The Probert Encyclopaedia of Greek & Roman Mythology

CYBELE

Cybele was the Great Mother and fertility goddess of the Phrygians and later the Greeks and Romans. Cybele lived in the wild and dangerous regions of the earth and ruled the fiercest of animals. She was said to enable her followers to be reborn after death into a new life. A black stone was sacred to Cybele. At annual celebrations to Cybele a chariot drawn by lions was driven through the streets of Rome, and at her rites the priests would beat and castrate themselves with whips decorated with knuckle bones in frenzies of passion. The rites were accompanied by the sacrifice of a bull or ram, its blood pouring from above over the priest.
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