User:Roger Pearse/Attis Sources

These are the sources for our knowledge of Attis.

Literary Sources

Herodotus, 5th century BC

In Herodotus, book 1, 34-45, there is a rambling story about Atys, son of Croesus, accidentally killed by a spear while hunting. In his Cybele and Attis, M. J. Vermaseren considers whether this is part of the myth of Attis. This link asserts that it is.

But on looking at the text, the account is very dissimilar from any other account. Does anything but the similarity of name tie the two together?

Catullus, 84 BC – ca. 54 BC

Catullus, Poem 63:

Borne in his swift bark over deep seas,
Attis, when eagerly with speedy foot he reached the Phrygian woodland,
and entered the goddess’ abodes, shadowy, forest-crowned;
there, goaded by raging madness, bewildered in mind,
he cast down from him with sharp flint-stone the burden of his member.
So when she felt her limbs to have lost their manbood,
still with fresh blood dabbling the face of the ground,
swiftly with snowy bands she seized the light timbrel,
your timbrel, Cybele, thy mysteries, Mother,
and shaking with soft fingers the hollow oxhide
thus began she to sing to her companions tremulously:
“Come away, ye Gallae, go to the mountain forests of Cybele together,
together go, wandering herd of the lady of Dindymus,
who swiftly seeking alien homes as exiles,
followed my rule as I led you in my train,
endured the fast-flowing brine and the savage seas,
and unmanned your bodies from utter abhorrence of love,
cheer ye your Lady’s heart with swift wanderings.
Let dull delay depart from your mind; go together, follow
to the Phrygian house of Cybele, to the Phrygian forests of the goddess,
where the noise of cymbals sounds, where timbrels re-echo,
where the Phrygian flute-player blows a deep note on his curved reed,
where the Maenads ivy-crowned toss their heads violently,
where with shrill yells they shake the holy emblems,
where that wandering company of the goddess is wont to rove,
whither for us ’tis meet to hasten with rapid dances.”
So soon as Attis, woman yet no true one, chanted thus to her companions,
the revellers suddenly with quivering tongues yell aloud,
the light timbrel rings again, clash again the hollow cymbals,
swiftly to green Ida goes the rout with hurrying foot.
Then too frenzied, panting, uncertain, wanders, gasping for breath,
attended by the timbrel, Attis, through the dark forests their leader,
as a heifer unbroken starting aside from the burden of the yoke.
Fast follow the Gallae their swift-footed leader.
So when they gained the house of Cybele, faint and weary,
after much toil they take their rest without bread;
heavy sleep covers their eyes with drooping weariness,
the delirious madness of their mind departs in soft slumber.
But when the sun with the flashing eyes of his golden face
lightened the clear heaven, the firm lands, the wild sea,
and chased away the shades of night with eager tramping steeds refreshed,
then Sleep fled from wakened Attis and quickly was gone;
him the goddess Pasithea received in her fluttering bosom.
So after soft slumber, freed from violent madness,
as soon as Attis himself in his heart reviewed his own deed,
and saw with clear mind what lie had lost and where he was,
with surging mind again he sped back to the waves.
There, looking out upon the waste seas with streaming eyes,
thus did she piteously address her country with tearful voice:
” O my country that gavest me life! O my country that barest me!
leaving whom, all wretch! as runaway servants leave their masters,
I have borne my foot to the forests of Ida,
to live among snows and frozen lairs of wild beasts,
and visit in my frenzy all their lurking-dens,
– where then or in what region do I think thy place to be, O my country?
Mine eyeballs unbidden long to turn their gaze to thee
while for a short space my mind is free from wild frenzy.
I, shall I from my own home be borne far away into these forests?
from my country, my possessions, my friends, my parents, shall I be?
absent from the market, the wrestling-place, the racecourse, the playground?
unhappy, all unhappy heart, again, again must thou complain.
For what form of human figure is there which I had not?
I, to be a woman–who was a stripling, I a youth, I a boy,
I was the flower of the playground, I was once the glory of the palaestra:
mine were the crowded doorways, mine the warm thresholds,
mine the flowery garlands to deck my house
when I was to leave my chamber at sunrise.
I, shall I now be called–what? a handmaid of the gods, a ministress of Cybele?
I a Maenad, I part of myself, a barren man shall I be?
I, shall I dwell in icy snow-clad regions of verdant Ida,
I pass my life under the high summits of Phrygia,
with the hind that haunts the woodland, with the boar that ranges the forest?
now, now I rue my deed, now, now I would it were undone.”
From his rosy lips as these words issued forth,
bringing a new message to both ears of the gods,
then Cybele, loosening the fastened yoke from her lions,
and goading that foe of the herd who drew on the left, thus speaks:
“Come now,” she says, “come, go fiercely, let madness hunt him hence
bid him hence by stroke of madness hie him to the forests again,
him who would be too free, and run away from my sovereignty.
Come, lash back with tail, endure thy own scourging,
make all around resound with bellowing roar,
shake fiercely on brawny neck thy ruddy mane.”
Thus says wrathful Cybele, and with her hand unbinds the yoke.
The monster stirs his courage and rouses him to fury of heart;
he speeds away, he roars, with ranging foot he breaks the brushwood.
But when he came to the watery stretches of the white-gleaming shore,
and saw tender Attis by the smooth spaces of the sea,
he rushes at him–madly flies Attis to the wild woodland.
There always for all his lifetime was he a handmaid.
Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, goddess, lady of Dindymus
far from my house be all thy fury, O my queen
others drive thou in frenzy, others drive thou to madness.

