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A) Attis the "Mystic God" and the Mythical Theme of the Androgyne

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A) Attis the CHAPTER THREE MYSTIC ASPECTS IN THE "PHRYGIAN" MYTHICAL-RITUAL CYCLE a) Attis the "mystic god" and the mythical theme of the androgyne. The relatively late appearance of Attis in Greek sources I does not mean that the myth and the ritual connected with him were a late creation, but rather that the Greeks who had come into contact with the cult of Cybele adopted the figure of the Great Goddess, partially Hellenising her by assimilating her with Demeter or, more often, by identifying her with Rhea, but at first rejected the figure of Attis. For he was at the centre of a mythical tradition and of a cultic practice which appeared alien, not to say frankly repugnant, to the Greek mentality of the Classical era. Even in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial period, moreover, the practice of eunuchism, performed by the Galli who used it as a means of dedicating themselves completely to Cybele, met, as we know, with considerable resistance in the Greek and Roman world. 2 Such a practice appears to have been closely connected with the person of Attis from two different, but complementary, points of view. On the one hand it had its mythical basis in the act which, according to the so-called Phrygian version, was a prelude to the death of the divine personage. On the other hand Attis appeared in a vast documentary tradition as the prototype of the Gallus, or rather as the worshipper who celebrates the mystic-orgiastic cult of Cybele and, in a fit of total devotion to the goddess, under the influence of the mania, dedicates his own virility to her. The sources thus present the figure as one who, having betrayed his loyalty to the Great Mother, inflicts a terrible punishment on himself in a state of madness and mutilates himself. This act becomes the mythic aition of the cultic practice of the Galli. I Herodotus (Hist. I, 34-45), who does indeed testify to the existence of the myth of the death of Attis, says nothing about his superhuman quality and his association with the Great Goddess. We read of the vicissitude of Atys, son of Croesus, King of the Lydians, who is killed uninten­ tionally by the Phrygian Adrastus during a boar hunt. The comparison with some later sources, which present Attis as having been killed by a boar, shows that Herodotus actually knew and re­ counted a euhemeristic version of the myth, in the so-called "Lydian" tradition. Cf. also Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. IX, 29. For the literary sources see the collection of Hepding, to whom we owe the distinction between two mythical traditions, Lydian and Phrygian, back to which the entire documentation concern­ ing Attis can be traced (op. cit., 98-122). , Cf. H. Graillot, op. cit., 287-319; J. Carcopino, "La reforme romaine du culte de Cybele et d'Attis, II. Galles et Archigalles", Aspects mystiques de la Rome paienne, Paris 1942',76-109. MYSTIC ASPECTS IN THE "PHRYGIAN" MYTHICAL-RITUAL CYCLE 27 It is in this light that the episode of Attis is recounted in Ovid's Fasti, where the phryx puer, who "bound the goddess with chaste love" when he was living in the woods, did not live up to the absolute devotion and chastity which the Goddess demanded of him 3 but went off with the nymph Sangaritis. In a moment of folly Attis took a sharpened stone and mutilated himself, the mutilation being represented as the punishment deserved by his infidelity. 4 At this point Ovid's report ends: only interested in "explaining" the behaviour of the Galli,s Ovid says nothing about the consequences of Attis' gruesome deed. So even if the latter is presented as the prototype of the eunuch of Cybele, it is still not possible to conclude from this source, of markedly "aetiological" inspiration, that the theme of Attis' death was unknown or that it was introduced into the mythical cycle concerning him after the theme of mutilation, by way of a contamination by the myth of Adonis or according to the canons of euhemerism, as Lagrange suggests. 6 The theme in question, moreover, is amply developed in Catullus 63rd carmen where Attis is deprived of all superhuman connotations and simply appears as a devotee of Cybele-who, in an outburst of orgiastic eXaltation, performed the brutal mutilation which dedicates him to the goddess irremediably.7 Even the poems of the Anthologia Palatina often represent the figure of the Gallus overcome by mania and, in at least one case, Attis appears as the goddess' devoted eunuch, her 90(AO(f.L1j1t6AO~.8 3 Fasti IV, 221-244 in H. Hepding, op. cit., 18f.; v. 225f.: "huncsibi servare voluit, sua templa tueri,! et dixit 'Semper fac puer esse yetis' ". • Ibid., vv. 237-240: "Ille etiam saxo corpus laniavit acuto,1 longaque in inmundo pulvere tracta coma est,! voxque fuil 'Merui: meritas do sanguine poenas.l Ah pereanl parIes, quae nocuere mihi.' " , In Ovid, of course we get a dialogue between the poet and the Muse. The latter, induced to narrate the episode of Attis by a precise question about the behaviour of the Galli (ibid., v. 221 f.: " 'Unde venit' dixi 'sua membra secandilimpelus?' "), concludes her account with the words: " Venit in exemplum furor hie, mollesque ministril caedunl iactatis vitia membra comis". Cf. Fr. BOmer, P. Ovidius Naso. Die Fasten, vol. II, Heidelberg 1958, 220-239. • "Attis et Ie christianisme", RBi, NS XVI (1919), 419-480, esp. 438-450. 7 Text in H. Hepding, op. cit., 13ff. For Catullus' dependence on a composition by Callimachus, already noted by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ("Die Galliamben des Kallimachos und Catullus", Hermes XIV, 1879, 194-201), see A. Klotz, "Zu Catullus", RhMus, NF. LXXX (1931), 350-355; O. Weinreich, "Catullus Attisgedicht", AIPhO IV, I (1936) [Melanges Fr. Cumont), 463-500; J. P. Elder, "Catullus' Attis", AJPh 68 (1947), 394-403. On the poet's attitude towards the Oriental cults which attracted proselytes in Rome cf. L. Herrmann, "Catulle et les cultes exotiques", NC VI (1954) [Melanges Roger Goossens), 236-246. A literary and psychological analysis of Catullus' Carmen in P. Oksala, "Catulls Attis-Ballade tiber den Stil der Dichtung und ihr Verhiiltnis zur PersOnlichkeit des Dichters", Arctos, N.S. III (1962), 199-213; Id., "Das Geschlecht des Attis bei Catull", ibid., N.S. VI (1969), 91-96. Cf. P. Numminen, "Severa Mater", ibid., N.S. III (1962),143-166. • Dioscorides, Anth. Pal. VI, 220 in H. Hepding, op. cit., 7f.: "ciyvo~ 'A~u~, Ku~E).Tj~ 9<X).<Xf1.Tj1t6)'o~", where we should note the qualification of "pure" given to Attis. Cf. A. S. F. Gow, "The Gallus and the Lion. Anth. Pal. VI, 217-20, 237", JHS LXXX (1960),88-93, PI. VIII, 1. .
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