Dindymon
In Greek mythology Dindymon[1] was a mountain in Phrygia that was sacred to the "mountain mother", Cybele or Rhea. Dindymon might be placed on the peninsula of Cyzicus facing the Sea of Marmara or by Strabo above Pessinos, sacred to Cybele, or by Stephanus Byzantinicus in the Troad, thus near Mount Ida. Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica book II sets a scene at Mount Dindymon, where Jason placates the goddess of the mountain, identified as Rhea.[2]
The various applications of Dindymon, as the mountain of the Anatolian Mother Goddess, the "Mountain Mother", is explained by Robinson Ellis:[3] "The name Dindymenian mother would in the first instance no doubt be connected with the earliest seat of the worship, the Phrygian Dindymon, but as soon as the worship spread farther and the name of Dindymon with it, the Goddess of Dindymon would lose its original definiteness and be variously applied by different writers."
Notes
- ^ Rarely Dindymus, as in Pliny's Natural History V.142 and Sextus Propertius, III.22.3.
- ^ (Apollonius of Rhodes), Richard Hunter, tr., 1993. Jason and the Golden Fleece (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Book II, p. 29f.
- ^ Robinson Ellis, 1876. A Commentary on Catullus (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Catullus LXIII.91 (p. 224)