Diodorus Siculus, 1st century BC

Diodorus Siculus, History, 3.58.4-59.1:

58. However, an account is handed down also that this goddess was born in Phrygia. For the natives of that country have the following myth: In ancient times Meïon became king of Phrygia and Lydia; and marrying Dindymê he begat an infant daughter, but being unwilling to rear her he exposed her on the mountain which was called Cybelus. There, in accordance with some divine providence, both the leopards and some of the other especially ferocious wild beasts offered their nipples to the child and so gave it nourishment, and some women who were tending the flocks in that place witnessed the happening, and being astonished at the strange event took up the babe and called her Cybelê after the name of the place. The child, as she grew up, excelled in both beauty and virtue and also came to be admired for her intelligence; for she was the first to devise the pipe of many reeds and to invent cymbals and kettledrums with which to accompany the games and the dance, and in addition she taught how to heal the sicknesses of both flocks and little children by means of rites of purification; in consequence, since the babes were saved from death by her spells and were generally taken up in her arms, her devotion to them and affection for them led all the people to speak of her as the “mother of the mountain.” The man who associated with her and loved her more than anyone else, they say, was Marsyas the physician, who was admired for his intelligence and chastity; and a proof of his intelligence they find in the fact that he imitated the sounds made by the pipe of many reeds and carried all its notes over into the flute, and as an indication of his chastity they cite his abstinence from sexual pleasures until the day of his death.

Now Cybelê, the myth records, having arrived at full womanhood, came to love a certain native youth who was known as Attis, but at a later time received the appellation Papas; with him she consorted secretly and became with child, and at about the same time her parents recognized her as their child. Consequently she was brought up into the palace, and her father welcomed her at the outset under the impression the she was a virgin, but later, when he learned of her seduction, he put to death her nurses and Attis as well and cast their bodies forth to lie unburied; whereupon Cybelê, they say, because of her love for the youth and grief over the nurses, became frenzied and rushed out of the palace into the countryside. And crying aloud and beating upon a kettledrum she visited every country alone, with hair hanging free, and Marsyas, out of pity for her plight, voluntarily followed her and accompanied her in her wanderings because of the love which he had formerly borne her. … And Apollo, they say, laid away both the lyre and the pipes as a votive offering in the cave of Dionysus, and becoming enamoured of Cybelê joined in her wanderings as far as the land of the Hyperboreans.

But, the myth goes on to say, a pestilence fell upon human beings throughout Phrygia and the land ceased to bear fruit, and when the unfortunate people inquired of the god how they might rid themselves of their ills he commanded them, it is said, to bury the body of Attis and to honour Cybelê as a goddess. Consequently the physicians, since the body had disappeared in the course of time, made an image of the youth, before which they sang dirges and by means of honours in keeping with his suffering propitiated the wrath of him who had been wronged; and these rites they continue to perform down to our own lifetime. As for Cybelê, in ancient times they erected altars and performed sacrifices to her yearly; and later they built for her a costly temple in Pisinus of Phrygia, and established honours and sacrifices of the greatest magnificence, Midas their king taking part in all these works out of his devotion to beauty; and beside the statue of the goddess they set up panthers and lions, since it was the common opinion that she had first been nursed by these animals.

Such, then, are the myths which are told about Mother of the God both among the Phrygians and by the Atlantians who dwell on the coast of the ocean.

Ovid, 1st century AD

Ovid, Fasti, 4.221-224:

…  I said ‘Where did this urge to cut off
Their members come from?’ As I ended, the Muse spoke:
‘In the woods, a Phrygian boy, Attis, of handsome face,
Won the tower-bearing goddess with his chaste passion.
She desired him to serve her, and protect her temple,
And said: “Wish, you might be a boy for ever.”
He promised to be true, and said: “If I’m lying
May the love I fail in be my last love.”
He did fail, and in meeting the nymph Sagaritis,
Abandoned what he was: the goddess, angered, avenged it.
She destroyed the Naiad, by wounding a tree,
Since the tree contained the Naiad’s fate.
Attis was maddened, and thinking his chamber’s roof
Was falling, fled for the summit of Mount Dindymus.
Now he cried: “Remove the torches”, now he cried:
“Take the whips away”: often swearing he saw the Furies.
He tore at his body too with a sharp stone,
And dragged his long hair in the filthy dust,
Shouting: “I deserved this! I pay the due penalty
In blood! Ah! Let the parts that harmed me, perish!
Let them perish!” cutting away the burden of his groin,
And suddenly bereft of every mark of manhood.
His madness set a precedent, and his unmanly servants
Toss their hair, and cut off their members as if worthless.’
So the Aonian Muse, eloquently answering the question
I’d asked her, regarding the causes of their madness.

Ovid, Metamorphoses (X.103-5):

You came, also, ... the pliant palms, the winner’s prize; and you, the shaggy-topped pine tree, armed with needles, 
sacred to Cybele, mother of the gods, since Attis exchanged his human form for you, and hardened in your trunk.

