You ask me why I will not come to Rome for the spring, why I will not attend the festivals, and throw alms to the fortune-telling, yellow garbed, castrated priests of Attis, or watch the mystery plays performed on the steps of the Temple of Cybele, beneath the eye of the goddess. As long as Rome is home to a temple dedicated to that terrible deity, I will not step foot upon her streets. You may call me foolish if you wish, but I know what terrible rites are performed in her name, and why no Roman citizen may join her priesthood.
It has been twenty years since I left the city in which I was born and raised, and still Rome suffers from what I did. Of course, my actions, as horrible as they were, were at the bidding of the Senate. I have always served Rome, and those days were not good and the portents ill. There had been a drought, and famine loomed in the west. The war with Hannibal in Carthage had dragged on longer than expected. Stones had fallen from the sky in unprecedented numbers. The populace had grown uneasy; the normal grumbles had become too loud for the Senate to ignore. The public needed to be assured that the gods still favored Rome.
The Decemviri Sacrorum, the ten men who curated the Sibylline Books of prophecy, were ordered to consult their pages. It took them two days, but finally the collegium found a passage that suggested that a foreign invader could be vanquished, if the goddess Cybele were brought to Rome. It was an outrageous proposal. There were other foreign temples in the city, but they were small things, funded by foreign dignitaries and traders who kept homes in Rome. The idea that the goddess of another nation might join the other gods in a state-sponsored temple was unheard off.
In the Senate speeches were made both for and against the proposal. The tone on the floor became so heated that threats of censure were made. After hours of discussion, it seemed that the motion would fail, when suddenly another messenger appeared. This one came from distant Sibyl of Delphi and conveyed a similar message. If the troubles were to end, then the Matar Kubileya–the Mother of the Mountain—must be carried to Rome.
So, the delegation was created, and the five envoys, the Quinqueremes, were elected, a ship commissioned, staff assigned, and two dozen soldiers organized for the mission. It was simple really, first to Delphi to verify what the Oracle had said, then to Pergamon to petition King Attalus, and then on to Pessinus where we would retrieve the relics of Cybele—whatever was needed to symbolize her worship—and a handful of her priests to administer her temple. As long as King Attalus agreed, and Attalus had long been Rome’s greatest ally and stood with her against Carthage.
I was a respected man back then, a former quaestor, I may have been the youngest member of the delegation, but all of Rome knew the name of Marcus Valerius Falto. The other delegates were just as renown; Marcus Valerius Laevinus, the former Consul of Sicily; Marcus Caecilius Metellus who had disgraced himself at Cannae, but then through hard work had somehow rehabilitated himself; Servius Sulpicius Galba, former Proconsul; and my fellow former quaestor, Gnaeus Tremelius Flaccus. We were known to each other as well, though not as familiar as we should have been. Rome has always been bigger than her citizens, and no one could know everyone. We may not have been friends, but we were committed to the saving of Rome.
It was during the first few days of the voyage that I familiarized myself with the worship of Cybele. It wasn’t particularly necessary, but I thought perhaps it would be useful, and being that one of the slaves that accompanied our delegation was a Greek well-versed in the study of religious rites, I pursued it. First, he explained the myths of Cybele. The Greeks had conflated her with Rhea and a few other female deities, and as such her imagery was associated with eagles and lions, but these were not her original companions. To see her true origin, one needed only to look at her consort and son, the shepherd-god Attis. In the old country, amidst the black mountains of Phrygia she was the Mountain Mother, and she was attended by her flock of he-goats, who drew sustenance from her multitude of bountiful breasts.
What’s more is that originally, Cybele was known as Agdistis, and was a child of Zeus. Agdistis was both male and female and its madness and strength was such that even Zeus was afraid. When Agdistis danced amidst the sacred mountains the earth itself shook, and the gods feared that she would spawn a new generation of Titans. To prevent this, they tricked Agdistis into self-castration. The piece of bloody flesh fell to earth and from it grew an almond tree. From this tree the water nymph Nana plucked a seed and held it to her breast, where it burrowed inside of her. Nana became pregnant and gave birth to Attis. Ashamed of the child, Nana left it in the woods to die, but Agdistis, now Cybele sent a he-goat to nurture it. Finally, a shepherd found the child, adopted him, and raised him as a shepherd. All the while Cybele watched him grow more and more beautiful, until inevitably she fell in love with him. On the day of his wedding Cybele fell from the sky as a black stone, landing on the slope of Mount Ida. From there she made her way to Attis and in front of the entire wedding party revealed her true self. The women in attendance went mad with fright, while the men cut off their manhood and offered it to her as sacrifice. Only Attis escaped and fled to the mountains. Alone, the memory of the true form of his mother slowly drove him insane, and he too castrated himself and then slit his own throat. But Attis was a demi-god and could not be killed in such a manner. His body would not lie still, it would not decay, the wounds healed, and he rose up. He was the mad shepherd god who accepted his fate and became companion to the goddess Cybele, who loved him despite the fact that he was a eunuch.
