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Attis (sometimes written as "Atys") was Cybele
Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
's lover, eunuch
Eunuch

A eunuch is a castrated man, in particular one castrated early enough to have major hormonal consequences; the term usually refers to those castrated in order to perform a specific social function, as was common in many societies of the past....
 attendant, and driver of her lion-driven chariot. He was driven mad by her and castrated
Castration

Castration is any action, surgery, chemical castration, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles. In common usage the term is usually applied to males, although as a medical term it is applied to both males and females....
 himself.

Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia
Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis.






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Attis (sometimes written as "Atys") was Cybele
Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
's lover, eunuch
Eunuch

A eunuch is a castrated man, in particular one castrated early enough to have major hormonal consequences; the term usually refers to those castrated in order to perform a specific social function, as was common in many societies of the past....
 attendant, and driver of her lion-driven chariot. He was driven mad by her and castrated
Castration

Castration is any action, surgery, chemical castration, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles. In common usage the term is usually applied to males, although as a medical term it is applied to both males and females....
 himself.

Attis Thymiaterion Louvre Tarse61
Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia
Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a daemon
Daemon (mythology)

The words daemon, d?mon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek language da???? , used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Ancient Greek religion, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes" , from the Judeo-Christian usage demon, a malignant...
, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.

The story of his origins from Agdistis
Agdistis

Agdistis was a deity of Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Anatolian mythology, possessing both male and female genitalia, con?nected with the Phrygian worship of Attis and Cybele....
, as told to the traveller Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
, have some distinctly non-Greek elements: Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes. But the Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana
Nana (mythology)

According to Greek mythology, Nana was a nymph of Sakarya River, a river located in present-day Turkey.She became pregnant when an almond from an almond tree fell on her lap....
 who was a daughter of the river Sangarios picked an almond and laid it in her bosom. The almond disappeared, and she became pregnant. Nana abandoned the baby (Attis). The infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parents of Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter. According to some versions the King of Pessinos was Midas
Midas

In Greek mythology, Midas or King Midas is popularly remembered for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold: the Midas touch....
. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. Attis' father-in-law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the self-castrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.

Attis was reborn as the evergreen pine. At the temple of Cybele/Rhea in Pessinos, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer Strabo
Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
 recounted.

As neighboring Lydia
Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkey provinces of Manisa Province and inland Izmir Province....
 came to control Phrygia, the cult of Attis was given a Lydian context too. Attis is said to have introduced to Lydia the cult of the Mother Goddess Cybele, incurring the jealousy of Zeus
Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
, who sent a boar to destroy the Lydian crops. Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar. Pausanias adds, to corroborate this story, that the Gauls who inhabited Pessinos abstained from pork. This myth element may have been invented solely to explain the unusual dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls
Galatia

Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia, an ancient region of Asia Minor, was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC....
. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele were known as Galli
Galli

Galli was the Roman name for castration followers of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, which were regarded as a third gender by contemporary Roman scholars, comparable to transgendered people in the modern world....
 ("Gauls").

As the orgiastic cult of Cybele
Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
 spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in the time of Claudius
Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or Claudius I was the fourth Roman Emperor, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from January 24, AD 41 to his death in AD 54....
, the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her. The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus
Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His work remains widely studied, and continues to influence poetry and other forms of art....
. but it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-established cult of Cybele until the early Empire.

A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia is the name of the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies by Greek settlers in the eighth century BC, who brought with them the lasting imprint of their Hellenic civilization....
, is in the archaeological museum, Venice. A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the Mosel
Mosel

Mosel may mean the following:* Moselle River, a European river often spelled Mosel for its section in Germany* Mosel , a German appellation, formerly known as Mosel-Saar-Ruwer...
 was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier
Trier

Trier is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle River. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC. Trier is not the only city claiming to be Germany's oldest, but it is the only one that bases this assertion on having the longest history as a city, as opposed to a mere settlement or army camp....
 (see link for illustration). It shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the legs with toggles and the Phrygian cap
Phrygian cap

The Phrygian cap is a soft, red, conical hat with the top pulled forward, worn in antiquity by the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia....
.

In 2007, in the ruins of Herculaneum a wooden throne was discovered adorned with a relief of Attis beneath a sacred pine tree, gathering cones. Historical records indicate that the cult of Attis was popular in Herculaneum at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

External links



Literature

  • P. Lambrechts, Attis: Van Herdersknaap tot God (Brussels:Vlaamse Akademie) 1962. (French summary)
    • Reviewed by J.A. North in The Journal of Roman Studies 55.1/2 (1965), p. 278-279.
  • H. Hepding, Attis seine Mythen und sein Kult (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten I), Giessen, 1903.
  • E.N. Lane (ed.), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults. Essays in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 131), Leiden-Köln, 1996.