"The Mighty Mother."

The goddess Cybele was worshipped throughout Lydia and Phrygia, under the appellation of the "Mighty Mother." Her worship made its way through the Greek colonies into Greece itself, and after the second Punic war was introduced into Rome. Attalus, king of Pergamos, presented the Romans with a meteoric stone, which they worshipped as the veritable "Mother." This stone was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and was one of the seven sacred pledges of Roman prosperity. The others being the quadriga from Veii; the ashes of Orestes; the scepter of Priam; the veil of Iliona; and the Palladium.

The worship of Cybele among the Romans, however, soon languished, perhaps, because Romans were not allowed to officiate as her priests. The "Mighty Mother," in classic art, is carved wearing a turreted crown. The passage quoted from Byron alludes to this characteristic, likening to Cybele the "tiara of Venetian towers."