There were a variety of legends and lore surrounding Attis. A favorite parable of Panos, the Greek slave, was the story of Haita who learns that true happiness can only be achieved through ignorance. This was a fundamental teaching of the cult, that knowledge was a dangerous path to tread, for it led to dark places that men would be better off not seeing. Better to be a farmer, a shepherd or a hunter than a philosopher or a scholar. Amongst the backwater Greeks who had seen their own culture supplanted by that of Rome, it was an attractive philosophy. What could be better for a bunch of inbred goat herds than a religion that said that simplicity and farming was the way to salvation?
To me such nonsense, the pursuit of ignorance, a philosophy that failed to explore and understand the world around it was pure madness. It was our pursuit of knowledge that separated civilized men, whether they be from Rome or not, from the primitives like the Troglodyti and Icthyophagi. It would be a betrayal of the gods themselves to discard what you knew to be true in pursuit of a happy lie. Yet that was what the priests of Cybele and Attis seemed to teach. And now Rome herself was looking to embrace the cult.
The voyage from Rome to Delphi was uneventful. The soldiers had their training exercises, I had my studies, and the other Quinqueremes spent the voyage reading or singing. These distractions filled some of the time, but most of the days and evenings were spent watching the wine-dark sea with its bountiful schools of fish, playful dolphin, and mysterious, unknown shadows that seemed always to follow us at a distance. Birds followed us the entire way, and while some grew tired of their incessant screeching, I and other seasoned sailors knew that the presence of such creatures was a good omen. If they were ever to abandon us it would surely mean some doom was descending upon our small expedition.
It was at Kirra that I detected the first hint of trouble. There at the gateway port to Delphi waited a contingent of warriors, with shields bearing the symbol of Cybele herself. As we sailed closer, we could see that there were a half dozen of the armed worshippers of the goddess called the Korybantes. They waited for us on the dock, their swords drawn, their crested helmets swaying in the sea breeze, and a strange drumming coming from within their ranks. Behind them stood three men dressed in yellow, their faces and hair made up like garish women. Panos, the slave who had studied foreign religions, identified them as Galli, castrated priests of Attis who as the consort of Cybele, served her as well.
As we approached, our own soldiers prepared for battle, their swords were drawn and some assumed stances to repel boarders, while others readied themselves to leap onto the quay. But then, at the last second, as the ship slid into her berth the bellicose reception suddenly knelt down. They took a knee and saluted us, their swords crashing against their shields in a cacophonous display of bravado and allegiance. Even the Galli swooned before us dramatically. Panos laughed and told how some called the Galli the Non-Kings in Yellow, for in many places while they held positions of power and influence, they were not men nor women, and therefore could not bear the titles of King or Queen.
After our own guards confirmed that the welcoming party meant us no harm, we disembarked and began the trek up the mountains to Delphi and the Oracle. There was some grumbling over this, as Metellus would have preferred waiting for the next morning, and therefore being able to partake of the local pleasantries. I admit that it would have been nice to sleep in a real bed, and eat fresh food, but the Oracle was waiting for us, she had an urgent message that all portents said must be delivered before the next day dawned, Accommodations had been made for us to spend the night in Delphi, and then set sail the next day.
So, we began the trek to Delphi, the Korybantes leading the way, the five emissaries on horseback, the Galli behind us, and the Roman guard in the rear. The climb was steep and followed a road well-worn from centuries of use. It was unpaved and surrounded on one side by large boulders and then the cliff wall, on the other side was a nearly sheer drop that overlooked a green and fertile valley full of small farms. Amongst the fields we could see what one would expect so far from any real metropolis. The scene was pastoral, with simple famers laboring behind yoked oxen. Goats and swine roamed along the banks of a small river that bisected the valley and led up the sloping mountain. The ribbon of silver led to a small cluster of buildings, just barely visible on the gray stone head overlooking the vale. That was our destination, the village of Delphi, and above it, the rocky crag that marked the entrance to the temple where Pythia spoke her prophecies and wisdom.
