It was, like Samothrace, a seat of the worship of the Cabeiri.
Cyllene was reputed to be his birthplace, the islands of Lemnos, Imbros and Samothrace, in which he was associated with the Cabeiri and Attica.
She is closely connected with the old constellation worship and the religion of Samothrace, the chief seat of the Cabeiri, where she was generally supposed to dwell.
This mountainous character and the absence of any tolerable harbour - Pliny, in enumerating the islands of the Aegean, calls it "importuosissima omnium" - prevented it from ever attaining to any political importance, but it enjoyed great celebrity from its connexion with the worship of the Cabeiri, a mysterious triad of divinities, concerning whom very little is known, but who appear, like all the similar deities venerated in different parts of Greece, to have been a remnant of a previously existing Pelasgic mythology.
The name appears to be of Phoenician origin, signifying the "great" gods, and the Cabeiri seem to have been deities of the sea who protected sailors and navigation, as such often identified with the Dioscuri, the symbol of their presence being St Elmo's fire.