Corybantes

In the Greek Mythology, the Corybantes (in Greek old Κορύϐαντες / Korúbantes ), called Kurbantes in Phrygie, and Koryvandes in the Greek modern transliteration, is capped dancers of a helmet who celebrate the worship of the Grande Phrygian Goddess Cybèle while playing of the tambourine and while dancing. The Curètes are, as for them, the nine dancers admirers of Rhéa, the counterpart crétoise of Cybèle.

Corybantes are men in armor, who follow the rate/rhythm of the tambourine and mark it with their feet. The dance, according to the Greek thought, was one of the educational activities, like the manufacture of the wine or the music. The dance in armor (“dance pyrrhic” or simply the “pyrrhique one”) was a ritual of initiation for the young men who “arrive at their majority” and was related to the celebration of one victory to the war.

The French hellenist Henri Jeanmaire showed that Curètes as well as the Zeus crétois (called “largest kouros” in anthems crétois) was in close connection with the passage of the young men at the age of virility in certain crétoises cities.

Corybantes Phrygian were often confused with other extatic male fraternities, like the Dactyles of the mount Ida or Curètes crétois, divinities of youth ( kouroi ) who were used guards during early childhood as Zeus. In the Greek account of its birth, the rite of the lances and shields which are entrechoquent, is interpreted like being used to cover the cries of the small child-god and to prevent that his/her father Cronos discovers it. Ovide in its Métamorphoses the fact of being born from rainwater, Ouranos fertilizer Gaïa, which could bring this rite closer to the Hyades of the Pélasges. According to the Pseudo-Apollodore, they are the wire of Apollon and MUSE Thalie. According to a version still, they are the wire of Zeus and the MUSE Calliope.

Corybantes or Curètes also chairs the early childhood of Dionysos, another god born baby and of Zagreus, a child crétois of Zeus. The wild extase which accompanies their worship can be compared with that of the Ménades, of the women who followed Dionysos.

There existed several “tribes” of Corybantes, inter alia the Cabires, Corybantes of the Eubée and Corybantes of Samothrace. Hoplodamos and its giants were counted with the number of Corybantes and Titan Anytos was regarded as Curète.

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