Attis (sometimes written as "Atys") was in ancient mythology the lover of
CybeleCybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother...
. He was unfaithful; in revenge she drove him mad, and he
castratedCastration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries...
himself. His priests were
eunuchsA eunuch is a political rank often found in ancient courts. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures such as: courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and...
.
Origins and mythos
Attis was originally a local semi-deity of
PhrygiaIn 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...
, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a
daemonThe words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek δαίμων , 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...
, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.
The story of his origins from
AgdistisAgdistis was a deity of Greek, Roman and Anatolian mythology, possessing both male and female sexual organs, connected with the Phrygian worship of Attis and Cybele...
, as told to the traveller
PausaniasPausanias was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between...
, 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,
NanaAccording to Greek mythology, Nana was a daughter of Phrygian river-god Sangarius, the river Sakarya located in present-day Turkey.She became pregnant when an almond from an almond tree fell on her lap. The almond tree had sprung where the violent and dangerous demon Agdistis was slain...
who was a daughter of the
river-godA water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important...
SangariusSangarius is a Phrygian river-god of Greek mythology. He is described as the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and as the husband of Metope, by whom he became the father of Hecuba. He is also the father of Nana and therefore the grandfather of Attis...
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
MidasFor the legend of Gordias, a poor countryman who was taken by the people and made King, in obedience to the command of the oracle, see Gordias....
. 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.
At the temple of Cybele in Pessinus, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer
StraboStrabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in Pontus , which had recently become part of the Roman Empire.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in Nysa, later in Rome...
recounted.
As neighboring
LydiaLydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
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
ZeusIn Greek mythology, Zeus is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky and thunder. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" also derives certain iconographic traits from the...
, 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 GaulsAncient 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
GalliGalli was the Roman name for the Gauls in the area that is now known as France. Galli is also the plural form of gallus, the Latin word for rooster.-Priests of the Goddess Cybele:...
("Gauls").
Julian the Apostate gives an account of the spread of the orgiastic cult of
CybeleCybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother...
in his oratio 5. It spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in Republican times, and 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
CatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus invented the "angry love poem."-Biography:...
. but it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-established cult of Cybele until the early Empire.
Archaeological finds
A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from
Magna GraeciaMagna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that was extensively colonized by Greek settlers, especially the Achaean collonies of Tatentium, Crotone and Sybaris but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neopolis to the north...
, is in the archaeological museum, Venice.
A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the
MoselMosel may mean the following:* Moselle , a European river, named Mosel in German* Mosel , a German appellation, formerly known as Mosel-Saar-Ruwer** Mosel wine, wine produced in the region...
was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier. It shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the legs with toggles and the
Phrygian capThe Phrygian cap is a soft, red, conical cap 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. Various finds suggest 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.