Korybantes

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Corybantes (English pronunciation: /ˌkɒr.ɪˈb nt.iːz/, Ancient Greek: Κορύβαντες) were the armed and crested dancers who worshipped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia, and Corybants in an older English transcription. The Kuretes were the nine dancers who venerate Rhea, the Cretan counterpart of Cybele, Mother of the Gods. A fragment from Strabo, book vii, gives a sense of the roughly analogous character of these male confraternities, and the confusion rampant among those not initiated: