Cabeiri

In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri or Cabiri /kəˈbaɪriː/^[1] (Ancient Greek: Κάβειροι, Kábeiroi), also transliterated Kabeiri or Kabiri,^[2] were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshipped in a mystery cult closely associated with that of Hephaestus, centered in the north Aegean islands of Lemnos and possibly Samothrace—at the Samothrace temple complex—and at Thebes.^[3] In their distant origins the Cabeiri and the Samothracian gods may include pre-Greek elements,^[4] or other non-Greek elements, such as Thracian, Tyrrhenian, Pelasgian,^[5] Phrygian or Hittite. The Lemnian cult was always local to Lemnos, but the Samothracian mystery cult spread rapidly throughout the Greek world during the Hellenistic period, eventually initiating Romans.

The ancient sources disagree about whether the deities of Samothrace were Cabeiri or not; and the accounts of the two cults differ in detail. But the two islands are close to each other, at the northern end of the Aegean, and the cults are at least similar, and neither fits easily into the Olympic pantheon: the Cabeiri were given a mythic genealogy as sons of Hephaestus and Cabeiro.^[6] The accounts of the Samothracian gods, whose names were secret, differ in the number and sexes of the gods: usually between two and four, some of either sex. The number of Cabeiri also varies, with some accounts citing four (often a pair of males and a pair of females), and some even more, such as a tribe or whole race of Cabeiri, often presented as all male.^[7]

The Cabeiri were also worshipped at other sites in the vicinity, including Seuthopolis in Thrace and various sites in Asia Minor. One of these is posited to be Thessalonica and possibly was the cult of mysteries of which Paul warns against in his letters to the church there.^[8] According to Strabo, Cabeiri are most honored in Imbros and Lemnos but also in other cities too.^[9]