CORYBANTES, in Antiquity, priests of Cybele, who danced and capered to the sound of flutes and drums. Catullus, in his poem called Atys, gives a picturesque description of the Corybantes, whom he represents as sheer madmen. Accordingly, Maximus Tyrius says, that those possessed with the spirit of the Corybantes, as soon as they heard the sound of a flute, were seized with an enthusiasm, and lost the use of their reason; and hence the Greeks used the word μυζανται, to corybantize, to signify a person's being transported, or possessed with a devil. Some say that the Corybantes were all eunuchs; and that it is on this account that Catullus in his Atys always uses feminine epithets and relatives in speaking of them.
Diodorus Siculus remarks, that Corybas, son of Jason and Cybele, passing through Phrygia with his uncle Dardanus, instituted there the worship of the mother of the gods, and gave his own name to the priests. But Strabo states it as the opinion of some, that the Corybantes were children of Jupiter and Calliope, and the same with the Cabiri. Others, however, think that the word had its origin from the circumstance, that the Corybantes always went dancing along, or tossing the head.