Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

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The Kdbeiroi or Megdloi Theoi
terious powers were Thracian deities called Kdbeiroihy Phoenician
traders and Megdloi Theoi by Hellenic settlers. I further agree
with Miss Harrison's acute surmise that their triad included ' one
woman the Mother, two males, the Father and the Son— older
and younger forms of each others' I take it that Axiokersa was
the Mother, Axiokersos the Father, and Axieros the son^ conceived
as a rebirth of the Father. The names bear witness to the vitality
of the very ancient axe-cult in the northern islands of the Aegean ^
Axiokersa appears to ' mean She that is cleft with the Axe,' Axio-
prehistoric times the worship of Dionysos-Sabazios with his Satyrs and of Bendis-
Hekate with her Maenads spread from Thrace to the neighbouring islands Thasos, Samo-
thrace, Imbros, Lemnos. These two Thracian deities with their respective irpoTroKoi.
formed the indigenous element of the cult in question. (2) Phoenician merchants brought
to some of the Thracian islands their own Kdbeiroi or ' Great Ones,' seven gods serving an
eighth named Esmun (Philon 'RyhX. frag. 2. 27 {Frag. hist. Gr. iii. 569 Miiller) ap. Euseb.
praep. ev. i. 10. 38, Damaskios v. Isid. ap. Phot. bibl. p. 352 b 11 ff. Bekker). The
islanders identified Esmun with the Thracian Dionysos-Sabazios and the Kdbeiroi with
his trpbTToKoi.. Hence Dionysos-Sabazios acquired the Phoenician title of Esmun
Kadtiiilos, and Bendis-Hekate came to be called Kabeiro. (3) Hellenic settlers came to
Samothrace with the Eleusinian cult of Demeter, Kore, Hades. This trio was installed
beside Kadniilos, the resultant quartette being henceforward called by the Phoenician name
Kdbeiroi or its Greek equivalent Megdloi Theoi. Finally, the name Kdbeiroi degenerated
into an appellation of the wpdiroXoi.
12 L. R. Farnell 'Kabeiroi' in J. Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
Edinburgh 1914 vii. 628—632 independently of Pettazzoni suggests the following sequence
of events :
' Phoenician traders may have found an aboriginal mystery-cult in this remote
and inaccessible island [Samothrace] ; they may have attached their own descriptive title
" Kabeirim," "the mighty ones," to the divinities that they found in the island, because
this corresponded to some local divine appellative that the later Greeks translated by the
phrase ol fxeydXoi deoi; then, through the spread of Phoenician trade, the Semitic name for
the island deities acquired permanent vogue '
(tb. p. 628). Dr Farnell holds that ' the
original Samothracian trio' included, not only an elder and a younger god, later identified
with the Dioskouroi, but also a ' female earth-spirit, conceived as earth-mother or earth-
bride ' and ' subordinate to the male principle of divinity ' (ib. p. 630).
^'^ Miss J. E. Harrison in The Year's Work in Class. Stud, igij p. 76 f.
^ Ead. ib. p. 77.
^ This does not square with schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 917 cod. Laur. (ed. H. Keil Lipsiae
1854) fivoCvTai de kclI fp rrj 2a/xo9pq.K-[i tois Ka/3ei'pois, ws Mvaireas (prjal (frag. 27 [Frag.
hist. Gr. iii. 154 Miiller))- Koi to, dvbfiara avrwv 5 tov apidixbv, 'A^Lepos 'A^iOKepaa
A^i6k€p