Pausanias, 2nd century AD

Pausanius, Guide to Greece, 7.17.5:

The Achaian city Dyme is distant about four hundred stadia from Larissus… Besides this the Dymaei have a temple of Minerva, and a statue of the goddess, which is very ancient. They have also another temple sacred to the mother Dindymene, and Attes. But who Attes is, I have not been able to discover, because it is. an arcane affair. Hermesianax, indeed, a writer of elegies, says, that he was the son of the Phrygian Calaus, and that he was produced by his mother incapable of begetting children. That when he arrived at manhood he migrated to Lydia, and established there the orgies of the Great Mother. And that he was so highly honoured by the goddess, that it excited the indignation of Jupiter, who sent a boar into the Lydian fields, by which other Lydians were destroyed, and Attes himself was slain. The Gauls who inhabit Pesinus, confirm by their conduct the truth of this relation, for they cannot bear to touch swine. However, they report things concerning Attes far different from the above.

Jupiter, say they, while he was asleep emitted his seed on the earth; this in process of time produced a daemon with twofold private parts, viz. with the parts of man and woman united. The name of this daemon was Agdistis: and the gods, in consequence of being terrified at him, cut off his virile parts. From these parts an almond tree was produced, the fruit of which, when ripe, the daughter of the river Sangarius gathered and concealed in her bosom. The fruit, however, immediately vanished, and she became pregnant. As the result of her pregnancy, she was delivered of a boy, who being left in the woods was educated by a goat, and who, as he grew in years, possessed a beauty surpassing that of the human form, and through which Agdistis fell in love with him. But when he arrived at manhood, his friends sent him to Pesinus, in order that he might marry the daughter of the king. Here, as they were singing the nuptial song, Agdistis presented himself before them, and Attes becoming insane, cut off his private parts. The king’s daughter, too, that was given to Attes, cut off her privities. But Agdistis was grieved that Attes had acted in this manner, and obtained of Jupiter that no part of the body of Attes should either become putrid or waste away. And such are the particulars which are reported about Attes.

Lucian, 2nd century AD

Lucian, De Dea Syria. Chapters. 50-51:

50. On certain days a multitude flocks into the temple, and the Galli in great numbers, sacred as they are, perform the ceremonies of the men and gash their arms and turn their backs to be lashed. Many bystanders play on the pipes the while many beat drums; others sing divine and sacred songs. All this performance takes place outside the temple, and those engaged in the ceremony enter not into the temple.

51. During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his hands what he has cut off. He casts it into any house at will, and from this house he receives women’s raiment and ornaments. Thus they act during their ceremonies of castration.

52. The Galli, when dead, are not buried like other men, but when a Gallus dies his companions carry him out into the suburbs, and laying him out on the bier on which they had carried him they cover him with stones, and after this return home. They wait then for seven days, after which they enter the temple. Should they enter before this they would be guilty of blasphemy.

(There is a question whether this rite relates to Cybele and Attis, depending on whether we identify the Syrian goddess with Cybele.)

Arnobius, 3-4th century AD

Arnobius the Elder, Against the Pagans, book 5, 5-7:

5. 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:-

Within the confines of Phrygia, he says, there is a rock of unheard-of wildness in every respect, the name of which is Agdus, so named by the natives of that district. Stones taken from it, as Themis by her oracle had enjoined, Deucalion and Pyrrha threw upon the earth, at that time emptied of men; from which this Great Mother, too, as she is called, was fashioned along with the others, and animated by the deity. Her, given over to rest and sleep on the very summit of the rock, Jupiter assailed with lewdest desires. But when, after long strife, he could no accomplish what he had proposed to himself, he, baffled, spent his lust on the stone. This the rock received, and with many groanings Acdestis is born in the tenth month, being named from his mother rock.

In him there had been 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 nor men, nor did he think anything more powerful than himself; he contemned earth, heaven, and the stars.

6. Now, when it had been often considered in the councils of the gods, by what means it might be possible either to weaken or to curb his audacity, Liber, the rest hanging back, takes upon himself this task. With the strongest wine he drugs a spring much resorted to by Acdestis where he had been wont to assuage the heat and burning thirst roused in him by sport and hunting. Hither runs Acdestis to drink when he felt the need; he gulps down the draught too greedily into his gaping veins. Overcome by what he is quite unaccustomed to, he is in consequence sent fast asleep.

Liber is near the snare which he had set; over his foot he throws one end of a halter formed of hairs, woven together very skilfully; with the other end he lays hold of his privy members. When the fumes of the wine passed off, Acdestis starts up furiously, and his foot dragging the noose, by his own strength he robs himself of his sex; with the tearing asunder of these parts there is an immense flow of blood; both are carried off and swallowed up by the earth; from them there suddenly springs up, covered with fruit, a pomegranate tree, seeing the beauty of which, with admiration, Nana, daughter of the king or river Sangarius, gathers and places in her bosom some of the fruit.

By this she becomes pregnant; her father shuts her up, supposing that she had been debauched, and seeks to have her starved to death; she is kept alive by the mother of the gods with apples, and other food, and brings forth a child, but Sangarius orders it to be exposed.

