Book 10
3.19
But there may be discovered respecting these daemons, and the variety of their names, that they were not called ministers only of the gods, but themselves were called gods. For Hesiod says that Hecaterus and the daughter of Phoroneus had five daughters, From whom sprung the goddesses, the mountain nymphs, And the worthless and idle race of satyrs, And the gods Curetes, lovers of sport and dance. The author of the Phoronis calls the Curetes, players upon the pipe, and Phrygians; others call them earth-born, and wearing brazen shields. Another author terms the Corybantes, and not the Curetes, Phrygians, and the Curetes, Cretans. Brazen shields were first worn in Euboea, whence the people had the name of Chalcidenses.See above, ch. iii. § 1, 6, 8. Others say, that the Corybantes who came from Bactriana, or, according to some writers, from the Colchi, were given to Rhea, as a band of armed ministers, by Titan. But in the Cretan history the Curetes are called nurses and guardians of Jove, and are described as having been sent for from Phrygia to Crete by Rhea. According to other writers, there were nine Telchines in Rhodes, who accompanied Rhea to Crete, and from nursingκουροτροθήσαντες. Jupiter had the name of Curetes;κουρῆτες. that Corybus, one of their party, was the founder of Hierapytna, and furnished the PrasiansWho were the Prasians of Rhodes I confess I cannot say. Palmer. in Rhodes with the pretext for saying that Cory bantes were certain daemons, children of Minerva and the sun. By others, the Corybantes are represented to be the children of Saturn; by others, of Jupiter and Calliope, or to be the same persons as the Cabeiri; that they went awayFrom whence Strabo does not inform us. to Samothrace,The Scholiast of Apollonius remarks that it was formerly called Leucosia, afterwards Samos from a certain Saiis, and Samothrace when it came into possession of the Thracians. It had also the name of Dardania. which was formerly called Melite; but their lives and actions are mysterious.
