The Mythology Book

116

I PAY THE

DUE PENALTY

IN BLOOD

CYBELE AND ATTIS

T

he ancient Greeks saw

the goddess Cybele as the

mother of the gods and of

mankind. She first appeared in

Phrygia, now part of west-central

Turkey. The Greeks associated her

with the mother goddess Rhea, as

did the Romans, who made Cybele

the center of a popular cult from the

4th century bce onward. Cybele

played a key role in the foundation

of Rome: she gave Aeneas her

sacred pines to build his ships,

begged her son Jupiter to make

them unsinkable, and turned them

into sea nymphs at journey’s end.

Cybele’s worship was usually

accompanied by frenetic, orgiastic

rites. She was attended by ecstatic

women called Maenads, who were

known for their frenzied dancing.

Her male attendants were called

Corybantes. These wild beings

made loud, discordant music with

cymbals, pipes, and drums,

drowning out all other sounds.

In this altar dedicated to Cybele

and Attis, Cybele is pulled in her lion

chariot, while the beautiful Attis

leans against a tree. Detail of relief,

Roman altar, 295 ce.

IN BRIEF

THEME

Cults

SOURCE

Fasti and Metamorphoses,

Ovid, 8 CE.

SETTING

Phrygia, part of the ancient

kingdom of Anatolia.

KEY FIGURES

Cybele The Phrygian great

mother goddess, who

represented all of womankind.

Atalanta A huntress turned

into a lion by Cybele as

punishment.

Hippomenes Atalanta’s

husband, also a lion.

Attis Companion and

devotee of Cybele.

Sagaritis A tree nymph; she

seduced Attis and was

punished by death.

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117

See also: The cult of Dionysus 52 ■ Aphrodite and Adonis 88–89 ■ Vesta and Priapus 108–09 ■

Mithras and the bull 118–19

ANCIENT ROME

Cybele drove a chariot drawn by

two lions—the huntress Atalanta

and her husband Hippomenes,

who had been transformed into

wild animals for defiling Cybele’s

sanctuary with their lovemaking.

On her head, she wore a turreted

crown, because she built the first

city walls and towers.

Cybele’s beloved

Attis, a Phrygian mortal, won

Cybele’s favor with the purity

of his love. Cybele made him her

consort and the guardian of her

shrine. He in turn promised to

remain chaste and boyish forever.

“If I break my promise,” he said,

“may the first woman I sleep with

be my last.” Alas, this promise

proved too hard to keep. When

Attis was tempted by a naiad,

the tree nymph Sagaritis, he was

unable to resist her advances and

lost his virginity to her. In her fury,

Cybele hacked at Sagaritis’s tree,

thus fatally wounding the nymph

herself, who died in Attis’s arms.

As a naiad, her very life force was

connected to the tree.

Insane with grief, Attis believed

the roof of his chamber was falling

in, and that the Furies—who

represented the pangs of conscience

that plagued the guilty—were

coming to attack him. He ran

screaming in terror to the top of

Cybele’s sacred Mount Dindymus.

He dragged his long, beautiful hair

through the dirt, and shouted that

he deserved his fate, and should

pay the penalty in blood.

Taking up a jagged stone, Attis

cut off his genitals, which had been

the cause of his downfall. His

The priests of Isis conduct a ritual

banquet in this fresco from the Temple

of Isis at Herculeaneum—a Roman

town destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

blood, which had seeped down at

the foot of a pine tree, turned into

violets. Attis himself died of his

wounds. Following his example,

his manservants also dragged

their hair and castrated

themselves. The sorrowing Cybele

buried him where he fell, and he

was reborn as a pine—the tree that

ever after was sacred to Cybele.

Worship of Attis

Due to Attis’s self-mutilation, death,

and resurrection, he also came to

represent fertility. Like other gods

reflecting the seasons, he could

be seen as dying in winter, and

being reborn in the spring. After

his death, Cybele’s priests were

always eunuchs who had castrated

themselves in memory of Attis.

This castration also ensured they

kept the vow of chastity that he

himself had broken.

In the Roman calendar, several

days of the festival of Cybele

honored Attis; March 15 was the

day Cybele met him, March 22 his

self-mutilation, March 24 his death,

and March 25 his resurrection. ■

Foreign goddesses

Cybele was not the only imported

goddess to play a crucial role in

Roman religion. The Egyptian

goddess Isis had a cult following

in Rome, especially among

courtesans and the lower classes.

When the hero of Apuleius’s novel

Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)

had his religious revelation, it was

with a vision of the goddess Isis.

Devotees of Isis were initiated

into secret rites that promised a

life after death, and festivals in

spring and fall celebrated

rebirth and resurrection.

The emperors Augustus and

Tiberius opposed Isis worship

because she was not a Roman

goddess. They ordered her

temples destroyed and that

statues of her be thrown into

the Tiber. Caligula made the

cult legal again as part of his

strategy to undo Tiberius’s

policies. Isis remained popular

until the rise of Christianity in

the 4th century bce.

I deserved this! I pay the

due penalty in blood! Let the

parts that harmed me perish!

Attis, Fasti

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