As we moved up that ancient track the Galli raised their voices in song. It started at first as a low hum, a kind of diffuse rhythmic droning that I could feel even inside my chest. Then the whistling began, a shrill foreign tune that pierced the stillness of the idyllic countryside and set us all on edge. Which apparently was the point, for soon after the Korybantes joined in, adding a rhythmic beating of their swords against their shields. It took me a moment, but I soon realized that the purpose of the tune was two-fold. For while the voices of the Galli were finally added to invoke their Attis and Cybele, the pace of our party had quickened, it was a marching tune that these strange priests sang, assuring that we reached our destination in a timely manner.
Even in the heat of the mid-day sun the warrior-priests maintained their pace, beating out a tune in time with their step. We must have been a magnificent sight: the armored Korybantes festooned in vibrant, green plumes; the Quinqueremes in their white and purple robes; the frenetic yellow Galli; and the guards in their red-tinged armor. We crawled up the mountain road like some kind of garish, giant worm which nothing, not even the eagles of the gods dared to molest. By the time we reached the pinnacle, marching past the small village of Delphi even we on horseback were filled with a kind of euphoria. We had been seduced by the elation of our escort, infected by their jubilation, and we smiled and laughed as the temple itself came in view.
Officially, Pythia, the Oracle at Delphi was a worshiper of the god Apollo, but it was not always so, and there amidst the white carved columns one could see the remnants of former divinities who had held sway there. There were images of Poseidon, Rhea, Themis and Phoebe, but the dominant image was that of Gaia. It was only then that I remembered the legend of Coretas, the goat-herder who saw his flock enter this very crack in the mountain and come out behaving in the strangest of ways. Following their lead, he himself entered the great chasm and found himself filled with the spirit of the divine Gaia. Like a god he could see not only the present, but the past and the future as well, and the threads that led from one to the next. Not only that, but he could even see outside, envisioning not only the threads, but the weave itself, the very fabric of the world that was, that had been, and would be. So, the oracle had been established, as first a Temple of the Earth Mother by a shepherd. It was only later that the women took on the role of seer.
But that was only legend, but a legend enshrined in the very stone of the temple. I stared at the great multi-horned goat heads emblazoned on the walls commemorating the memory of Coretas, and then looked at the small, stylized symbols that the Galli wore to honor their shepherd god Attis. I looked at these and could not help but wonder at the coincidence. Such speculation was short-lived, and I dismissed it completely. Along the rocky coast of the Mediterranean every tribe had their goat-herder legends, and one could barely throw a stick without hitting a devotee of some capran deity or another.
As we dismounted, we were greeted by hosioi—holy ones—whose fine robes bore the symbol of Apollo and wore kid gloves dyed with saffron. They welcomed us in the name of the oracle and offered to make our retinue comfortable while the Quinqueremes went for an audience. There was a moment of protest, but only a moment, for it was apparent that the words of the priestess were only for our ears. We were shown to a crack in the side of the mountain from which a terrible stench emanated. It was not unlike the smell of rotting flesh, or the smoking of meat, and I remembered that some of the legends told of how Apollo banished two great snakes, pythons, from the cavern, but the stink of their foulness still lingered, a cursed memory that would never fade.
Into the chamber we descended, our way lit by flickering torches embedded in the walls our sandaled feet uneasy on the rough-hewn steps. Down we went, and with each measure the light of the outside world faded, and we were left only with the regularly spaced but uneven flames of oil-soaked torches to keep the dark at bay. Even with those flames belching forth soot and smoke the rotted-flesh stink of the cavern grew ever stronger, until it permeated all of our senses and we could taste the filth on our tongues, and our eyes stung and wept in vain. Finally, when the air itself seemed to grow thick and waver in front of our eyes the steps ceased, and the chasm widened into a great chamber where sat a smoking cauldron upon a tripod of bronze, behind which sat the cloaked and veiled Pythia. She was an old woman, an honored mother, clad in the symbolic robes that bound her to the gods. To look at what sat there, huddled around the smoking brazier, I thought for sure she must have been at least five decades older than I, for she had the appearance of an ancient crone, bent and wrinkled with strings of gray hair laying in plaits across her face. Her eyes were large, like deep watery pools with flecks of light glinting back from the murky depths.
