Bibliography.—E. Channing and M. F. Lansing, Story of the Great Lakes (New York, 1909), for an account of the lakes in history; and for shipping, &c., J. O. Curwood, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909); U.S. Hydrographic office publication, No 108, “Sailing directions for the Great Lakes,” Navy Department (Washington, 1901, seqq.); Bulletin No. 17, “Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes,” Corps of Engineers, U.S. War Department, U.S. Lake Survey Office (Detroit, Mich., 1907); Annual reports of Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries (Ottawa, 1868 seqq.).
(W. P. A.)
[1] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals. Col. Chas. E. L. B. Davis, U.S.A., engineer in charge, 1907.
[2] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals, published annually by the U.S. engineer officer in charge.
[3] Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, in Report of War Department, U.S. 1898, p. 3776.
GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS, the ancient Oriental-Greek-Roman deity commonly known as Cybele (q.v.) in Greek and Latin literature from the time of Pindar. She was also known under many other names, some of which were derived from famous places of worship: as Dindymene from Mt. Dindymon, Mater Idaea from Mt. Ida, Sipylene from Mt. Sipylus, Agdistis from Mt. Agdistis or Agdus, Mater Phrygia from the greatest stronghold of her cult; while others were reflections of her character as a great nature goddess: e.g. Mountain Mother, Great Mother of the Gods, Mother of all Gods and all Men. As the great Mother deity whose worship extended throughout Asia Minor she was known as Mā or Ammas. Cybele is her favourite name in ancient and modern literature, while Great Mother of the Gods, or Great Idaean Mother of the Gods (Mater Deum Magna, Mater Deum Magna Idaea), the most frequently recurring epigraphical title, was her ordinary official designation.
The legends agree in locating the rise of the worship of the Great Mother in Asia Minor, in the region of loosely defined geographical limits which comprised the Phrygian empire of prehistoric times, and was more extensive than the Roman province of Phrygia (Diod. Sic. iii. 58; Paus. vii. 17; Arnob. v. 5; Firm. Mat. De error., 3; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 223 ff.; Sallust. Phil. De diis et mundo, 4; Jul. Or. v. 165 ff.). Her best-known early seats of worship were Mt. Ida, Mt. Sipylus, Cyzicus, Sardis and Pessinus, the last-named city, in Galatia near the borders of Roman Phrygia, finally becoming the strongest centre of the cult. She was known to the Romans and Greeks as essentially Phrygian, and all Phrygia was spoken of as sacred to her (Schol. Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica, i. 1126). It is probable, however, that the Phrygian race, which invaded Asia Minor from the north in the 9th century B.C., found a great nature goddess already universally worshipped there, and blended her with a deity of their own. The Asiatic-Phrygian worship thus evolved was further modified by contact with the Syrians and Phoenicians, so that it acquired strong Semitic characteristics. The Great Mother known to the Greeks and Romans was thus merely the Phrygian form of the nature deity of all Asia Minor.
From Asia Minor the cult of the Great Mother spread first to Greek territory. It found its way into Thrace at an early date, was known in Boeotia by Pindar in the 6th century, and entered Attica near the beginning of the 4th century (Grant Showerman, The Great Mother of the Gods, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43, Madison, 1901). At Peiraeus, where it probably arrived by way of the Aegean islands, it existed privately in a fully developed state, that is, accompanied by the worship of Attis, at the beginning of the 4th century, and publicly two centuries later (D. Comparetti, Annales, 1862, pp. 23 ff.). The Greeks from the first saw in the Great Mother a resemblance to their own Rhea, and finally identified the two completely, though the Asiatic peculiarities of the cult were never universally popular with them (Showerman, p. 294). In her less Asiatic aspect, i.e. without Attis, she was sometimes identified with Gaia and Demeter. It was in this phase that she was worshipped in the Metroön at Athens. In reality, the Mother Goddess appears under three aspects: Rhea, the Homeric and Hesiodic goddess of Cretan origin; the Phrygian Mother, with Attis; and the Greek Great Mother, a modified form of the Phrygian Mother, to be explained as the original goddess of the Phrygians of Europe, communicated to the Greek stock before the Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor and consequent mingling with Asiatic stocks (cf. Showerman, p. 252).