One Phorbas having found the child, takes it home, brings it up on goats’ milk; and as handsome fellows are so named in Lydia, or because the Phrygians in their own way of speaking call their goats attagi, it happened in consequence that the boy obtained the name Attis.

Him the mother of the gods loved exceedingly, because he was of most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis, who was his companion, as he grew up 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. Afterwards, under the influence of wine, he admits that he is both loved by Acdestis, and honoured by him with the gifts brought from the forest; whence it is unlawful for those polluted by drinking wine to enter into his sanctuary, because it discovered his secret.

7. Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage, and caused the gates of the town to be closed, that no one of evil omen might disturb their marriage joys.

But the mother of the gods, knowing the fate of the youth, and that he would live among men in safety only so long as he was free from the ties of marriage, that no disaster might occur, enters the closed city, raising its walls with her head, which began to be crowned with towers in consequence. Acdestis, bursting with rage because of the boy’s being torn from himself, and brought to seek a wife, fills all the guests with frenzied madness: the Phrygians shriek aloud, panic-stricken at the appearance of the gods; a daughter of adulterous Gallus cuts off her breasts; Attis snatches the pipe borne by him who was goading them to frenzy; and he, too, now filled with furious passion, raving frantically and tossed about, throws himself down at last, and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, “Take these, Acdestis, for which you have stirred up so great and terribly perilous commotions.”

With the streaming blood his life flies; but the Great Mother of the gods gathers the parts which had been cut off, and throws earth on them, having first covered them, and wrapped them in the garment of the dead. From the blood which had flowed springs a flower, the violet, and with this the tree is girt. Thence the custom began and arose, whereby you even now veil and wreath with flowers the sacred pine.

The virgin who had been the bride, whose name, as Valerius the pontifex relates, was Ia, veils the breast of the lifeless youth with soft wool, sheds tears with Acdestis, and slays herself After her death her blood is changed into purple violets.

The mother of the gods sheds tears also, from which springs an almond tree, signifying the bitterness of death. Then she bears away to her cave the pine tree, beneath which Attis had unmanned himself; and Acdestis joining in her wailings, she beats and wounds her breast, pacing round the trunk of the tree now at rest.

Jupiter is begged by Acdestis that Attis may be restored to life: he does not permit it. What, however, fate allowed, he readily grants, that his body should not decay, that his hairs should always grow, that the least of his fingers should live, and should be kept ever in motion; content with which favours, it is said that Acdestis consecrated the body in Pessinus, and honoured it with yearly rites and priestly services.

And:

16. And yet how can you assert the falsehood of this story, when the very rites which you celebrate throughout the year testify that you believe these things to be true, and consider them perfectly trustworthy?

For what is the meaning of that pine which on fixed days you always bring into the sanctuary of the mother of the gods? Is it not in imitation of that tree, beneath which the raging and ill-fated youth laid hands upon himself, and which the parent of the gods consecrated to relieve her sorrow?

What mean the fleeces of wool with which you bind and surround the trunk of the tree? Is it not to recall the wools with which Ia covered the dying youth, and thought that she could procure some warmth for his limbs fast stiffening with cold? What mean the branches of the tree girt round and decked with wreaths of violets? Do they not mark this, how the Mother adorned with early flowers the pine which indicates and bears witness to the sad mishap?

What mean the Galli with dishevelled hair beating their breasts with their palms? Do they not recall to memory those lamentations with which the tower-bearing Mother, along with the weeping Acdestis, wailing aloud, followed the boy? What means the abstinence from eating bread which you have named castus? Is it not in imitation of the time when the goddess abstained from Ceres’ fruit in her vehement sorrow?

17. Or if the things which we say are not so declare, say yourselves-those effeminate and delicate men whom we see among you in the sacred rites of this deity-what business, what care, what concern have they there; and why do they like mourners wound their arms and breasts, and act as those dolefully circumstanced?

What mean the wreaths, what the violets, what the swathings, the coverings of soft wools? Why, finally, is the very pine, but a little before swaying to and fro among the shrubs, an utterly inert log, set up in the temple of the Mother of the gods next, like some propitious and very venerable deity?

For either this is the cause which we have found in your writings and treatises, and in that case it is clear that you do not celebrate divine rites, but give a representation of sad events; or if there is any other reason which the darkness of the mystery has withheld from us, even it also must be involved in the infamy of some shameful deed. For who would believe that there is any honour in that which the worthless Galli begin, effeminate debauchees complete?

And ch. 39:

39. Whence, then, do we prove that all these narratives are records of events? Froth the solemn rites and mysteries of initiation, it is clear, whether those which are celebrated at fixed times and on set days, or those which are taught secretly by the heathen without allowing the observance of their usages to be interrupted.

For it is not to be believed that these have no origin, are practised without reason or meaning, and have no causes connected with their first beginnings. That pine which is regularly born into the sanctuary of the Great Mother, is it not in imitation of that tree beneath which Attis mutilated and unmanned himself, which also, they relate, the goddess consecrated to relieve her grief? That erecting of phalli and fascina, which Greece worships and celebrates in rites every year, does it not recall the deed by which Liber paid his debt?

