith in the power of noise to avert evil. Its psychic effect, both upon the dancer and upon the mystic about whom he danced during the initiation of the Cybele-Attis mysteries, made it a widely known and popular feature of the cult.
In art the

Corybantes

CORYBANTES (Gr. Kopb(3avrer)

appear, usually not more than two or three in number, fully armed and executing their orgiastic
dance in the presence of the Great Mother, her lions and Attis. They sometimes appear with the child Dionysus, between whose cult and that of the Mother there was a close affinity. (G. SN.)

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