[21] But Acusilaus, the Argive, mentions a Camillus, the son of Cabeira and Vulcan; who had three sons, Cabeiri, (and three daughters,) the Nymphs Cabeirides.1 According to Pherecydes, there sprung from Apollo and Rhetia nine Corybantes, who lived in Samothrace; that from Cabeira, the daughter of Proteus and Vulcan, there were three Cabeiri, and three Nymphs, Cabeirides, and that each had their own sacred rites. But it was at Lemnos and Imbros that the Cabeiri were more especially the objects of divine worship, and in some of the cities of the Troad; their names are mystical. Herodotus2 mentions, that there were at Memphis temples of the Cabeiri as well as of Vulcan, which were destroyed by Cambyses. The places where these demons received divine honours are uninhabited, as Corybantium in the territory Hamaxitia belonging to the country of the Alexandrians, near Sminthium;3 and Corybissa in the Scepsian territory about the river Eureis, and a village of the same name, and the winter torrent Æthaloeïs.4 The Scepsian says, that it is probable that the Curetes and Corybantes are the same persons, who as youths and boys were employed to perform the armed dance in the worship of the mother of the gods. They were called Corybantes5 from their dancing gait, and butting with their head (κοοͅύπτοντας） by the poet they were called βητάπμονες, “‘Come hither, you who are the best skilled Betarmones among the Phæacians.’6” Because the Corybantes are dancers, and are frantic, we call those persons by this name whose movements are furious.
1 According to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhod., Arg. 5, 917 persons were initiated into the mysteries of the Cabeiri in Samothrace. The Cabeiri were four in number; Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, and Casmilos. Axieros corresponded to Demeter or Ceres, Axiokersa to Persephone or Proserpine, Axiokersos to Hades or Pluto, and Casmilos to Hermes or Mercury. See Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrace, T. W. I. Schelling, 1815; and the Classical Journal, vol. xiv. p. 59.
2 Herod. iii. 37.
3 Probably a temple of Apollo Smintheus.
4 Corybissa, Eureis, and Æthaloeïs are unknown.
5 They were called Curetes because they were boys, and κονρήτες μὲν ἀπὰ τοῦ κόρους εὶ̂ναι καλούμενοι. Groskurd suspects these or similar words to have followed ‘Corybantes.’
6 Od. viii. 250.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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