Cybele: Gender and Ethnic Identity in The Aeneid

John Makowski (Loyola University, Chicago)

Cybele, most un-Roman of goddesses both in nature and in cult, plays a surprisingly prominent role in Rome’s national epic, a major theme of which is, of course, religion in the service of Roman identity. From the time of her introduction in 204 B.C. to the time of Augustus her cult, though trimmed of Asiatic excesses, was an accepted part of state religion, which included her temple on the Palatine next door to the house of Augustus. The exotic and un-Roman elements of the cult, in the main suppressed by the government, did find expression, nevertheless, in two of Vergil’s immediate predecessors, Lucretius and Catullus, who highlight the cult’s features of self-castrating eunuchs, religious frenzy, and other elements distasteful to Roman sensibilities. It is instructive, therefore, to examine Vergil’s purpose in his emphasis on the Magna Mater and his reinvention of her, as he transforms her from Phrygian patroness of the Trojans to virtual Roman tutelary goddess—a transformation paralleled, indeed, by Augustus’s own manipulation of religion that included the exaltation of Cybele on the Ara Pacis.

Phrygian Cybele comes into play at several crucial junctures in The Aeneid, among them, Creusa’s death in Book 2, the vision of future Rome (Berecyntia mater) in 6, the strange ship episode in 9, and Aeneas’s prayer to her in 10. In some ways she is an analog to Venus the loving mother. Her Asian identity, however, is not problem-free, because those very elements in her cult that offended traditional Roman sensibilities find expression passim in the poem, for example, in charges of Phrygian effeminacy thrown out by Iarbas, Numanus, and Turnus. For Aeneas and the Trojans this obstacle of ethnic identity finds resolution when Juno’s plea in Book 12 meets Jupiter’s assent that Roman identity will prevail in speech and dress. Cybele herself in the course of The Aeneid remains always the Asian, but as the alma parens Idaea deum, she is first patroness of Troy and then savior of Aeneas and, by implication, of Rome. Thus, it is no accident that she linguistically and poetically becomes thoroughly Romanized so as to take her place along side Venus her fellow genetrix and Apollo her fellow savior. In this amalgamation of Cybele into the Roman pantheon Vergil poetically echoes the message of the art and architecture of Augustus’s own religions dispensation. The emperor, after all, had on the Palatine a Phrygian for neighbor.