She lifted one claw-like hand and gestured for us to approach. The hosoi silently urged us forward. and with cautious steps we made our way into her presence, taking seats around her smoking brazier. She stared at us with those deep eyes, and I felt as if she were looking into my very soul and seeing all the good and all the evil that had been gathered over my years on Earth and knew where in Hades my soul would dwell. She smiled a wicked toothless grin, as if she could hear my thoughts and then threw back her shawl revealing the deep and ancient wrinkles that creased her face.
“Rome faces a foreign army from the south but marching from the north and west. I have seen the paths that lead from this point, and if Mother Rome is to survive, she must embrace a new faith. The Mountain Mother Cybele must be taken from her temple at the Mountain and transported to Rome. This must be done. I have seen all the threads laid out, only this one path holds any future for you and yours.” She paused and let out a long sigh. “It will not be an easy path and precautions must be taken if you are to be successful.”
It was Metellus that dared to speak a question, “What kind of precautions?”
The hag waved a hand through the smoke that poured from the brazier, as if seeing something through the haze and heat. “The priests in Pessinus are treacherous things you must not go to meet with them, and yet you must. Do you understand? The five of you must be there but to be there will mean your death. I can see that much. You must be present, but you must not be as you are now. The Priests are cunning and treacherous. you must be more so.”
Metellus opened his mouth to speak again but she waved a crooked finger to silence him. “Afterwards, you will need the Korybantes and the Galli that accompanied you here. They can be trusted. They will fill a most needed role, after what is done is done. They will travel with you, but they must not journey with you to Pessinus.” She rolled her head back. “That must be clear. Your Galli and Korybantes must not accompany you to Pessinus.” With that, the priestess motioned and the prophetai came forward and gestured for us to follow. The old woman waved us away. “You must not go as you are Marcus Valerius Falto, not as you are!”
Even now I can remember that strange, cackling voice as it called after me to obey her pronouncements. Why I was singled out I could not say, but I was, and her words rang in my ears. Even as I lay in my bed at the guest house, I could not get her admonishment out of my head, and I stared at the ceiling trying to understand what the old seer had meant. Even during our trip back down the mountain and then that first day back on the ship, it was all I could think about.
It haunted me for days, even as we came before King Attalus at Pergamon and asked for his permission to take the goddess Cybele from her temple and carry her to Rome. Attalus was pleased to see us and acquiesced to our request almost immediately. Despite the fact that he ruled Phrygia he was in actuality of Greek descent and traced his lineage back to Alexander the Great. He ruled these people, but he was not one of them. He did not care if Cybele went to Rome. It was an honor of sorts, or so he said. We spent the night there in his modest palace, and for the first time in days, lulled by wine and fine food, sleep welcomed me into her arms.
It was the next morning that we began the last leg of our journey, and we left the Korybantes and Galli behind. If the horseback ride to Delphi was idyllic, the trek to Pessinus was grueling and unnerving. The road we traveled was surrounded by black shards of rock that had tumbled down off the shattered peaks that lined both sides. When I say road, I am being generous, it was little more than a trail littered with sand, pebbles and scraggly vegetation. How such flora could gain a foothold in the rocks that lined the way I could not understand, but it did, and those branches covered with black thorns attested to the harsh reality of living in such unforgiving terrain.
It was to combat that frigid wind that the soldiers brought out from their packs their heavy cloaks and offered the extras they had to the five envoys. Outfitted such I looked around and laughed out loud, for it was nearly impossible to tell one of us from another. The others joined in my mirth, for my observation was accurate, and even the senior officers cracked a smile. It was during this moment of frivolity that I suddenly understood the words of Pythia and I knew at once how we would meet with the priests of Cybele.
We marched into Pessinus on schedule and were greeted by representatives of the king that had been sent up the night before. It had all been arranged. We would meet with the priests after sundown and participate in a rite of transference. We would be on our way back down the mountain by morning. It was all very familiar, but I suspected that tonight’s ceremony would not be as pleasant as that we had endured in Delphi. We were meant to be resting, and this we did, but we also prepared ourselves. Armors and weapons were concealed beneath cloaks. Soldiers were taught to speak as orators and given the details of what Rome expected. By the time sun set in the west we were prepared, or at least we hoped we were.
At the proscribed time we were led to the Temple of Cybele. There were ten of us in the party five soldiers disguised as the envoys, and five envoys dressed as soldiers. The remaining troops we left behind in the place provided for them. Our escorts were yellow-robed Galli their faces painted with rouge and indigo hues, and they whispered in a language I didn’t recognize. We were led out of the village and to the temple. The low stone structure was lit by hundreds of torches and from the small hill overlooking it I could see that the place took the form of an open-air labyrinth built from stone. There was a flooded moat around the entire temple, and stairs that descended through a gate and into the waters. I assumed that this was part of the ceremony, with supplicants entering the waters, and presumably being made pure before making their way through the maze, and then into the presence of the Cybele herself.
