Cibeles Fountain – Madrid

As you can see, Cibeles appears in a carriage carried by 2 lions. Why lions and not horses? Because the fountain represents the story of one of her most famous Myths, Hipómenes and Atalanta Mith. Let’s discover the story, they were not always lions:

Atalanta was a really beautiful hunter who became famous because of her strength and speed. Because of her beauty a lot of suitors tried to get her love but she was not interested in any of them as she had made a pact with Artemisa (the Goddess of the Hunting) to stay virgen.

Nevertheless her father wanted her to get married. So to avoid to get married Atalanta reached an agreement with her father: she would only get married if one of her suitors could beat her in a race by foot. If he won, she would marry him, if not, he would be condemned to death.

Beacause of her beauty and speed, the pretenders went to the Hades really fast, so she stayed single and happy for a long time. But then Hipómenes came into play. He knew that it was impossible to beat Atalanta by running, so he asked for help to Afrodita, the goddes of the Love. She told her that one of the main defects of Atalanta was avarice. So to defeat her, Afrodita gave 3 gold apples to Hipomenes.

Hipomenes took them and went to challenge Atalanta to the race. When the race started Hiponemes took one of the gold apples and threw it far away from the road of the race. When Atalanta saw the apple she got apart from the road to catch it letting an important advantage to Hipómenes. But just some minutes later, Atalanta reached back the head of the race; as we mentioned she was really really fast. So Hipómenes threw the second gold apple far from the road again. Atalanta went for it. He repeated this strategy as many times as apples he had, wining the race finally. “Love” won the battle and they got married!

Then time went by, and one day while they were hunting a sudden strong rain started in the forest. They tried to find one please to be covered and they found the Temple of Cibeles. Mad of the passion provoked by the sudden rain, they couldn’t resist theirselves and they made love inside the temple. Their punishment for dishonoring the sacred temple of Cibeles was to be converted in lions that would carry the carriage of Cibeles forever without being able to look each other into the eyes again. That is why you can find 2 lions, and each one of them is looking to a different a side. Sad ending for such a beautiful story.

So having this story in mind, Ventura Rodriguez designed the proyect and Francisco Gutiérrez y Roberto Michel sculpted the figure. 10,000 kilos of sculpted stone later, Cibeles was inaugurated in 1782.

Since then Cibeles have had different functions. In the beggining the fountains was used to provide water to the city but over time it has become one of the most important symbols of Madrid and it has changed its original function. Nowadays Cibeles, apart from being one of the most beautiful monuments of the city is also the place where Real Madrid supporters go to celebrate the trophies won by their team.

https://leafmadrid.com/en/cibeles-fountain-the-goddes-of-madrid/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Guti%C3%A9rrez_Arribas#/media/File:Cibeles_fountain_naknaknak.jpg