Firmicus Maternus, ca. 350 AD

Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanum religionum, chap. 3

III. (1) The Phyrgians who live at Pessinus around the banks of the river Gallus, assign first place to the earth over the other elements, and this they profess (volunt) is the mother of all things. Then, so that they also might have for themselves an order of annual sacred events, they have consecrated the love affair of a rich women, their queen, who chose to punish tyrannically the scorn of an adolescent lover, with annual lamentations. And to satisfy the irate woman, or to find consolation for her remorse, he whom they had buried a little earlier, they claim that he had come back to life. And as the soul of the woman burned with the impatience of excessive love, they built temples to the dead youth. Then they profess that the priests appointed should undergo from themselves what the angry woman had done because of the injury to her scorned beauty. So in the annual sacred rites in honour of the earth the pomp of his funeral is organised, and when men are persuaded that they are honouring the earth, they are (in fact) venerating the death and funeral of a wretch.

(2) Here also, most sacred emperors, in order to shield this error, they profess that these natural sacred rites are also arranged rationally. They profess that the earth loves its fruits, they profess that Attis is exactly this, which is born from fruits; however the punishment which he sustained, this they profess is what the reaper with his scythe does to the ripe fruits. They call it his death when the collected seeds are stored; life again, when the sown seeds sprout in the turning of the years.

(3) I would like them now to reply to my inquiry, why have they associated this simple (story of) seed and fruit with a funeral, with death, with scorn, with punishment, with love? Was there not anything else that might be said? Was there not anything else that poor mortals might do in grateful thanks to the highest God for the crop? So that you can give thanks for the reborn crop, you howl; so that you rejoice, you weep. And you, when you see the true reason, you do not finally repent of doing this, but you do this, so that busyied with the turning seasons, you still flee from life, you pine for death.

(4) Let them tell me, how it benefits the crop, that they renew their tears with yearly howlings, that they groan over the calamities of a reborn corpse, which they say is arranged for a natural reason. You mourn and you wail, and you cover your mourning with another excuse. The farmer knew when he could furrow the earth with a plow, when he could sow the furrows with grain, he knew when to gather the crop ripened by the heat of the sun, he knew when to tread out the dried crop. This is the natural reason, these are the true sacrificial rites, which are carried out by the yearly labour in men of healthy minds. The divinity asks for this simplicity, that men should follow the laws ordained of the seasons (temporum) in collecting crops. Why do they try to explain this order by wretched fictions of a death? Why is that shielded with tears, which does not need to be shielded? From which let them admit of necessity, that these rites are not held in honour of the crops, but in honour of an unworthy death.

(5) When they say that the earth is the mother of all the gods, and they allot the chief roles to this element, indeed it is mother of their gods, — this we don’t deny or refuse, because from it they are always making their bunch of gods, whether of stone or wood. The sea flows around the whole earth, and again it is held tight by the circle of the encircling embracing Ocean. The heavens also are covered by the lofty dome, blown through by winds, splashed by rains, and in fear, as shown by tremors of unremitting motion. What remains to you, who cultivate these things, consider; when your gods reveal their weakness to you in daily declarations.

Julian the Apostate, 363 AD

Julian, Oratio 5: on the Magna Mater:

Who then is the Mother of the Gods? She is the Source of the Intelligible and Creative Powers, which direct the visible ones; she that gave birth to and copulated with the mighty Jupiter: she that exists as a great goddess next to the Great One, and in union with the Great Creator; she that is dispenser of all life; cause of all birth; most easily accomplishing all that is made; generating without passion; creating all that exists in concert with the Father; herself a virgin, without mother, sharing the throne of Jupiter, the mother in very truth of all the gods; for by receiving within herself the causes of all the intelligible deities that be above the world, she became the source to things the objects of intellect.

Now this goddess, who is also the same as Providence, was seized with a love without passion for Attis. … And this the legend aims at teaching when it makes the Mother of the Gods enjoin upon Attis to be her servant, and not to stray from her, and not fall in love with another woman. But he went forward, and descended as far as the boundaries of Matter.

But when it became necessary for this ignorance to cease and be stopped—-then Corybas, the mighty Sun, the colleague of the Mother of the Gods … persuades the lion to turn informer. Who then is this lion? We hear him styled “blazing”—-he must, therefore, I think, be the cause presiding over the hot and fiery element; that which was about to wage war against the Nymph, and to make her jealous of her intercourse with Attis; and who this Nymph is we have already stated.

This lion, the fable tells, lent his aid to the Mother of the Gods … and by his detecting the offence and turning informer, became the author of the castration of the youth. … not without the intervention of the fabled madness of Attis…

It is not therefore unreasonable to suppose this Attis a sixper-natural personage (in fact the fable implies as much), or rather in all respects, a deity, seeing that he comes forth out of the Third Creator, and returns again after his castration, to the Mother of the Gods… the fable styles him a “demi-god,” … The Corybantes… are assigned by the Great Mother to act as his bodyguard…

This great god of ours is Attis; this is the meaning of the “Flight of King Attis” that we have just been lamenting; his “Concealments,” his “Vanishings,” his “Descents into the Cave.” Let my evidence be the time of year when all these ceremonies take place; for it is said that the Sacred Tree is cut down at the moment when the Sun arrives at the extreme point of the equinoctial arc: next in order follows the Sounding of the trumpets, and lastly is cut down the sacred and ineffable Harvest of the god Gallos: after these come, as they say, the Hilaria and festivities.

