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Agdistis

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For plume moth genus, see Agdistis (moth).

Agdistis (Template:Lang-grc) is a deity of Greek, Roman, and Anatolian mythology who was a Hermaphrodite, having been born with both male and female reproductive organs. The deity was closely associated with the Phrygian goddess Cybele.[1]

Phrygian statue of Cybele/Agdistis from the mid-6th century BC at or near Hattusa

Mythology

The geographer Pausanias (7.17.10–12) records the following story about Agdistis, which he says the people of Pessinus told. Zeus, while asleep, spilled some of his semen on the earth, which in time gave rise to a deity (δαίμων) with both male and female sexual organs called Agdistis. Now the other gods, afraid of Agdistis, cut off the male genitalia, and from this grew an almond tree. The daughter of the Phrygian river-god Sangarius picked an almond from this tree and placing it in her bosom she became pregnant. She gave birth to a son Attis who was abandoned in the wild. Attis was cared for by a male goat, and grew to be a divinely beautiful youth and Agdistis fell in love with the boy. But Attis was sent to Pessinus to be married to the king's daughter, and when the marriage hymn was sung Agdistis appeared, and driven mad both Attis and the king castrated themselves. Attis died from his wound but Agdistis, repenting for what had been done to Attis, persuaded Zeus that Attis's body should never decay. In another passage (1.4.5), Pausanias tells us that a mountain at Pessinus was called "Mount Agdistis", and that Attis was said to be buried there.[2]

Another much longer version of Agdistis's story, was apparently handed down by Timotheus, an Athenian Eumolpid (c. 300 BC).[3] According to Arnobius, an early fourth-century Christian apologist:

In Timotheus, who was no mean mythologist, and also in others equally well informed, the birth of the Great Mother of the gods, and the origin of her rites, are thus detailed, being derived (as he himself writes and suggests) from learned books of antiquities, and from [his acquaintance with] the most secret mysteries[4]

Arnobius goes on to recount the story as follows.[5] There was a rock in Phrygia called Agdus, from which this Great Mother was fashioned. Now Jupiter (the Roman Zeus) desired to have intercourse with her, but unable to do so, let his seed fall upon the rock. From this rock was eventually born Agdistis, named so after Agdus the mothering rock. In Agdistis was:

resistless might, and a fierceness of disposition beyond control, a lust made furious, and [derived] from both sexes! He violently plundered and laid waste; he scattered destruction wherever the ferocity of his disposition had led him ; he regarded not gods or men, nor did he think anything more powerful than himself ; he contemned earth, heaven, and the stars.[6]

After the gods, in their councils, had often considered what could be done to curb Agdistis, Liber (the Roman Dionysus), taking the task upon himself, caused Agdistis to be become drunk and fall fast asleep. With a snare Liber tied Agdistis's foot to his genitals. When Agdistis finally woke up and stood, he tore his own genitals off. And from these and the immense flow of blood upon the earth grew a pomegranate tree. Now Sangarius's daughter Nana placed one of the fruits from the tree in her bosom, and as above, became pregnant with the boy Attis. When the pregnancy is discovered by her father, Nana is shut up in order to starve her to death. But she is kept alive by the Mother of the gods, Attis is born, and Sangarius orders the child exposed. As before the child is found and nurtured, and grows to be a surpassingly beautiful youth, whom the Mother of the gods loved "exceedingly". And, as Attis grew up, Agdistis was his constant secret companion:

fondling him, and bound [to him] by wicked compliance with his lust in the only way now possible, leading him through the wooded glades, and presenting him with the spoils of many wild beasts, which the boy Attis at first said boastfully were won by his own toil and labour.[7]

Finally, however, a drunken Attis confesses his relationship with Agdistis, and in order to save the youth from "so disgraceful an intimacy", Midas the king of Pessinus resolves to give Attis his daughter in marriage. On the day of the wedding, Midas has the gates the city closed, so that nothing might disturb the marriage. But the Mother of the gods knowing the danger to Attis because of his impending marriage, lifted the city walls with her head ... [8] In a jealous rage Agdistis bursts in upon the wedding filling everyone with "frenzied madness" which causes Attis to castrate himself and die. The Mother of the gods gathered up the severed genitals and buried them, and Agdistis and the Mother of the gods join together in the funeral wailings. Agdistis pleads for Jupiter to restore Attis to life. Jupiter refuses, but does grant that Attis' body will never decay, his hair should continue to grow, and his little fingers should live, and ever move. Agdistis took the body to Pessinus, where it was consecrated and honored with yearly rites.[9]

