Flora Unveiled

The “Plantheon” j 195

195 195

Youthful Male Vegetation Deities

Although most Greek vegetation deities were female, some were male. In Bronze Age societ-

ies throughout the Mediterranean, the withering of flowers, garden vegetables, and cereal

crops under the blazing heat of the sun during the dry season was commemorated in various

myths involving young male gods who were the consorts of important goddesses, cut down

in the prime of their youth. Some examples include the Babylonian Tammuz (Sumerian

Dumuzi), the consort of Ishtar/ Inanna; the Phrygian Attis, consort of Cybele; and the

Egyptian Osiris, the brother- consort of Isis. A  Babylonian hymn employs plant drought-

stress metaphors to describe Tammuz:

A tamarisk that in the garden has drunk no water,

Whose crown in the field has brought forth no blossom.

A willow that rejoiced not by the watercourse,

A willow whose roots were torn up.

An herb that in the garden has drunk no water.^28

The Greeks, too, had several versions of what James Frazer referred to as “dying and

reviving gods” of vegetation, including Adonis, Hyakinthos, and Dionysus. According

to Frazer, the deaths of the young male gods were recognized by the Greeks as tragic but

necessary aspects of the agricultural cycle, comparable to Persephone’s abduction to the

Underworld. Indeed, flowering plants are said to have sprouted from the blood of the dying

youths: anemones from the blood of Adonis, hyacinths from the blood of Hyakinthos, and

pomegranates from the blood of Dionysus.

As we have already seen, Adonis was the “fruit” of the myrrh tree, identifying him as a

vegetation deity from the spice- growing lands of the East. So great was Adonis’s beauty,

even as an infant, that the love goddess Aphrodite jealously hid him from the other gods

in a chest, which she entrusted to Kore. But when Kore beheld Adonis, she, too, cov-

eted him, and an argument between Aphrodite and Kore ensued. The two goddesses

compromised by allowing Adonis to spend eight months of the year above ground with

Aphrodite and four months of the year below ground with Kore. The fact that Adonis

spends most of the year with Aphrodite indicates that he is predominantly associated

with sexual love, although his relationship with Kore suggests that he is also identified

with the earth. Frazer, in his interpretation, emphasized the similarities between the

Adonis and Persephone myths, both of which involve annual cycling between the surface

and the Underworld.

The cult of Adonis was a privately sponsored mystery religion primarily attracting women.

The festival of Adonia was held in mid- July on the rooftops of private homes. According to

Bruce Thornton, the participants in the Adonia festival included both men and women:

especially prostitutes, courtesans, and their lovers: women, that is, whose sexuality was

its own pleasurable end rather than directed to the procreative needs of the city. ...

The celebrants ate and drank liberally, exchanged bawdy jokes, and the women,

bedecked and perfumed, made love.^29