Waiting for us at the entryway was one of the high priests, whom we were told was entitled Batakkes, and was the lesser of the two Archgalli. He danced around us in the most peculiar and flamboyant of ways, sprinkling us with sanctified oils and chanting prayers to both Attis and Cybele. It was a ridiculous ceremony but part of their ritual, and I was relieved when it ended with a thunderous clap. The Batakkes then pointed the way through the gate towards his brother Archgalli who used the title Attis to honor the god they served.
Into that cold and black water, we walked, single file, with pseudo-envoy, followed by pseudo-soldier until all ten of us were immersed in the sanctifying pool. It was then that the expected trap was sprung, for from hidden alcoves on both sides more than a dozen Galli stepped forward with spears of bronze and leveled them at our heads. We were ordered to disarm, and having no choice, fumbled underwater to loosen our belts and drop our still sheathed swords at the feet of our captors.
We were then marched forward at spear point, the Attis leading the way. We moved through that labyrinth at a dizzying pace and were given no opportunity to gain our bearings. Finally, we were forced, almost pushed, into the great central chamber where the Battakes was waiting for us. We were forced to kneel as the secondary high priest pulled back a curtain to reveal his goddess. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw, for the image of Cybele was unlike any other I had ever seen. I had expected a great statue carved from white marble of some stern-faced woman, or failing that, a grotesque Madonna, a bloated mother with dozens of teats, but what sat there on the altar was neither of these. Instead, there was a rock, small enough to be carried by a single hand, but much larger than a fist. It was black and somewhat triangular in shape and covered in queer depressions and pockmarks. I had seen something like it before, amongst the prized possessions of philosophers who claimed they were fallen bits of the sky.
“Behold the goddess Cybele!” Announced the Attis with a flourish. “You Roman dogs wanted to see her, to take her from us, but we will never allow that. Tomorrow we shall leave this place and carry our Great Mother with us. We will go into the mountains, beyond the mountains and into the wilderness. We will go where Rome and her puppet kings cannot follow.” His eyes were wide, and I could see that an ecstatic frenzy had seized him. “But first we shall show you the power of our Great Mother!”
He pulled out a knife and gestured at one of our number who was immediately seized by three Galli. There was a brief struggle, for the soldier dressed as a Quinqueremes knew that knives in the hands of madmen were never a good thing, but that struggle ended quickly with the flat of a spear to the back of the head. He fell forward but his captors jerked him backwards and threw him onto a stone table. The knife-wielding holy man strode forward and as he did the captive’s tunic was raised up. The knife stabbed and slashed, the soldier screamed. The priest smiled and pulled. Blood poured out from between his legs and splattered across the floor. The victim shuddered and collapsed.
There was something bloody and horrible in the priest’s hand, and the rest of us gasped in disgust as he showed the mass of flesh to those in the room. He marched back toward the altar. He was speaking, chanting, invoking Cybele and as he reached the object of his worship held out the thing in his hand and squeezed. There was blood, blood and something else that dripped out and covered the stone in the most vital of human fluids. They bubbled there, they bubbled, and the priest chanted, and his chanting grew louder and louder. The bubbling continued, and there formed a single great sphere, opaque and viscous. It swelled and pulsed in time with the chanting of the priest. It grew and grew and grew until it was bigger than a man’s head, bigger even than the head of a cow. It was a horrid gelatinous thing that squirmed and bulged as it grew ever bigger. Then the priest howled and plunged his hands into the thing.
He tore into that veined and repulsive sack. Something squealed. His body blocked my line of sight, but when he turned, he held in his hand in infant, obviously a man-child, but one that had features no man ever had before. Instead of feet, it had hooves and legs of a goat. Its head was long and thin, and a wild mane of tentacles like those of a squid, encircled its face. It stared at us with cold, black eyes and I knew it was more than a man, and more than man could ever hope to understand.
The priest raised the tiny thing up over his head and spoke with pride. “Behold the Black Goat, the child of the Great Mother!”