Now that a “cessation of Indefinity” is meant by the castration so much talked of by the vulgar, is self-evident from the fact that when the Sun touches the equinoctial circle, where that which is most definite is placed (for equality is definite, but inequality indefinite and inexplicable); at that very moment (according to the report), the Sacred Tree is cut down; then come the other rites in their order; whereof some are done in compliance with rules that be holy and not to be divulged; others for reasons allowable to be discussed.

The “Cutting of the Tree;” this part refers to the legend about the Gallos, and has nothing to do with the rites which it accompanies… The rite, therefore, enjoins upon us who are celestial by our nature, but who have been carried down to earth, to reap virtue joined with piety from our conduct upon earth, and to aspire upwards unto the deity, the primal source of being and the fount of life. Then immediately after the cutting does the trumpet give out the invocation to Attis and to those that be of heaven, whence we took our flight, and fell down to earth.

And after this, when King Attis checks the Indefinity by the means of castration, the gods thereby warn us to extirpate in ourselves all incontinence, and to imitate the example, and to run upwards unto the Definite, and the Uniform, and if it be possible, to the One itself; which being accomplished the “Hilaria” must by all means follow. For what could be more contented, what more hilarious than the soul that has escaped from uncertainty, and generation, and the tumult that reigns therein, and hastens upwards to the gods? Of whose number was this Attis, whom the Mother of the Gods would not suffer to advance farther than was proper for him, but turned him towards herself, and enjoined him to check all indefinity.

Sallustius, mid-4th century AD

Sallustius, De diis et mundo - This is the Gilbert Murray 1925 translation, published as an appendix to "Five stages of Greek religion" and appearing on Sacred Texts. There is also an A.D.Nock 1926 translation, and there is an old one somewhere by Thomas Taylor. Sallustius was a friend of Julian the Apostate.

To take another myth, they say that the Mother of the Gods seeing Attis lying by the river Gallus fell in love with him, took him, crowned him with her cap of stars, and thereafter kept him with her. He fell in love with a nymph and left the Mother to live with her. For this the Mother of the Gods made Attis go mad and cut off his genital organs and leave them with the nymph, and then return and dwell with her.

Now the Mother of the Gods is the principle that generates life; that is why she is called Mother. Attis is the creator of all things which are born and die; that is why he is said to have been found by the river Gallus. For Gallus signifies the Galaxy, or Milky Way, the point at which body subject to passion begins. Now as the primary gods make perfect the secondary, the Mother loves Attis and gives him celestial powers.

That is what the cap means. Attis loves a nymph: the nymphs preside over generation, since all that is generated is fluid. But since the process of generation must be stopped somewhere, and not allowed to generate something worse than the worst, the creator who makes these things casts away his generative powers into the creation and is joined to the Gods again. Now these things never happened, but always are. And mind sees all things at once, but reason (or speech) expresses some first and others after. Thus, as the myth is in accord with the cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the cosmos, for how could we attain higher order?

Anonymous, Carmen Ad Antonium, early 5th century (?)

here.

Why do they hope for anything from Jupiter who came second after this king yet who is served with offerings through the lips of suppliants? This god has a mother, too, who was overtaken by love for a shepherd, so the shepherd himself came before Jupiter or Jove; but the shepherd was his superior for, wishing to preserve his chastity, he rejected the goddess who in her rage castrated him so that he who had refused to come to her bed should never be the husband of another. Was this the just ordinance of the gods however, that a man who had not been made a fornicator should never be a husband? Now, too, eunuchs chant shameful mysteries nor are there lacking men to be corrupted by this infection. They worship some secret the more profound for being behind closed doors and call holy something which would render a modest man unholy should he approach it. Thus the priest himself, more restricted, avoids sleeping with women and accepts the embrace of men.

Augustine, early 5th century AD

Augustine, City of God, book 6, chapter 7:

There are sacred rites of the mother of the gods, in which the beautiful youth Atys, loved by her, and castrated by her through a woman’s jealousy, is deplored by men who have suffered the like calamity, whom they call Galli. …

What good is to be thought of their sacred rites which are concealed in darkness, when those which are brought forth into the light are so detestable? And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact in secret through the agency of mutilated and effeminate men. Yet they have not been able to conceal those same men miserably and vile enervated and corrupted.

Let them persuade whom they can that they transact anything holy through such men, who, they cannot deny, are numbered, and live among their sacred things. We know not what they transact, but we know through whom they transact; for we know what things are transacted on the stage, where never, even in a chorus of harlots, hath one who is mutilated or an effeminate appeared.

And, nevertheless, even these things are acted by vile and infamous characters; for, indeed, they ought not to be acted by men of good character. What, then, are those sacred rites, for the performance of which holiness has chosen such men as not even the obscenity of the stage has admitted?

Proclus, 5th century

Marinus, Life of Proclus, ch. 33

33. But if I was to enumerate all the facts of this kind, and to report the particular devotion which he held for Pan, son of Hermes, the great favors he received, and the numerous times he was, in Athens, saved by intervention of the divinity, and to relate in detail the protections and the advantages he received from the Mother of the Gods, of which he was particularly proud and happy, I would no doubt seem chattering vainly, to those who may light on this book by chance, and some may even think I am saying things little worthy of belief. For there were a considerable number of episodes, that were of almost daily occurrence, when this goddess [Cybele] spoke or acted in his favor; and their number and character are so unusual that I myself do not have their exact and precise memory.

