Homeric Hymn 14: To the Mother of the Gods
A 6-line hymn to Cybele, the Great Mother — the only Homeric Hymn addressed to a deity of Near Eastern origin, evoking her ecstatic worship with rattles, timbrels, flutes, lions, and wolves.
About the Poem
The fourteenth Homeric Hymn is a complete 6-line invocation to the Mother of the Gods — the deity known as Cybele (Κυβέλη), Meter (Μήτηρ), or the Great Mother (Μεγάλη Μήτηρ), a goddess of Near Eastern/Phrygian origin who entered Greek religion by at least the 7th century BCE. This is the only Homeric Hymn addressed to a deity not originally Greek, making it remarkable evidence for the early integration of Anatolian religious traditions into the Greek world.
The hymn evokes the characteristic features of the Great Mother’s ecstatic cult: rattles (κρόταλα), timbrels (τύμπανα), flutes (αὐλοί), and above all the outcry of wolves and lions — the wild animals sacred to the goddess of untamed nature. Her domain is mountains and wooded gorges, echoing hills and shady groves.
Complete Text
Greek (Homeric)
Μητέρα μοι πάντων τε θεῶν πάντων τ’ ἀνθρώπων ὕμνει, Μοῦσα λίγεια, Διὸς θύγατερ μεγάλοιο, ᾗ κροτάλων τυπάνων τ’ ἰαχὴ σύν τε βρόμος αὐλῶν εὔαδεν, ἠδὲ λύκων κλαγγὴ χαροπῶν τε λεόντων, οὔρεά τ’ ἠχήεντα καὶ ὑλήεντες ἄγκοι. καὶ σύ μεν οὕτω χαῖρε θεαί θ’ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἀοιδῇ.
(Full Greek text at Perseus Digital Library, link below.)
English (Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914 — public domain)
[1] I prithee, clear-voiced Muse, daughter of mighty Zeus, sing of the mother of all gods and men. She is well-pleased with the sound of rattles and of timbrels, with the voice of flutes and the outcry of wolves and bright-eyed lions, with echoing hills and wooded coombes.
And so hail to you in my song and to all goddesses as well!
Cybele: The Great Mother
The Mother of the Gods was one of the most important deities of Phrygia (central Anatolia), known in her homeland as Matar Kubileya (“Mother of the Mountain”). Her cult entered Greece through trade and cultural contact across the Aegean. By the 5th century BCE she had a sanctuary in Athens (Metroon) in the Agora, and by the 3rd century BCE Rome had officially imported her cult (204 BCE) as the Magna Mater with great ceremony.
Her ecstatic worship — conducted by wandering priests called Galli who sometimes castrated themselves in her service, accompanied by the deafening percussion of timbrels and cymbals — was considered quintessentially “foreign” and Eastern by Greek observers, yet deeply compelling. Pindar, Euripides (The Bacchae), and Catullus (Poem 63) all engage with her worship.
The identification with Rhea (Zeus’s mother who hid him from Cronos) was common in Greek syncretism: both were mountain goddesses associated with lions, the wild, and the pre-Olympian generation of the divine.
The Sacred Animals
The wolves and lions in the hymn are not merely decorative. They are the goddess’s attendants — wild predators who submit to her divine sovereignty. The same image appears in Hymn 5 (To Aphrodite, line 69–74), where wolves, lions, bears, and leopards fawn on Aphrodite on Mount Ida. In Cybele’s case, lions pulling her chariot were a standard iconographic feature: she is depicted on countless reliefs and coins riding or flanked by lions.
Citations
- Evelyn-White, H. G. (trans.). Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Loeb Classical Library 57. Harvard University Press, 1914. Public domain. https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomericHymns3.html
- Roller, Lynn E. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. University of California Press, 1999.
- Vermaseren, Maarten J. Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult. Thames and Hudson, 1977.
- Catullus, Poem 63 (Attis). Parallel Latin poem on Cybele’s worship. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0003:poem=63
- Perseus Digital Library, Homeric Hymns (Greek text): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0137:hymn=14