BOOK III. OF THE DEIFIED PATRIARCHS. HEAD V. OF THE CABEIRI: THEIR NUMBER.

×It were premature, in the present stage of the inquiry, to pronounce upon the number of the Cabeiri, which is nevertheless the point upon which every other question respecting them, whether of their identity with other companies or of the head under which they are to be placed, has been found in the preceding head to depend; and I shall accordingly confine myself, in the first instance, to setting down the witnesses in the order in which they present themselves, to distinguishing what each affirms from what has been added to it by interpreters, and to examining, with such brevity as the subject admits, the means by which it has been proposed to reduce them to one reckoning.¹ That they cannot be so reduced by any means which the places themselves afford, is the conclusion to which I have been led; and I shall endeavour to show that it is not a conclusion merely negative, since it determines at least what the number cannot be assumed to be, until the testimonies have been otherwise reconciled. NB-28-008 NB-26-006

○Of the genealogies which fix a number, the first to be considered is that which Strabo reports from Acusilaus the Argive, who calls Cadmilus the son of Cabeiro and of Vulcan, and Cadmilus the father of three Cabeiri, and these the fathers of the nymphs called Cabeirides (Strab. lib. x.).² Pherecydes, whom Strabo cites in the same place, says that nine Cyrbantes were sprung from Apollo and Rhetia, and that they took up their abode in Samothrace; and that three Cabeiri and three nymphs called Cabeirides were the children of Cabeiro, the daughter of Proteus, and of Vulcan, and that sacred rites were instituted in honour of each triad. In neither genealogy is the number of the Cabeiri more than three; but in the second the Cyrbantes are nine, and are said to have dwelt in the island. Whether the nine are the Cabeiri under another name, or a company beside them, the passage does not say; and the father, who in both is Vulcan, is not the father whom Philo gives, nor either of the fathers whom Strabo assigns to the Corybantes in the place which has been cited under the preceding head. The number is to be ascertained before any identity is affirmed with other companies, and I do not here undertake to ascertain it. NB-52-001

×Clement of Alexandria reports that the Corybantes are called Cabiric, and that the ceremony itself is announced as the Cabiric mystery; and he speaks, in the sentence which follows, of two, who, having taken from its repository the chest in which the symbol of Bacchus was deposited, carried it into Etruria (Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gent. (Protrept.) c. 2).³ So far Mr. Faber is supported, who asserts in his third chapter that these companies are one (Faber, Cabiri, vol. i. ch. iii.). But Clement reports a usage of names; he names neither the Curetes nor the Dioscori; and a name applied to persons is not the same thing as the persons identified. The one fact I take from Mr. Faber; the remainder of his list I leave where it stood. It is, however, to be observed that if the Corybantes whom Clement calls Cabiric are the two of whom he afterwards speaks, the number of the Cabeiri is two; and that if they are a larger company, from whom the two were taken, the number is not given. NB-26-006

×It is not to be overlooked that Strabo himself confesses, in the course of his discussion, that the ancients were not agreed whether the Corybantes, the Cabeiri, the Idaean Dactyli and the Telchines were the same persons as the Curetes, or only kinsmen, differing in certain small matters from one another; and that he refers the whole inquiry to theology, adding that it is not foreign to the speculation of the philosopher (Strab. lib. x.).⁴ Mr. Faber decides at once for their identity, and adds to the number the Dioscuri, the Lares, the Penates, the Titans and others; a facility of identification by which it were easy to prove anything of anything. Yet I am not able, upon the testimonies as they stand, to affirm that they are distinct. Philo Byblius derives the Cabeiri from Suduc, whose name he interprets the Just, and attributes to them the invention of a ship (Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 10); which should place them among the deified patriarchs, and near the Deluge: but whether they be the sons of the patriarch, or his company in the vessel, or a priesthood which afterwards bore the name, the testimonies at present collected do not determine. Herodotus, moreover, places a temple of the Cabeiri at Memphis, which none but the priest might enter, and says that their images were like that of Vulcan, and that they were called his sons (Herod. iii. 37); and this agrees neither with Philo nor with Mr. Faber.⁵ NB-27-006

