Non-Greek Gods

One of the things about Greek religion that I do find a bit complicated is the topic of foreign gods and foreign cults. The Greeks would look at a deity that wasn't apart of their pantheon and decide if they could assimilate it into their religion. If they couldn't, then they considered to to be foreign and not to be trusted. This would also go into the topic of magic, but that's not what I want to talk about in this blog post.

One of the things that I've heard is that Hecate was considered a foreign goddess, yet a whole mythology surrounds her. But one of the most famous cults to ever send shivers down an Athenian spine was the cult of the Great Mother, Cybele. There's a story about a priest that came to Athens to establish her cult. He freaked out the Athenians so much that they drove him out of the city. Well, he came back. Yeah, he really didn't get it that he wasn't wanted.

When he bloodied one of the main festivals by cutting off his own privates the people of Athens killed him and threw his body into a pit that was for criminals. Well according to legend a plague came to Athens and the people went to Apollo. He said that as long as the cult wasn't in Athens that the Athenians would suffer and die. So they sent for one and the cult was established. Athens survived but I'm sure the people weren't happy with her being there.

She was called upon for protection by the Athenians and her cult became very popular. Though I doubt that she would ever match the deities that had been there for a lot longer. Another reason that the Athenians didn't approve of the cult of Cybele was how the priest was dressed, like a woman. It went against everything that the Greeks believed. Of all the foreign gods, none has a most shocking impact, upon reading, then what happened in Athens.

Below is the remains of Artemis-Cybele