A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

CABIRI,

the great Gods of Same∣thrace. Varro calls them Divi potentes, and they are the same which the Samethraciant

name, the powerful Gods, which are Coelum and 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Apollonius in the first Book of his 〈◊〉〈◊〉, will have these Gods to be Four in Number, to which he gives these bar∣barous Names, though forbidden to disco∣ver them. AXIEROS, which is Ceres, AXIOKERSA, which is Preserpina, AXIOKERSOS, which is Pluto, and CASMILLUS, or CA∣MILLUS, which is Mercury. Others say, they were but Two, JUPITER, and DIONYSUS, some think, they were called C••biri from certain Moun∣tains of Phrygia, which have the same Name.

The Fragment of Sanconiathon quoted by Ensebius, tell us, that at Berith in Phoenieia, they worshipped certain Gods called Cabiri, from the Hebrew Word Cabir, which sig∣nifies Great and powerful. We are also taught from the same Fragments, that the Gods Cabiri, were the Sons of Jupiter, and were called DIOSCURES, i. e. Children of Jupiter, SAMOTHRACES, because they were worshipped in the Isle that bears the same Name.

Herodotus relates, that Cambyses being in Aegypt, and treating whatever the Aegyp∣tians counted Holy with Contempt, and Ra∣lliery, went into the Temple of the Ca∣biri, and laughing at their Images, burnt them.

The other Nations of the World imita∣ted the Aegyptians, and had their Cabiri, as well as they, whom they honoured in their Temples.

The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, says, that there were at first but Two Cabiri, Ju∣piter, and Bacchus, but names others after∣ward, viz. AXIEROS, AXIO∣kERSA, and AXIOKERSOS, and Fourth named CASMILLUS, which is MERCURY.

M. Bochart derives these Names from the Hebrew Tongue, for he tells us that AXI∣EROS, is the same with Achasi eritz, that it to say, the Earth is my Possession, so that it can be no other but Cires, AXIOKER∣SOS, and AXIOKERSA, my Pos∣session is Death and Destruction, which are undoubtedly Pluto and Proserpina; as for Casmillus he was rather a Minister of the Gods Cabiri, then one of them, for Plutarch says, that the Greeks and Romans gave that Name to a young Officer in Jupiter's Tem∣ple, as the Greeks gave it to Mercury. Servius will have it, that in the Tuscan Lan∣guage, Mercury was called Casinillus, as being the Minister of the Gods.

Strabo mentions the Opinion of some, who held that there were but Three Gods Cabiri, as also Three Nymphs Cabiri, Ca∣biros tres, & tres Nymphas Cabiridas. And 'tis certain that there were at first, but Three Cabiri, as Tertullian asserts positively in his Book de Spectaculis. Macrobius is of Opinion, that the Gods, which Aensas carried from Troy into Italy, were these Gods Cabiri, and 'tis for this Reason that Virgil calls them the great Gods.

Dionysius Halicarnassaeus relates at large from the Credit of Callistratus, the Story of these great Gods, which Dandanus carried out of Arcadia, into the Isle of Samethrace, and from thence to Troy, where he placed them with the Palladium, which contained the Fate of Troy. He adds that Aeneas carried them afterward into Italy. Herodo∣tus gives the Name of Cabiri to the Gods of Samothrace, and says, that they were the Pelasgi, and Athenians together, that carried them into Samethrace.