CYBELE (Latin) or Kybele (Greek) is the Greek and Roman name given to a female deity of Anatolian origin whose worship was widely disseminated throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. The deity's name in her homeland was Matar, or Mother; in some cases this was modified by the Phrygian epithet Kybeliya, meaning "mountain," the source of the term Cybele. The Greeks and Romans also addressed the goddess as Mother (Meter in Greek, Mater in Latin), and the epithet Megale (Greek) or Magna (Latin), meaning "great," was frequently used, causing her to become known as the "Great Mother." Both the name and the visual image of the goddess first appear in Phrygia, in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), during the early first millennium BCE and spread from there, first to the Greek cities on the west coast of Anatolia, and then to mainland Greece and to Greek cities in the western...