And then the creature opened its mouth and spoke! I, and my compatriots covered our ears but even so that divine voice and those unknowable words, drilled into our brains and forced us to the ground. In contrast, the Galli fell to their knees in awe and raised up their voices in adoration. While we writhed in agony they reveled in ecstasy. While blood poured from our ears, light seemed to emanate from their eyes and mouths. I was sure we were about to die.
And then I saw the arrows.
Our rescuers were right on time, the guards we had left behind had stormed the temple. They had come to our salvation by running across the top of the maze rather than through it. As for how they were able to stand against that horrible voice, I could see that their ears were filled with globs off beeswax, a solution pioneered by Odysseus himself, though how they knew to do that left me bewildered. The attack of our men was a slaughter. The spears of the Galli were no match for Roman bows. Even the Battakes fell, a wooden shaft embedded in his throat. Gasping and pleading he drowned in his own blood.
The Attis, who somehow had survived the first volley of arrows, attempted to flee, cradling the newborn demi-god in his arms, but he hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he froze in his tracks. Six Korybantes, their swords drawn, entered the fray and began to slaughter the remaining Galli. The Attis panicked and threw the swaddled child at his attackers. I thought they would catch the thing, after all it was the offspring of their goddess, but instead one of them simply batted it away with a shield. It plummeted to the ground and whimpered as it rolled to a stop. Another warrior priest stalked over to it and without a pause, crushed its head beneath a heavy, armored, boot. The Priest screamed and turned to run, but another soldier was waiting for him. A sword slipped into the priest’s belly with a well-practiced thrust, and he died with a gasping breath, just as more Galli marched in.
I reached for a weapon, but a hand from one of my friends touched my shoulder. Like the Korybantes, these new Galli were those that we had brought with us from Delphi. We had left them behind in Pergamon so as to fulfill the warnings of the seer, but they had known better. They had not been barred from making the journey to Pessinus, only from traveling with us. It was then that I realized that this had been part of the plan all along. Our mission had been designed to wipe out the priests that resided here and replace them with those of Pythia’s choosing. This was a religious conflict, one that Rome had just taken part in, and while just one of our men was gravely injured, a rival sect had been wiped away.
With minimal conversation the loyal Galli and Korybantes went about securing the area, gathering up the implements of worship and the artifacts needed to maintain a new Temple of Cybele. The stone itself was gently picked up with gloved hands and placed in a box of cedar decorated in yellow with the symbols of her faith. As we marched out of that unholy temple, our loot carried by priests, our wounded carried by a pair of Korybantes, we doused the bodies of the dead with oil and set them aflame.
We did not stay the night in Pessinus. We went down the mountain by torchlight the jackals and wolves howling as we marched with our swords drawn and our legs as heavy as lead. We reached Pergamon by dawn, and messengers implored us to meet with the king, but we did no such thing. We boarded our vessel and set sail for Rome. I half-expected royal soldiers to stop us, or a navy vessel to pursue us, but no such thing occurred. We left Phrygia without incident. A day out to sea and a small ship flying the symbol of the Pythian Oracle intercepted us. She took me to Rome to explain to the Decemviri Sacrorum what had happened to us, and what monstrosity my fellows would be bringing home. When I gave my report, they simply dismissed me without so much as a word of thanks or a note of trepidation. It was as if they knew what was coming.
When my fellow envoys came home, I watched from afar as the boat bearing the goddess Cybele entered the port and was hauled up the canal that leads to Rome. They filled her arrival with pomp and circumstance and made her entry into the city a spectacle. The Korybantes and Galli were greeted with adulation, but no mention was ever made that these priests were not from Phrygia. The completion of her temple was marked with a month-long festival. The artisans revealed a magnificent, seated statue of her, one not unlike that of Juno or Minerva. It was a massive thing of white stone, flanked with two great eagles, but instead of a face they installed that rock in its place, which stared out of her temple like some horrible triangular eye. Indeed, the stone gained the name the Eye of Cybele, and it watched like a cyclopean thing.
I could not stand the sight of it, and I moved to the countryside, where I could be alone, and the locals have worshipped the gods of Rome for millennia. But my sleep is still restless, and I find it wise that no Roman Citizen may become a priest of Cybele or Attis. Castration as an initiation rite cannot be allowed, for I have seen what terrible things result from such a sacrifice, and fear for Rome itself if it were to be allowed. After all these years, the populace still refers to that stone as the Eye of Cybele, but I know what that piece of rock truly is.
The eye of Cybele? No, my friend, that is not the eye of a goddess. It is her womb! And it waits patiently until once more it is made fertile and bears forth titans that men, and even the gods, might tremble before.