{"id":"OLSON2017-001","label":"Kotyto's rhymbos, the whip of frenzy","people_or_site":"Kotyto cult (the Baptai of Athens; Edonian Thrace)","country_current":"Greece","historic_region":"Athens, Attica; cult of the Thracian goddess Kotyto (Edonians)","macroregion":"Europe / Mediterranean","local_name":"rhymbos (ῥύμβος)","source_term":"ῥύμβος / ῥόμβος; 'bull-roarer' (Olson)","source_language":"Ancient Greek / English","object_description":"A rhymbos, the Attic name for the corded wooden roarer of the mystery cults.","function_summary":"Sounded in the orgiastic rites of the goddess Kotyto, where it was said to whip the celebrant into frenzy; in Aeschylus' Edonians her rites include bull-voiced roars from out of sight beside pipes, cymbals and drum.","attestation_type":"historical_text","source_key":"olson2017_eupolis_baptai","source_type":"scholarly_monograph","source_url":"https://digi.hadw-bw.de/view/frc8_1/0263","page_or_plate":"Olson 2017 pp. 239-241, 259-261; Strabo 10.3.16; Juvenal 2.91-92","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Athens representative point: setting of Eupolis' Baptai and Juvenal's 'Cecropian Cotyto'; no shrine is located. Offset slightly from the Athens anchor of ANATOLIA-001 and HAD1898-005.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"\"O bull-roarer that whipped me!\" a voice cries in Eupolis' comedy Baptai, staged in Athens around 415 BC, and the roarer's lash is the frenzy of Kotyto, a Thracian goddess whose men-devotees the play mocked in women's dress; Alcibiades was said to have taken it personally. Her rites were older and louder than the joke. In Aeschylus' lost Edonians, the Thracians who carry out \"the rites of sacred Kotyto\" play the lathe-turned pipes and clash bronze cymbals, while from somewhere out of sight come frightening imitations of bulls bellowing, and a drum rolls like thunder underground. Centuries later Juvenal still remembered the Baptae, wearing out Athenian Kotyto with secret orgies by torchlight.","pull_quote":"ὦ ῥύμβε μαστίξας ἐμέ","pull_quote_translation":"O bull-roarer that whips me!","pull_quote_cite":"Eupolis, Baptai fr. 83 K.-A., trans. S. Douglas Olson, Fragmenta Comica 8.1 (2017), p. 259.","term_gloss":"rhymbos (ῥύμβος): the Attic form of rhombos, the whirled roarer of the mysteries. Baptai: 'Dippers', title of Eupolis' play, perhaps for the celebrants' rite of immersion or their dyed clothes; the sense is disputed. Kotyto (Kotys): a Thracian goddess with orgiastic rites, worshipped also in Athens and Corinth.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"S. Douglas Olson, Fragmenta Comica 8.1: Eupolis, Testimonia and Aiges-Demoi (Heidelberg: Verlag Antike, 2017), Baptai introduction pp. 239-241, fr. 83 pp. 259-261","url":"https://digi.hadw-bw.de/view/frc8_1/0263"},{"citation":"Strabo, Geography 10.3.16, trans. H. L. Jones (Loeb, 1928)","url":"https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/10C*.html"},{"citation":"Juvenal, Satires 2.91-92","url":"https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/juvenal/2.shtml"}],"source_citations":"S. Douglas Olson, Fragmenta Comica 8.1: Eupolis, Testimonia and Aiges-Demoi (Heidelberg: Verlag Antike, 2017), Baptai introduction pp. 239-241, fr. 83 pp. 259-261; Strabo, Geography 10.3.16, trans. H. L. Jones (Loeb, 1928); Juvenal, Satires 2.91-92","source_display":"S. Douglas Olson, Fragmenta Comica 8.1: Eupolis, Testimonia and Aiges-Demoi (Heidelberg: Verlag Antike, 2017), Baptai introduction pp. 239-241, fr. 83 pp. 259-261; Strabo, Geography 10.3.16, trans. H. L. Jones (Loeb, 1928); Juvenal, Satires 2.91-92","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A rhymbos, the Attic name for the corded wooden roarer of the mystery cults.","function_display":"Sounded in the orgiastic rites of the goddess Kotyto, where it was said to whip the celebrant into frenzy; in Aeschylus' Edonians her rites include bull-voiced roars from out of sight beside pipes, cymbals and drum.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"historical text","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"kotyto cult","display_name":"Kotyto's rhymbos, the whip of frenzy","image":{"full":"assets/objects/pd_plates/dagr_fig5941_rhombus_iynx_nolegend.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/pd_plates/dagr_fig5941_rhombus_iynx_nolegend_thumb.jpg","alt":"A 19th-century engraving titled “Le rhombus et l’iynx,” showing mythological figures with the whirled rhombos and spun iynx wheel among other objects.","credit":"Daremberg & Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, vol. 4.2, fig. 5941","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://dagr.univ-tlse2.fr/consulter/2553/RHOMBUS/illustrations","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"The Greek rhombos and iynx-wheel in a 19th-century engraving.","pool_id":"auto-pd_plates--dagr_fig5941_rhombus_iynx_nolegend"},"slug":"olson2017-001-kotyto-cult-the-baptai-of-athens-edonian-thrace"}