If anyone desires to know with what favor he was attached to this goddess, let him read Proclus's book on the Mother of the Gods, and it will be seen that with inspiration from on high he has been able to expound the whole theology relative to the goddess, and to explain philosophically all that the liturgical actions and the oral instructions mythically teach us about the goddess, and Attis, so that they will no longer be troubled by those seemingly absurd lamentations [for Attis] and all the secret traditions related in her ceremonies.

Damascius, early 6th century AD

From Life of Isidore, as quoted by Photius, Bibliotheca, codex 242.

131. At Hierapolis in Phrygia there is a temple of Apollo and under the temple a subterranean fissue descends, which exhales lethal vapours. It is impossible to pass this gulf without danger, even for birds, and everyone who enters it dies. But the author says that it is possible for initiates to descend into the crevasse itself and stay there without injury. The author says that he himself and the philosopher Dorus, led by curiosity, descended into it and returned unharmed. The author says, “I then slept at Hierapolis and in a dream it seemed to me that I was Attis and that, by the order of the Great Mother of the gods, I was celebrating what is called the festival of the Hilaria; this dream signified our liberation from Hades. On returning to Aphrodisias, I recounted to Asclepiodotus the vision that I had in the dream. And he, full of admiration for what had happened to me, recounted to me, not “a dream for a dream”, but a great marvel in exchange for a little one.

He said in fact that in his youth he had gone to that place to study the nature of it. He had rolled his mantle two and three times around his nostrils so that in the event of frequent fumes, he could breathe not the poisoned and deleterious air but pure and safe air which he had brought with him captured in his mantle. Proceeding thus, he entered on the descent, following a current of hot water which came out from there, and ran the length of the inaccessible crevasse. All the same he didn’t get to the bottom of the descent, because the access to it was cut off by the abundance of water and the passage was impossible to an ordinary man, but the one descending, possessed by the divinity, was carried to the bottom. Asclepiodotus then climbed back up from that place without injury thanks to his ingenuity. Later he even tried to recreate the lethal air using various ingredients.

John the Lydian

De Mensibus IV.41 reads:

On day 11, the kalends of April, a pine tree is carried into the Palatine by the tree-bearers. But the emperor Claudius instituted these these ferias, a man of such justice in judgement that...

Inscriptions

The Clauss-Slaby database records a considerable number of inscriptions that mention Attis.

Attis Menotyrannus

In the following inscriptions, all from Rome and nowhere else, Attis is labelled "Menotyrannus". This may mean "Lord of the months", or derive from Men, the Phygian moon-god.

Publication: CIL 06, 00499 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779c = D 04147 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae Summae Parenti Hermae et Attidi Menotyranno Invicto Clodius Hermogenianus Caesarius vir clarissimus proconsul Africae praefectus urbis Romae XV vir sacris faciundis taurobolio criobolioque perfecto XIIII Kalendas Augustas diis animae suae mentisque custodibus aram dicavit domino nostro Gratiano Augusto tertium et 3 Aequitio conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00500 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779d = D 04148 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menotyranno Conservatoribus suis Caelius Hilarianus vir clarissimus duodecimvir urbis Romae pater sacrorum et hieroceryx Invicti Mithrae sacerdos dei Liberi sacerdos deae Hecate domino nostro Gratiano Augusto et Merobaude conssulibus III Idus Maias

Publication: CIL 06, 00501 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779e = D 04149 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Sancto Menotyranno Quintus Clodius Flavianus vir clarissimus pontifex maior XV vir sacris faciundis septemvir epulonum pontifex dei Solis taurobolio criobolioque percepto aram dicavit Nonis Aprilibus FFllavis Merobaude II et Saturnino conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00508 p 3757 = D 04146 = AE 2003, +00151 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Potentissimis Dis Matri deum Magnae et Attidi Menotyranno 3 Serapias honesta femina sacrata deum matris et Proserpinae taurobolium criobolium caernophorum perceptum per Flavium Antonium Eustochium sacerdotem Phryges maximus praesentibus et tradentibus cclarissimorum vvirorum ex amplissimo et sanctissimo collegio XV virum sacris faciundis die XIII Kalendas Maias cerealibus ddominis nnostris Constantino Maximo Augusto V et Licinio Iuniori Caesari conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00511 p 3005 = CLE 01529 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menoturano sacrum nobilis in causis forma celsusque Sabinus hic pater Invicti mystica victor habet sermo duos 3 reservans consimiles aufert3 et veneranda movet Cibeles Triodeia signa augentur meritis simbola tauroboli Rufius Caeionius Caeioni(?) Sabini filius(?) vir classimus pontifex maior hierofanta deae Hecatae augur publicus populi Romani Quiritium pater sacrorum Invicti Mthrae tauroboliatus Matris deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidis Minoturani et aram IIII Idus Martias Gratiano V et Merobaude consulibus dedicabit antiqua generose domo cui regia Vesta pontifici felix sacrato militat igne idem augur triplicis cultor venerande Dianae Persidicique Mithrae antistes Babloniae templi taurobolique simul magni dux mistice sacri