×The witnesses to the number may now be set down together, in the order in which they have been examined, and without any attempt at present to weigh the one against the other: Clement, as has been shown, has two. Mr. Bryant has three, as demons, "They were represented as daemons, and in number three"; and he has again eight, upon the authority of Sanchoniathon, "By Sanchoniathon they are described as eight in number" (Bryant, Analysis, vol. ii. Of the Cabiri, Corybantes, Idaei Dactyli, Curetes).⁶ Vossius, who takes the number from an old scholiast, has four, whom he names: "They are four in number: Axieros, Axiocersa, Axiocersus, Casmilus" (Voss. de Theol. Gent. lib. ii.), and whom he equates with Ceres, Proserpina, Pluto and Mercury.⁷ Mr. Faber reports that Tertullian "describes the Samothracian Cabiri, as being three in number, though he does not mention their names" (Faber, Cabiri, vol. i. ch. vi.); but his own reckoning is that of "Noah and the seven persons who were preserved along with him in the Ark" (Faber, Cabiri, vol. i. ch. ii.), and the three are only the report of another.⁸ NB-28-008 NB-26-006

○It will be perceived that the witnesses, so set together, yield the numbers two, three, four, seven, eight and nine, and that of these the three, which has the most numerous support, since it is found in Acusilaus, in Pherecydes, in Mr. Bryant and in the report which Mr. Faber attributes to Tertullian, is the number to which a decision might be expected to incline. But the three of Mr. Bryant is a company of demons, the sons, as he says, of Vulcan; the three of Acusilaus are the sons of Cadmilus; the three of Pherecydes are the brothers of three nymphs; and the three of Tertullian, as reported by Mr. Faber, are not named; so that it is not one three but four, and the agreement is in the number only and not in the persons. The same observation applies to the eight of Mr. Bryant, which is that of Sanchoniathon, and which is to be compared with the seven sons of Suduc and their eighth brother, whom Philo names Asclepius; for if the eighth be reckoned a Cabeirus, the number is eight, and if not, it is seven; and Philo does not say which. Nor can the four of Vossius be reconciled with the three which Mr. Bryant gives, by supposing a company of three with a fourth who serves them, as Vossius himself supposes that three of the four belong to the Earth and the fourth is a minister; since this supposes what the argument is designed to prove, namely that the three of the one writer and the three of the other are the same.⁹ NB-28-008 NB-52-001 NB-27-006

○The view which I am at present disposed to entertain, as at present sketched, is that no one of these numbers is to be preferred to the rest until it is known whether the Cabeiri of one place were the Cabeiri of another; for it is not impossible that the persons were differently reckoned in different places, and that the several numbers are so many true reports of so many companies which bore a single name. I do not affirm that this was the case; and I observe that it would reduce the question of the number to the question of the places, and that the places are the subject of the following head. It will be objected, in the first place, that a company which is two in Clement and nine in Pherecydes can hardly be called one company; to which I answer that the objection supposes the identity of the Cabeiri with the Corybantes and the Cyrbantes to be known, which is the question. It will be objected, in the second place, that a view which accommodates every number accommodates none; to which I answer that it accommodates none until the places have been examined, and that I do not put it forward as an explanation, but as a statement of what must be ascertained before an explanation can be offered. It will be objected, lastly, that Strabo's own refusal to decide whether the Cabeiri are the Curetes or only their kinsmen leaves the inquiry where it was found; to which I answer that this is so, and that I have no better course than to leave it there. The number of the Cabeiri is not ascertained; their identity with the Curetes and the Corybantes is neither affirmed nor denied; and the head under which they are to stand is, for the present, undetermined. These objections, and others which may be urged with less force, will be considered at greater length under the next head.¹⁰ NB-28-008 NB-26-006 NB-27-006 NB-52-001