InGreece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddessGaia, of her possiblyMinoan equivalentRhea, and of the harvest–mother goddessDemeter. Some city-states, notablyAthens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exoticmystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood, theGalli.[4] Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divinePhrygian castrate shepherd-consortAttis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.
InRome, Cybele became known asMagna Mater ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after theSibylline oracle in 205 BC recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome'ssecond war against Carthage (218 to 201 BC).Roman mythographers reinvented her as aTrojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan princeAeneas. As Rome eventually establishedhegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughoutRome's empire. Greek and Roman writers debated and disputed the meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods, which remain controversial subjects in modern scholarship.
No contemporary text or myth survives to attest the original character and nature of Cybele's Phrygian cult. She may have evolved from astatuary type found atÇatalhöyük inAnatolia, of a "corpulent and fertile" female figure accompanied by large felines, dated to the6th millennium BC and identified by some as amother goddess.[5] InPhrygian art of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for herlibations or other offerings.[6]
The inscriptionMatar Kubileya/Kubeleya[2] at a Phrygian rock-cut shrine, dated to the first half of the 6th century BC, is usually read as "Mother of the mountain", a reading supported by ancient classical sources,[2][7] and consistent with Cybele as any of several similartutelary goddesses, each known as "mother" and associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities:[8] a goddess thus "born from stone".[9] She is ancient Phrygia's only known goddess,[10] the divine companion or consort of its mortal rulers, and was probably the highest deity of the Phrygian state. Her name, and the development of religious practices associated with her, may have been influenced by theKubaba cult of the deifiedSumerian queenKubaba.[11]
In the 2nd century AD, the geographerPausanias attests to aMagnesian (Lydian) cult to "the mother of the gods", whose image was carved into a rock-spur ofMount Sipylus. This was believed to be the oldest image of the goddess, and was attributed to the legendaryBroteas.[12] AtPessinos in Phrygia, the mother goddess—identified by the Greeks as Cybele—took the form of an unshaped stone of black meteoric iron,[13] and may have been associated with or identical toAgdistis, Pessinos' mountain deity.[14][15] This was the aniconic stone that was removed to Rome in 204 BC.
Images and iconography in funerary contexts, and the ubiquity of her Phrygian nameMatar ("Mother"), suggest that she was a mediator between the "boundaries of the known and unknown": the civilized and the wild, the worlds of the living and the dead.[16] Her association with hawks, lions, and the stone of the mountainous landscape of the Anatolian wilderness, seem to characterize her as mother of the land in its untrammeled natural state, with power to rule, moderate or soften its latent ferocity, and to control its potential threats to a settled, civilized life. Anatolian elites sought to harness her protective power to forms of ruler-cult; in Phrygia, theMidas monument connects her with kingMidas, as her sponsor, consort, or co-divinity.[17] As protector of cities, or city states, she was sometimes shown wearing amural crown, representing the city walls.[18] At the same time, her power "transcended any purely political usage and spoke directly to the goddess' followers from all walks of life".[19]
Some Phrygianshaft monuments are thought to have been used forlibations and blood offerings to Cybele, perhaps anticipating by several centuries the pit used in hertaurobolium andcriobolium sacrifices during the Roman imperial era.[20] Over time, her Phrygian cults and iconography were transformed, and eventually subsumed, by the influences and interpretations of her foreign devotees, at first Greek and later Roman.
From around the 6th century BC, cults to the Anatolian mother-goddess were introduced from Phrygia into the ethnically Greek colonies of western Anatolia, mainlandGreece, the Aegean islands and the westerly colonies ofMagna Graecia. The Greeks called herMātēr orMētēr ("Mother"), or from the early 5th centuryKubélē; inPindar, she is "Mistress Cybele the Mother".[21] InHomeric Hymn 14 she is "the Mother of all gods and all human beings." Cybele was readily assimilated with several Greek goddesses, especiallyRhea, asMētēr theōn ("Mother of the gods"), whose raucous, ecstatic rites she may have acquired. As an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddessDemeter, whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter,Persephone; but she also continued to be identified as a foreign deity, with many of her traits reflecting Greek ideas aboutbarbarians and the wilderness, asMētēr oreia ("Mother of the Mountains").[22] She is depicted as aPotnia Theron ("Mistress of animals"),[23] with her mastery of the natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap, or draw her chariot.[24] This schema may derive from a goddess figure fromMinoan religion.[25]Walter Burkert places her among the "foreign gods" of Greek religion, a complex figure combining a putative Minoan-Mycenaean tradition with the Phrygian cult imported directly from Asia Minor.[26]
Cybele's early Greek images are small votive representations of her monumental rock-cut images in the Phrygian highlands. She stands alone within anaiskos, which represents her temple or its doorway, and is crowned with apolos, a high, cylindrical hat. A long, flowingchiton covers her shoulders and back. She is sometimes shown with lions in attendance. Around the 5th century BC,Agoracritos created a fully Hellenised and influential image of Cybele that was set up in the Metroon in theAthenian agora. It showed her enthroned, with a lion attendant, holding aphiale (a dish for makinglibations to the gods) and atympanon (a hand drum). Both were Greek innovations to her iconography and reflect key features of her ritual worship introduced by the Greeks which would be salient in the cult's later development.[27][28]
