Attis

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Atys (disambiguation).
Attis
Statue of Attis from Roman Hierapolis
Cause of deathCastrated/Emasculated himself and died
Known forPhrygian vegetation deity; his self-mutilation, death, and resurrection represents the fruits of the earth, which die in winter only to rise again in the spring
TitleThe ancient Phrygian god of vegetation and consort of the great Mother of the Gods Kybele (Cybele)
Parent
  • Nana, the daughter of the river Sangarius, and almond tree grown from the amputated sexual Male organ of the hermaphrodite Agdistis[1] (mother)
Statue of a reclining Attis at the Shrine of Attis in Ostia Antica near Rome.
Greek deities
series
Anatolian deities

Attis (/ˈætɪs/; Greek: Ἄττις, also Ἄτυς, Ἄττυς, Ἄττης)[2] was the consort of Cybele, in Phrygian and Greek mythology.[a]

His priests were eunuchs, the Galli, as explained by origin myths pertaining to Attis castrating himself. Attis was also a Phrygian vegetation deity. His self-mutilation, death, and resurrection represents the fruits of the earth, which die in winter only to rise again in the spring.[5]

According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Attis transformed himself into a pine tree.[6]

History

An Attis cult began around 1250 BCE in

daemon, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele
.

In the late 4th century BCE, a cult of Attis became a feature of the Greek world. The story of his origins at Agdistis recorded by the traveller Pausanias have some distinctly non-Greek elements.[7]

Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female sexual organs. The

Olympian gods feared Agdistis and they conspired to cause Agditis to accidentally castrate themselves, ridding themselves of their male organs. From the hemorrhage of Agdistis germinated an almond tree. When the fruits ripened, Nana, daughter of the river Sangarius, took an almond, put it in her bosom, and later became pregnant. Later, Nana abandoned baby Attis.[7]

The infant was tended by a

Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter.[7]

According to some versions the king of Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis / Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and

corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. The heartbroken Agdistis begged Zeus, the Father God, to preserve Attis so his body would never decay or decompose.[7]

At the temple of Cybele in Pessinus, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer Strabo recounted.[8]

As neighbouring

dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele were called galli
.

Julian describes the orgiastic cult of Cybele and its spread.[9] It began in Anatolia and was adopted in Greece, and eventually Republican Rome; the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her.

Literature

The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus (Catullus 63),[10] apparently before Attis had begun to be worshipped in Rome, as Attis' worship began in the early Empire.[11]

In 1675, Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was attached to Louis XIV's court, composed an opera titled Atys. In 1780, Niccolo Piccinni composed his own Atys.

Oscar Wilde mentions Attis' self-mutilation in his poem The Sphinx, published in 1894:

"And Atys with his blood-stained knife
were better than the thing I am."[12]

Philosophy

Emperor Julian's "Hymn to the Mother of Gods"

Neoplatonic analysis of Attis. In that work Julian says: "Of him [Attis] the myth relates that, after being exposed at birth near the eddying stream of the river Gallus, he grew up like a flower, and when he had grown to be fair and tall, he was beloved by the Mother of the Gods. And she entrusted all things to him, and moreover set on his head the starry cap."[14] On this passage, the scholiast (Wright) says: "The whole passage implies the identification of Attis with nature...cf. 162A where Attis is called 'Nature,' φύσις."[14]

Archaeological finds

The most important representation of Attis is the lifesize statue discovered at

Magna Mater, while the original was moved to the Vatican Museums.[15]

A marble

Parabiago plate
.

A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to 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 cap.[b]

In 2007, in the ruins of

Vesuvius in 79 CE.[16]

Conflation with the god Atys

Nineteenth century scholarship wrongly identified the god Attis with the similar-sounding name of the god Atys. The

Aegean cultures; it was mentioned by Herodotus,[3]
however Herodotus was describing Atys, the son of Croesus, a human in a historical account. The 19th-century conflation of the man Atys's name with the mythology of the god he was presumably named after, "Atys the sun god, slain by the boar's tusk of winter",[17] and hence a connection to similar-sounding Attis was a mistake, but the long-standing error is still found in modern sources.[4]: 536–539 [c]

Photo gallery

Notes

  1. ^ A connection to the Lydian god Atys supposed by late 19th century scholars, based on a description of man named Atys by Herodotus[3] was a mistake. The error is still repeated by most modern sources (with the notable exception of W. Burkert), even though it was explained and debunked by Bremmer (2004).[4]
  2. ^ Images may be found at wikimedia, and at Summa Gallicana.
  3. ^ The often-repeated Atys / Attis connection[17] was a mistake; it is disentangled and debunked by Bremmer (2004).[4]: 536–539 
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Attis". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Atys 1.". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

References

  1. ^ "Attis". maicar.com. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
  2. ^ Smith, William (1873) [1848]. "Atys, Attys, Attes, Attis". A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London, UK: John Murray via Spottiswoode and Co. – via Tufts U. / Perseus.
  3. ^ a b Herodotus. Ἱστορίαι ("Historíai̯") [Histories]. i.34–45.
  4. ^ a b c d
    doi:10.1163/1568525043057892
    .
  5. ^ "Attis (Phrygian deity)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
  6. ^ Roman, Luke & Roman, Monica (2010). Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. Infobase Publishing. p. 94.
    ISBN 978-1-4381-2639-5
    .
  7. ^ a b c d Pausanias. Description of Greece. 7.17.9-12.
  8. Geography
    . 12, 5, 3.
  9. ^
    Julian the Apostate
    . Oratio. 5.
  10. ^ Showerman, Grant (1900). "Poem 63 – was Attis at Rome under the Republic?".
    JSTOR 282638
    – via Google Books.
  11. ^ Lambrechts, P. (1962). Attis: Van Herdersknaap tot God [Attis: From shepherd-boy to god]. Brussels, NL: Vlaamse Akademie. [includes French language summary]
  12. ^ Wilde, O. (1881). "The Sphinx". Poems (12th ed.). London, UK: Methuen & Co. – via Project Gutenberg.
  13. ^ Wright, Wilmer Cave (1913). The Works of the Emperor Julian. Vol. 1. London, New York: William Heinemann, The Macmillan Co. pp. 453–503. ark:/13960/t5gb32365.
  14. ^ a b Wright, Wilmer Cave (1913). The Works of the Emperor Julian. Vol. 1. London, New York: William Heinemann, The Macmillan Co. p. 461. ark:/13960/t5gb32365.
  15. ^ "Regio IV – Regio I – Santuario di Attis (IV, I, 3)". ostia-antica.org. 13 May 2006.
  16. ^ Merrony, Mark (March–April 2008). "An ivory throne for Herculaneum". Minerva. Archived from the original on 2008-03-31. — A picture accompanies the article.
  17. ^ a b Sayce, A.H. (1883). The Ancient Empires of the East: Herodotos I-III. pp. 21 ff. noted in Bremmer (2004)[4]: 536 & note 

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Attis.
  • Vermaseren, M.J. (1977). Cybele and Attis. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.
  • Lambrechts, P. (1962). Attis: Van Herdersknaap tot God [Attis: From shepherd-boy to god]. Brussels, NL: Vlaamse Akademie. [includes French language summary]
    • Reviewed by North, J.A. (1965). "[no title cited]". The Journal of Roman Studies (book review). 55 (1–2): 278–279.
      S2CID 163398548
      .
  • Lane, E.N., ed. (1996). Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in memory of M.J. Vermaseren. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World. Vol. 131. Leiden-Köln.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

  • "Attis". Britannica Online Encyclopædia.
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