According toGreek mythology, theKorybantes (/ˌkɒrɪˈbæntiːz/;Ancient Greek:Κορύβαντες), also spelledCorybantes orCorybants, were the armed and crested dancers who worshipped thePhrygian goddessCybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called theKurbantes inPhrygia.
The nameKorybantes is of uncertain etymology. Edzard Johan Furnée andR. S. P. Beekes have suggested aPre-Greek origin.[1][2]
Others refer the name to *κορυβή (korybé), theMacedonian version of κορυφή (koryphé) "crown, top, mountain peak", explaining their association with mountains, particularlyOlympus.[3]
The Korybantes were the offspring ofApollo by either theMuseThalia,[4] or thenymph Rhetia,[5] or the nymphDanais.[6] One account attests the parentage toZeus and the MuseCalliope, or toHelios andAthena, or lastly, toCronus.[7]
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TheKouretes (Κουρῆτες), also spelledKuretes were nine dancers who veneratedRhea, theCretan counterpart ofCybele. A fragment fromStrabo's Book VII[9] gives a sense of the roughly analogous character of these male confraternities, and the confusion rampant among those not initiated:
Many assert that thegods worshipped in Samothrace as well as the Kurbantes and the Korybantes and in like manner the Kouretes and theIdaean Daktyls are the same as theKabeiroi, but as to the Kabeiroi they are unable to tell who they are.
Grant Showerman in theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition addressed the confusion, stating that the Korybantes "are distinguished only [from the Kuretes] by their Asiatic origin and by the more pronouncedly orgiastic nature of their rites".[10]
According toOppian, the Curetes, who had been tasked with guarding the youngZeus, were turned into lions byCronus. Zeus then made them into the kings of the animals, while his motherRhea yoked them to her chariot.[11]
These armored male dancers kept time to a drum and the rhythmic stamping of their feet. Dance, according to Greek thought, was one of the civilizing activities, like wine-making or music. The dance in armor (the "Pyrrhic dance" orpyrrhichios [Πυρρίχη]) was a male coming-of-age initiation ritual linked to a warrior victory celebration. Both Jane Ellen Harrison and the French classicist Henri Jeanmaire[12] have shown that both the Kouretes (Κουρῆτες) and Cretan Zeus, who was called "the greatestkouros (κοῦρος)",[13] were intimately connected with the transition of boys into manhood in Cretan cities.
The English "Pyrrhic Dance" is a corruption of the originalPyrríkhē or thePyrríkhios Khorós "Pyrrhichian Dance". It has no relationship with the kingPyrrhus of Epirus, who invaded Italy in the 3rd century BC, and who gave his name to thePyrrhic victory, which was achieved at such cost that it was tantamount to a defeat.
ThePhrygian Korybantes were often confused by Greeks with other ecstatic male confraternities, such as the IdaeanDactyls or the Cretan Kouretes, spirit-youths (kouroi) who acted as guardians of the infant Zeus. InHesiod's telling of Zeus's birth,[14] when Great Gaia came to Crete and hid the child Zeus in a "steep cave", beneath the secret places of the earth, on Mount Aigaion with its thick forests; there the Cretan Kouretes' ritual clashing spears and shields were interpreted by Hellenes as intended to drown out the infant god's cries, and prevent his discovery by his cannibal fatherCronus. Emily Vermeule observed,
This myth is Greek interpretation of mystifying Minoan ritual in an attempt to reconcile their Father Zeus with the Divine Child of Crete; the ritual itself we may never recover with clarity, but it is not impossible that a connection exists between the Kouretes' weapons at the cave and the dedicated weapons atArkalochori".[15]
Among the offerings recovered from the cave, the most spectacular are decorated bronze shields with patterns that draw upon north Syrian originals and a bronzegong on which a god and his attendants are shown in a distinctly Near Eastern style.[16]
Korybantes also presided over the infancy ofDionysus, another god who was born as a babe, and ofZagreus, a Cretan child of Zeus, or child-doublet of Zeus. The wild ecstasy of their cult can be compared to the femaleMaenads who followed Dionysus.
Ovid, inMetamorphoses, says the Kouretes were born from rainwater (Uranus fertilizingGaia). This suggests a connection with theHyades.
The scholarJane Ellen Harrison writes that besides being guardians, nurturers, and initiators of the infant Zeus, the Kouretes were primitive magicians and seers. She also writes that they were metal workers and that metallurgy was considered an almost magical art.[17] There were several "tribes" of Korybantes, including theCabeiri, the Korybantes Euboioi, the Korybantes Samothrakioi. Hoplodamos and hisGigantes were counted among Korybantes, and theTitanAnytos was considered a Kourete.
Homer referred to select young men askouretes, when Agamemnon instructsOdysseus to pick outkouretes, the bravest among the Achaeans to bear gifts toAchilles.[18] The Greeks preserved a tradition down toStrabo's day, that the Kuretes ofAetolia andAcarnania in mainland Greece had been imported from Crete.[19]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Showerman, Grant (1911). "Corybantes". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 211–212.
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