The Argonauts on Mount Dindymon : Dionysiac Cult and Hellenistic Ideology in Apollonius of Rhodes

This article explores the foundation of Cybele’s cult by the Argonauts on Mount Dindymon as narrated by Apollonius of Rhodes in Book 1 of the Argonautica. It will be maintained that the differences between the ritual described by the poet and the cultic practice attested to in the tradition can be explained as a reference to the myth of Dionysus’ purification in Phrygia, which was also staged in the Grand Procession of Ptolemy II. In particular, the presence of a Dionysiac sub-pattern will be detected in the mention of the vine used for carving the statue of Cybele, which has no parallel in other sources concerning the goddess and which is linked to Dionysus in other Hellenistic poems about cult statues. It will be claimed that the reference to the Dionysiac myth may hide a political message connected with Ptolemaic imperialist ambition in Anatolia and Greece in the 3rd century BC.