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Galli (singular Gallus) was the Roman name for 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....
 followers of the 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....
n goddess 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 ....
, which were regarded as a third gender
Third gender

The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are considered to be neither women nor men, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders....
 by contemporary Roman scholars, comparable to transgender
Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society....
ed people in the modern world. The chief of these priests was referred to as a battakes, and later as the archigallus.

Cybele's Galli were similar in form to other colleges of priests in Asia Minor that ancient authors described as "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....
s", such as the priests of Atargatis
Atargatis

Atargatis, in Aramaic ?Atar?atah, was a Syrian deity, "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Michael Rostovtzeff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greece by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria", rendered in one word Deasura....
 described by Apuleius
Apuleius

Lucius Apuleius Platonicus was a Roman Empire Berber people who described himself as "half-Numidian half-Gaetulian", remembered most for his ribaldry Picaresque novel Latin novel, the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass or, in Latin, the Asinus Aureus ....
 and Lucian
Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was an Assyrian people rhetorician, and satire who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature....
, or the galloi of the temple of Artemis
Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
 at Ephesus
Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
.

The first Galli arrived in Rome when the Senate officially adopted 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 ....
 as a state goddess in 203 BC.






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Galli (singular Gallus) was the Roman name for 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....
 followers of the 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....
n goddess 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 ....
, which were regarded as a third gender
Third gender

The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are considered to be neither women nor men, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders....
 by contemporary Roman scholars, comparable to transgender
Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society....
ed people in the modern world. The chief of these priests was referred to as a battakes, and later as the archigallus.

Cybele's Galli were similar in form to other colleges of priests in Asia Minor that ancient authors described as "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....
s", such as the priests of Atargatis
Atargatis

Atargatis, in Aramaic ?Atar?atah, was a Syrian deity, "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Michael Rostovtzeff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greece by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria", rendered in one word Deasura....
 described by Apuleius
Apuleius

Lucius Apuleius Platonicus was a Roman Empire Berber people who described himself as "half-Numidian half-Gaetulian", remembered most for his ribaldry Picaresque novel Latin novel, the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass or, in Latin, the Asinus Aureus ....
 and Lucian
Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was an Assyrian people rhetorician, and satire who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature....
, or the galloi of the temple of Artemis
Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
 at Ephesus
Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
.

The first Galli arrived in Rome when the Senate officially adopted 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 ....
 as a state goddess in 203 BC. Until the first century AD, Roman citizens were prohibited from becoming Galli. Under 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....
, however, this ban was lifted.

Further information is difficult to come by, given the persecution faced by followers of Cybele and other pagan deities after the Theodosian edict
Theodosius I

Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great , was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire....
 of 391 AD. All of her temples were destroyed, with orders that they should never be built upon (in contrast to the usual practice of converting non-Christian religious sites). As a result the only surviving records of the Galli come from historians and archivists. The accuracy of such records is often dubious because of the gender
Gender

Gender comprises a range of differences between man and woman, extending from the biological to the social. Biologically, the male gender is defined by the presence of a Y-chromosome, and its absence in the female gender....
 biases of most ancient writers.

The name Galli may be derived from the Gallus river in Phrygia. Alternatively it may be derived from the Sumerian
Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
 Gallu, (from "Gal" = Great, "Lu" = Man) special servants of the Sumerian God Enki
Enki

Enki was a deity in Mesopotamian mythology, later known as Ea in Babylonian mythology. He was originally chief god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and also to Hittite and Hurrian areas....
. (One of the first temples to Cybele was built near this river, which led to a rumor that drinking from the Gallus would cause such madness that the drinker would castrate himself. It has also been supposed that Galli is derived from the Latin word for rooster. Hieronymus
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 believed the name was given by the Romans as a sign of their contempt for the Gauls
Gauls

The Gauls were a Continental Celtic Celts people of Classical Antiquity, the inhabitants of Gaul , and speakers of the Gaulish language.Archaeologically, they were the bearers of the La T?ne culture ....
. However, in that case, gallus would have been borrowed from Asia or Greece, where it meant eunuch.

The Galli were castrated voluntarily, typically during an ecstatic celebration called Dies Sanguinis, or Day of Blood, which took place on March 24.

See also

  • Korybantes
    Korybantes

    The Korybantes were the crested dancers who worshiped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia, and Corybants in an older English language transcription....
  • List of transgender-related topics
    List of transgender-related topics

    Transgender is a complex topic, where consensual and precise definitions have not yet been reached. Usually, the only way to find out how exactly person identify themselves is to ask them, and sometimes, transgender people either cannot or will not define themselves any more specifically than transgender, queer, or genderqueer....