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In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri (Cabiri, Kabeiroi,〔''Kabiri'' is the transliteration used in John Raffan's translation of Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' (Harvard University Press, 1985), and in most academic discourse.〕 or Kabiri; ) were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshiped 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.〔 *〕 In their distant origins the Cabeiri and the Samothracian gods may include pre-Greek elements,〔Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985 VI.1.3: '"the secret of the mysteries is rendered more enigmatic by the addition of a non-Greek, pre-Greek element, which is also hinted at in the Kaukon tradition of Andania" (a ''polis'' in Messenia).〕 or other non-Greek elements, such as Hittite, Thracian, proto-Etruscan〔"The inhabitants of Lemnos were called ''Tyrsenoi'' by the Greeks, and thus identified with the Etruscans" (Burkert 1985, ''eo. loc.'').〕 or Phrygian. 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.〔Acusilaus, fr. 20; Pherecydes of Leros fr. 48; and Herodotus 3..37 are noted by Burkert.〕 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.〔Burkert, pp 281-84〕 The Cabeiri were also worshipped at other sites in the vicinity, including Seuthopolis in Thrace and various sites in Asia Minor. ==Etymology and origin== The Cabeiri were possibly originally Phrygian〔According to scholia on Apollonius' ''Argonautica'' I. "The Phrygian origin of the Kabeiric cult asserted by Stesimbrotos of Thasos and recently defended by O. Kern cannot, therefore, be rejected ''a priori''", wrote Giuliano Bonfante, "A Note on the Samothracian Language" ''Hesperia'' 24.2 (April 1955, pp. 101-109) p. 108; Bonfante agrees with Jacob Wackernagel that Κάβειροι cannot be Greek; Wackernagel suggested Thracian or Phrygian, in his opinion two closely related peoples.〕 deities and protectors of sailors, who were imported into Greek ritual.〔"The secret of the mysteries is rendered more enigmatic by the addition of a non-Greek, pre-Greek element" (Burkert 1985:281). Burkert does not intend to suggest that the pre-Greek component was ''added''.〕 R. S. P. Beekes believes that their name is of non-Indo-European, pre-Greek origin.〔R. S. P. Beekes. "The Origin of the Kabeiroi" ''Mnemosyne''. Vol. 57, Fasc. 4 (2004: 465–477); ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 612.〕 In the past, the Semitic word ''kabir'' ("great") has been compared to Κάβειροι since at least Joseph Justus Scaliger in the sixteenth century, but nothing else seemed to point to a Semitic origin, until the idea of "great" gods expressed by the Semitic root ''kbr'' was definitively attested for North Syria in the thirteenth century BCE, in texts from Emar published by D. Arnaud in 1985–87. Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling connected the Greek word to the Hebrew חבר (''khaver'' "friend, associate") and via this to several priest names as one attached to the Persians ("Chaverim"), linking them to the Dioskouri or priestly blacksmiths alternatively.〔Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling: ''Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrace''. Stuttgart and Tübingen (Cotta) 1815, p. 110 sqq. ((online text ))〕 T. J. Wackernagel produced an Indian etymology in 1907;〔Noted by Walter Burkert, ''The Orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age'' (1992, p 2 note 3).〕 in 1925 A. H. Sayce had suggested a connection to Hittite ''habiri'' ("looters", "outlaws"), but subsequent discoveries have made this implausible on phonological grounds. Dossein compares Κάβειροι to the Sumerian word ''kabar'', "copper."〔Buckert, ''Greek Religion'' (1985), p. 282 and notes on page 457.〕 The name of the ''Cabeiri'' recalls Mount Kabeiros, a mountain in the region of Berekyntia in Asia Minor, closely associated with the Phrygian Mother Goddess. The name of Kadmilus (Καδμῖλος), or ''Kasmilos'', one of the Cabeiri who was usually depicted as a young boy, was linked even in antiquity to ''camillus'', an old Latin word for a boy-attendant in a cult, which is probably a loan from the Etruscan language, which may be related to Lemnian.〔The Aegean relations of the Etruscan language are denied at some length by Massimo Pallottino, in ''The Etruscans'' (tr. 1975) and elsewhere.〕 However, according to Beekes, the name ''Kadmilus'' may be of pre-Greek origin, as is the case with the name ''Cadmus''.〔R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 613–4.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cabeiri」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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