Page "Cybele" Paragraph 10

From around the 6th century BCE, cults to the Anatolian mother-goddess were introduced from Phrygia into the ethnically Greek colonies of western Anatolia, mainland Greece, the Aegean islands and the westerly colonies of Magna Graecia.

The Greeks named her Matar, or from the early 5th century, Cybele.

As an alien goddess of " vivid and forceful character ", her reception varied.

According to Herodotus, when Anacharsis ( 6th century BCE ) returned to Scythia after traveling and acquiring knowledge among the Greeks, his brother, the Scythian King, put him to death for joining Cybele's cult.

In around 500 BCE, a mendicant priest of Cybele was killed in Athens, for his attempt to " corrupt " the city's women with this subversively alien cult.

A subsequent plague in the city was thought a sign of Cybele's anger.

The city built her a metroon, to placate her and secure her future protection.