Cybele processing through Rome, with her lions and frame drum.
Cybele was an Anatolian Great Mother Goddess. The Romans were losing the Punic wars against Carthage. Tanit, the lion Goddess of Carthage was too strong. So the Romans sent to Phrygia for Cybele. Cybele arrived in Rome in 204 BCE, the war was won, and Cybele became one of the chief deities of Rome. St Peters Cathedral in the Vatican is built on the site of Her temple.
"Roman emperors like Augustus, Claudius, and Antonius Pius regarded her as the supreme deity of the empire. Augustus established his home facing her temple, and looked upon his wife, the empress Livia Augusta, as an earthly incarnation of her." (source)
When Cybele moved to Rome, she brought Attis along, her tragic son/lover, whose self-mutilation, death and resurrection represent the fruits of the earth dying in winter only to rise again in the spring. Roman reports of the rituals of Cybele record that an effigy of Attis would be tied to a tree and then buried. After three days, "a light was said to appear in the burial tomb, whereupon Attis rose from the dead, bringing salvation with him in his rebirth." (source)
Barbara G. Walker writes, "There was Christian sect founded in the 2nd century A.D. by Montanus (Mountain man), a priest of Cybele, who identified Attis with Christ. Montanus maintained that women were agents of the Goddess and could preach and prophesy as well as men. This contradicted the orthodox Pauline sect, which followed St. Peter's rule that women must never speak publicly on holy subjects. During the 4th century, Montanist Christianity was declared a heresy, and many of its adherents were slain. Some Montanists in Asia Minor were locked in their churches and burned alive." (source)
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