Cabeiri

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In Greek mythology, the Cabiri, or Cabeiri (Greek: Κάβειροι, Kabeiroi), were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshiped in a mystery cult that was centered on the island of Samothrace in Greece and was closely associated with that of Hephaestus. The cult spread rapidly throughout the Greek world during the Hellenistic period, eventually becoming adopted by the Romans.

The Cabeiri were likely originally Phrygian fertility deities and protectors of sailors who were imported into Greek ritual. They were most commonly depicted as two people: an old man, Axiocersus, and his son, Cadmilus. Due to the cult's secrecy, however, their exact nature and relationship with other ancient Greek and Thracian religious figures remained mysterious. As a result, the membership and roles of the Cabiri changed significantly over time, with common variants including a female pair (Axierus and Axiocersa) and twin youths who were frequently confused with Castor and Pollux, who were also worshiped as protectors of sailors. The number of Cabiri also varied, with some accounts citing four (often a pair of males and a pair of females) of them, and some even more, such as a tribe or whole race of Cabiri.

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[edit] Etymology

The etymology of the name Κάβειροι (Kabeiroi) is unknown, and is probably a loan from the Lemnian language. The Semitic word kabir ("great") has been compared to Κάβειροι since at least Joseph Justus Scaliger in the sixteenth century [1], but nothing else seemed to point to a Semitic origin (Burkert 1985:457), until the idea of "great" gods expressed by the Semitic root kbr was definitiely attested for North Syria in the thirteenth century BCE, in texts from Emar published by D. Arnaud in 1985/87 (see Emar). That J. Wackernagel had produced an Indian etymology in 1907 was noted by Walter Burkert, in The Orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992, p 2 note 3); in 1925 A. H. Sayce had suggested a connection to Hittite habiri ("looters", "outlaws"), but subsequent discoveries have made this implausible on phonological grounds. [2]

The name of the Cabeiri recalls Mount Kabeiros, a mountain in the region of Berekyntia in Asia Minor, closely associated with the Phrygian Mother Goddess. The name of Kadmilus (or Kasmilos), one of the Cabeiri who was usually depicted as a young boy, was linked even in antiquity to camillus, an old Latin word for a boy-attendant in a cult. This was probably a loan from the Etruscan language, which is related to Lemnian.

[edit] Myth

In myth, the Cabeiri bear many similarities to other fabulous races, such as the Telchines of Rhodes, the Cyclopes, the Dactyls, the Korybantes, and the Kuretes. These different groups were often confused or identified with one another since many of them, like the Cyclopes and Telchines, were also associated with metallurgy.

Diodorus Siculus said of the Cabeiri that they were Idaioi dactyloi ("Idaian Dactyls"). The Idaian Dactyls were a race of divine beings associated with the Mother Goddess and with Mount Ida, a mountain in Phrygia sacred to the goddess. Hesychius of Alexandria wrote that the Cabeiri were karkinoi ("crabs"). The Cabeiri as Karkinoi were apparently thought of as amphibious beings (again recalling the Telchines). They had pincers instead of hands, which they used as tongs (Greek: karkina) in metalworking.

The exact number and membership of the Cabeiri varied in different references to them. As mystery deities, the Cabeiri were rarely named individually, and were generally referred to simply as the "great gods". According to some accounts, there were originally two Cabeiri. These came to be portrayed in art as a pair of gods: one old, reclining, bearded one and a younger, standing one. Later, there were four: two male (Axiocersus and Cadmilus) and two female (Axiocersa and Axierus). In other accounts, one may infer that there was a multitude of them, such as in Pausanias, where they are described as a race or tribe, not merely four beings. In other later worship, the Cabeiri were frequently conflated with the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and were portrayed as a pair of youths almost indistinguishable from them.

It has been suggested that the Orphic mysteries may have had their origins with the Cabeiri.

[edit] Cult

The cult of the Cabeiri is attested in one site in mainland Greece, at Thebes), in Thrace at Seuthopolis, etc. and in Asia Minor, with the islands of Samothrace and Lemnos seeming to be the focus of worship.

On Lemnos, an ancient sanctuary dedicated to the Cabeiri is identifiable by traces of inscriptions, and seems to have survived the Greek conquest by Miltiades in the sixth century and the program of Hellenization that ensued. The geographer Strabo reported that in Lemnos, the mother (there was no father) of the Cabeiri was Kabeiro (Greek: Καβειρω) herself, a daughter of Proteus (one of the "old men of the sea") and a goddess whom the Greeks might have called Rhea. Aeschylus wrote a play called the Cabeiri, and the fragments that survive have them as a chorus greeting the Argonauts at Lemnos. There seems to have been a raucous, burlesque character to the mysteries of the Cabeiri: wine-vessels are the only characteristic finds, and an inscription at Lemnos indicates parapaizonti, the one who "jests along the way" (Burkert 1985).

At Greek Thebes, there are more varied finds, which include many little bronze votive bulls and which carry on into Roman times, when the traveller Pausanias, always alert to the history of cults, learned that it was Demeter Kabeiriia who instigated the initiation cult there in the name of Prometheus and his son Aitnaios. Walter Burkert (1985) writes, "This points to guilds of smiths analogous to the Lemnian Hephaistos." The votive dedications at Thebes are to a Kabeiros (Greek: Κάβειρος) in the singular, and childish toys like votive spinning tops for Pais suggest a manhood initiation. Copious wine was drunk, out of characteristic cups that were ritually smashed. Fat, primitive dwarves (similar to the followers of Silenus) with prominent genitalia were painted on the cups.

In Classical Greek culture the mysteries of the Cabeiri at Samothrace remained popular, though little was entrusted to writing beyond a few names and bare genealogical connections. Seamen among the Greeks might invoke the Cabeiri as "great gods" in times of danger and stress. The archaic sanctuary of Samothrace was rebuilt in Greek fashion; by classical times, the Samothrace mysteries of the Cabeiri were known at Athens. Herodotus had been initiated. But at the entry to the sanctuary, which has been thoroughly excavated, the Roman antiquary Varro learned that there had been twin pillars of brass, phallic hermae, and that in the sanctuary it was understood that the child of the Goddess, Cadmilus, was in some mystic sense also her consort.

[edit] Cabiri in popular culture

The Cabiri are a Seattle, Washington based nonprofit performance troupe founded in 1998 by director John S. Murphy. The company creates theatrical productions based on myth and folklore utilizing modern and traditional dance, aerial dance, fire performance, pyrotechnics, stilt walking, and puppetry.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Scaliger, Coniectanea in in M. Terentium in Lingua Latin (1565).
  2. ^ G. Dossin (1953) compares Κάβειροι to the Sumerian word kabar, "copper", but this is only a guess.

[edit] References

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:
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