Publication: AE 1953, 00238 = AE 2000, +00136 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Diis Magnis Matri deum Idaeae et Attidi sancto Menotyranno Alfenius Ceionius Iulianus Kamenius vir clarissimus VII vir epulonum pater et hieroceryx sacrorum Soli Invicti Mithrae hierofanta H{a}ecatae archibucolus dei liberi aram taurobolio criobolioque percepto dicabit! die XIIII Kalendas Augustas domino nostro Gratiano Augusto III et Equitio conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00512 p 3005, 3757 = CLE +00264 = D 04154 = SIRIS 00447 = RICIS-02, 005010212 = AE 2003, +00151 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menotyranno dis Magnis et Tutatoribus suis Ceionius Rufius Volusianus vir clarissimus et inlustris ex vicario Asiae et Ceioni Rufi Volusiani viri clarissimi et inlustris ex praefecto praetorio et ex praefecto urbi et Caecinae Lollianae clarissimae et inlustris feminae deae Isidis sacerdotis filius iterato viginti annis expletis taurobolii sui aram constituit et consecravit X Kalendas Iunias domino nostro Valentiniano Augusto IIII et Neoterio conssulibus

Publication: AE 1953, 00237 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Diis Magnis Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menotyranno Sextius Rusticus vir clarissimus et inlustris pater patrum dei Invicti Mithrae

Publication: AE 1953, 00238 = AE 2000, +00136 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Diis Magnis Matri deum Idaeae et Attidi sancto Menotyranno Alfenius Ceionius Iulianus Kamenius vir clarissimus VII vir epulonum pater et hieroceryx sacrorum Soli Invicti Mithrae hierofanta Haecatae archibucolus dei liberi aram taurobolio criobolioque percepto dicabit! die XIIII Kalendas Augustas domino nostro Gratiano Augusto III et Equitio conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00499 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779c = D 04147 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae Summae Parenti Hermae et Attidi Menotyranno Invicto Clodius Hermogenianus Caesarius vir clarissimus proconsul Africae praefectus urbis Romae XV vir sacris faciundis taurobolio criobolioque perfecto XIIII Kalendas Augustas diis animae suae mentisque custodibus aram dicavit domino nostro Gratiano Augusto tertium et 3 Aequitio conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00500 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779d = D 04148 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menotyranno Conservatoribus suis Caelius Hilarianus vir clarissimus duodecimvir urbis Romae pater sacrorum et hieroceryx Invicti Mithrae sacerdos dei Liberi sacerdos deae Hecate domino nostro Gratiano Augusto et Merobaude conssulibus III Idus Maias

Publication: CIL 06, 00501 p 3005, 3757 = CIL 06, 30779e = D 04149 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Sancto Menotyranno Quintus Clodius Flavianus vir clarissimus pontifex maior XVvir sacris faciundis septemvir epulonum pontifex dei Solis taurobolio criobolioque percepto aram dicavit Nonis Aprilibus FFllavis Merobaude II et Saturnino conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00508 p 3757 = D 04146 = AE 2003, +00151 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Potentissimis Dis Matri deum Magnae et Attidi Menotyranno 3 Serapias honesta femina sacrata deum matris et Proserpinae taurobolium criobolium caernophorum perceptum per Flavium Antonium Eustochium sacerdotem Phryges maximus praesentibus et tradentibus cclarissimorum vvirorum ex amplissimo et sanctissimo collegio XV virum sacris faciundis die XIII Kalendas Maias cerealibus ddominis nnostris Constantino Maximo Augusto V et Licinio Iuniori Caesari conssulibus

Publication: CIL 06, 00511 p 3005 = CLE 01529 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menoturano sacrum nobilis in causis forma celsusque Sabinus hic pater Invicti mystica victor habet sermo duos 3 reservans consimiles aufert et veneranda movet Cibeles Triodeia signa augentur meritis simbola tauroboli Rufius Caeionius Caeioni(?) Sabini filius(?) vir classimus pontifex maior hierofanta deae Hecatae augur publicus populi Romani Quiritium pater sacrorum Invicti Mthrae tauroboliatus Matris deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidis Minoturani et aram IIII Idus Martias Gratiano V et Merobaude consulibus dedicabit antiqua generose domo cui regia Vesta pontifici felix sacrato militat igne idem augur triplicis cultor venerande Dianae Persidicique Mithrae antistes Babloniae templi taurobolique simul magni dux mistice sacri

Publication: CIL 06, 00512 p 3005, 3757 = CLE +00264 = D 04154 = SIRIS 00447 = RICIS-02, 005010212 = AE 2003, +00151 Province: Roma Place: Roma

Matri deum Magnae Idaeae et Attidi Menotyranno dis Magnis et Tutatoribus suis Ceionius Rufius Volusianus vir clarissimus et inlustris ex vicario Asiae et Ceioni Rufi Volusiani viri clarissimi et inlustris ex praefecto praetorio et ex praefecto urbi et Caecinae Lollianae clarissimae et inlustris feminae deae Isidis sacerdotis filius iterato viginti annis expletis taurobolii sui aram constituit et consecravit X Kalendas Iunias domino nostro Valentiniano Augusto IIII et Neoterio conssulibus