Association with Cybele

Agdistis is closely associated with Cybele, the Great Mother of the gods, of whom Agdistis is described as a "doublet".[10] Agdistis's story comes from Pessinus, which was the country of Cybele.[11] According to Strabo, at Pessinus, the two goddesses were identified.[12] The accounts of Agdistis given above revolve around Attis who was the young consort of Cybele and prototype of her eunuch priesthood.[13] And Agistis's story was supposed to explain why Cybeles's priests were eunuchs.[14] Although Cybele does not figure directly in Pausanias' account, she does in Arnobias' where, like Agdistis, she too loves Attis and joins Agdistis in mourning his death.[15]

Cult

Although primarily an Anatolian deity, the cult of Agdistis covered a wide geographical area from Egypt to Crimea.

Agdistis's cult was found in the mid-Aegean islands and the mainland Greek city of Piraeus as early as the 3rd–4th century BC. From there, it spread to Attica and Rhamnous, where a sanctuary to Agdistis was built.[16] It reached Egypt by 250 BC. Inscriptions honoring them have been found on Crete at Paros and in the mainland and coastal Anatolia. Evidence of the cult has been found in Sardis, where inscriptions found as early as the 4th century BC indicate that priests of Zeus were not permitted to take part in the mysteries of Agdistis. Inscriptions honor the deity at Mithymna. In the 1st century BC, Agdistis's shrine in Philadelphia, Anatolia, required a strict code of behavior. At that location and others they are found with sister deities ("theoi soteres").[17]

Additionally, Agdistis' cult was found in far-off Panticapeum, on the eastern shore of Crimea, and at the Greek island of Lesbos, after 80 BC.

There is epigraphic evidence that in some places[where?] Agdistis was considered a healing deity of a wholly benevolent nature.[18]

In an attempt to understand the contradictory representations and syncretism of the Anatolian mother goddesses, scholars have hypothesized that Agdistis is part of a continuum of androgynous Anatolian deities,[citation needed] including an ancient Phrygian deity probably named Andistis[citation needed] and one called Adamma,[citation needed] stretching back to the ancient kingdom of Kizzuwatna in the 2nd millennium BC.[citation needed]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Walton and Scheid, s.v. Agdistis; Baudy, s.v. Agdistis; Turner and Coulter, s.v. Agdistis; Grimal, s.v. Agdistis; Smith, s.v. Agdistis.
  2. ^ Lancellotti, pp. 2–3; Grimal, s.v. Agdistis; Smith, s.v. Agdistis; Pausanias,7.17.10–12, 1.4.5.
  3. ^ Bremmer, pp. 542–543.
  4. ^ Arnobius, 5.5.
  5. ^ Lancellotti, pp. 3–5; Bremmer, pp. 544–546; Grimal, s.v. Agdistis; Arnobius, 5.5–7.
  6. ^ Arnobius, 5.5.
  7. ^ Arnobius, 5.6.
  8. ^ The text here is corrupt.
  9. ^ Arnobius, 5.7.
  10. ^ Walton and Scheid, s.v. Attis; Hard, p. 218; Gasparro, p. 34.
  11. ^ Grimal, s.v. Agdidtis.
  12. ^ Baudy, s.v. Agdistis; Walton and Scheid, s.v. Agdistis; Strabo, 10.3.12, 12.5.3. Compare Hesychius, s.v. Agdistis.
  13. ^ Walton and Scheid, s.v. Attis; Gasparro, p. 26.
  14. ^ Hard, p. 218.
  15. ^ Gasparro, p. 34; Arnobius, 5.7.
  16. ^ Gasparro, p. 34.
  17. ^ Walton, Francis Redding (1996). "Agdistis". In Hornblower, Simon (ed.). Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
  18. ^ Lancellotti, p. 50 n. 176.

References


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