(Καβίρια), mystic deities of antiquity whose names and rites were widely diffused, but whose special functions have not been determined. Even among the ancients themselves great diversity of opinion prevailed on this point. They are first mentioned as inhabiting the island of Lemnos, where they presided over the fruits of the earth, and vineyards in particular. Herodotus mentions that they were worshipped at Memphis in Egypt as the children of Vulcan; Steinschrotz endeavours to identify them with the Corybantes and Curetes. Though the worship of these divinities spread gradually over the whole of Greece and Italy, it was nowhere performed with greater solemnity than in Lemnos, Imbros, and Samothrace. The mystic rites which accompanied the worship of these great and powerful deities, as celebrated in those islands, were only inferior in solemnity to the Eleusinian mysteries of the goddess Demeter (Ceres).

(Καβίρια), festivals in honour of the Cabiri, celebrated in Thebes and Lemnos, but especially in Samothracia, an island consecrated to the Cabiri. All persons initiated in the mysteries of these gods were thought to be thereby secure against storms at sea, and all other dangers. The ceremony of initiation was performed by placing the candidate, crowned with olive branches, and girded about the loins with a purple riband, on a kind of throne, about which danced the priests and persons previously initiated. (See Guthberlet, De Mysteriorum Deorum Cabiriorum; E. G. Haupt, De Religione Cabirica.)