"Adorned with this emblem (the mural crown), the image of the divine Mother is carried nowadays through wide lands in awe-inspiring state. Different nations after old-established ritual name her Idaean Mother, and give for escort Phrygian bands.... Tight-stretched tambourines and hollow cymbals thunder all round to the stroke of their open hands, and horns menace with hoarse-sounding music, and the hollow pipe stirs their minds with its Phrygian strain. They carry weapons before them, emblems of furious rage, meet to fill the thankless souls and godless breasts of the rabble with terror for the Divinity of the Goddess. So, when first she rides in procession through great cities and mutely enriches mortals with a blessing not expressed in words, they straw all her path with brass and silver, presenting her with bounteous alms, and scatter over her a snow-shower of roses, over-shadowing the mother and her troops of attendants. Here an armed band, to which the Greeks give the names of Phrygian Curetes, join in the game of arms and leap in measure, all dripping with blood, and the awful crests upon their heads quiver and shake."[71] The invariable features of the worship of Cybele are mentioned here, the eunuch priests, the tambourines, the shouting and leaping and cutting with knives, and the collection of money.[72] There is no indication of any control being exercised over these priests of Cybele by a central authority, and little bands of them strolled through the Mediterranean lands, making their living by exhibiting themselves and their goddess and gathering petty offerings. They had a bad name and they seem to have deserved it. In the book called _The Ass_, {21} once ascribed to Lucian, is a short account of such a band. The ass, who is really a man transformed, is the speaker. "The next day they packed up the goddess and set her on my back. Then we drove out of the city and went round the country. When we entered any village, I, the god-bearer (a famous word, _theophoretos_[73]) stood still, and the crowd of flutists blew like mad, and the others threw off their caps and rolled their heads about, and cut their arms with the swords and each stuck his tongue out beyond his teeth and cut it too, so that in a moment everything was full of fresh blood. And, I, when I saw this for the first time, stood trembling in case the goddess might need an ass' blood too. When they had cut themselves about in this way, they collected from the bystanders obols and drachmas; and one or another would give them figs and cheeses and a jar of wine, and a medimnus of wheat and barley for the ass. So they lived upon these and did service to the goddess who rode on my back."[74]