Corybantes

CORIBANTI. – Minor Greek divinities, perhaps pre-Hellenic, originating in Phrygia. The Greeks said that they were either autochthonous, or sons of the Idaean Dactyls, or of Cronus and Cybele, or of Helios and Athena, etc. They were often identified with the Curetes (for, like them, they foretold the future and had protected Zeus against Cronus), with the Dactyls, and with the Cabiri. They were believed to perform miraculous healings. Their worship consisted of orgiastic dances: priests and initiates, excited by dances and wild cries and by the sound of cymbals, tambourines, and flutes, wounded one another. At Rome they were identified with the Lares.