For the Greeks, the tympanon was a marker of foreign cults, suitable for rites to Cybele, her close equivalent Rhea, andDionysus; of these, only Cybele holds the tympanon. She appears with Dionysus, as a secondary deity inEuripides'Bacchae, 64 – 186, andPindar'sDithyramb II.6 – 9. In theBibliotheca formerly attributed to Apollodorus, Cybele is said to have cured Dionysus of his madness.[29]
Cybele in a chariot driven byNike and drawn by lions toward a votive sacrifice (right); above are heavenly symbols including asolar deity,Plaque fromAi Khanoum,Bactria (Afghanistan), 2nd century BC; Gilded silver, ⌀ 25 cm
Their cults shared several characteristics: the foreigner-deity arrived in a chariot, drawn by exoticbig cats (Dionysus by tigers or panthers, Cybele by lions), accompanied by wild music and an ecstatic entourage of exotic foreigners and people from the lower classes. At the end of the 1st century BCStrabo notes that Rhea-Cybele's popular rites in Athens were sometimes held in conjunction with Dionysus' procession.[30] Both were regarded with caution by the Greeks, as being foreign,[31] to be simultaneously embraced and "held at arm's length".[32]
Cybele was also the focus ofmystery cult, private rites with achthonic aspect connected tohero cult and exclusive to those who had undergone initiation, although it is unclear who Cybele's initiates were.[33]Reliefs show her alongside young female and male attendants with torches, and with vessels for purification. Literary sources describe joyous abandonment to the loud, percussive music of tympanon, castanets, clashing cymbals, and flutes, and to the frenzied "Phrygian dancing", perhaps a form of circle-dancing by women, to the roar of "wise and healing music of the gods".[34]
In literary sources, the spread of Cybele's cult is presented as a source of conflict and crisis.Herodotus says that whenAnacharsis returned toScythia after traveling and acquiring knowledge among the Greeks in the 6th century BC, his brother, the Scythian king, put him to death for celebrating Cybele's mysteries.[35] The historicity of this account and that of Anacharsis himself are widely questioned.[36] InAthenian tradition, the city'sMetroon was founded to placate Cybele, who had visited a plague onAthens when one of her wandering priests was killed for his attempt to introduce her cult. The earliest source is theHymn to the Mother of the Gods (362 AD) by theRoman emperorJulian, but references to it appear inscholia from an earlier date. The account may reflect real resistance to Cybele's cult, but Lynne Roller sees it as a story intended to demonstrate Cybele's power, similar to myth ofDionysus' arrival in Thebes recounted inThe Bacchae.[37][38][39] Many of Cybele's cults were funded privately, rather than by thepolis,[26][40] but she also had publicly established temples in many Greek cities, including Athens and Olympia.[41] Her "vivid and forceful character" and association with the wild, set her apart from theOlympian deities.[42] Her association with Phrygia led to particular unease in Greece after thePersian Wars, as Phrygian symbols and costumes were increasingly associated with theAchaemenid Empire.[43]
Conflation with Rhea led to Cybele's association with various male demigods who served Rhea as attendants, or as guardians of her son, the infantZeus, as he lay in the cave of his birth. In cult terms, they seem to have functioned as intercessors or intermediaries between goddess and mortal devotees, through dreams, waking trance, or ecstatic dance and song. They include the armedCuretes, who danced around Zeus and clashed their shields to amuse him; their supposedly Phrygian equivalents, the youthfulCorybantes, who provided similarly wild and martial music, dance and song; and thedactyls andTelchines, magicians associated with metalworking.[44]
Roman Imperial Attis wearing aPhrygian cap and performing a cult dance
Cybele's major mythographic narratives attach to her relationship with Attis, who is described by ancient Greek and Roman sources and cults as her youthful consort, and as a Phrygian deity. In Phrygia, "Attis" was not a deity, but both a commonplace and priestly name, found alike in casual graffiti, the dedications of personal monuments, as well as at several of Cybele's Phrygian shrines and monuments. His divinity may therefore have begun as a Greek invention based on what was known of Cybele's Phrygian cult.[45] His earliest certain image as deity appears on a 4th-century BC Greekstele fromPiraeus, nearAthens. It shows him as the Hellenised stereotype of a rustic, eastern barbarian; he sits at ease, sporting the Phrygian cap and shepherd's crook of his later Greek and Roman cults. Before him stands a Phrygian goddess (identified by the inscription asAgdistis) who carries a tympanon in her left hand. With her right, she hands him a jug, as if to welcome him into her cult with a share of her own libation.[46] Later images of Attis show him as a shepherd, in similar relaxed attitudes, holding or playing thesyrinx (panpipes).[47] InDemosthenes'On the Crown (330 BC),attes is "a ritual cry shouted by followers of mystic rites".[48]
Attis seems to have accompanied the diffusion of Cybele's cult through Magna Graecia; there is evidence of their joint cult at the Greek colonies ofMarseille (Gaul) andLokroi (southern Italy) from the 6th and 7th centuries BC. AfterAlexander the Great's conquests, "wandering devotees of the goddess became an increasingly common presence in Greek literature and social life; depictions of Attis have been found at numerous Greek sites".[38] When shown with Cybele, he is always the younger, lesser deity, or perhaps her priestly attendant. In the mid 2nd century, letters from the king of Pergamum to Cybele's shrine at Pessinos consistently address its chief priest as "Attis".[49][50]
Votive altar inscribed toMater Deum, the Mother of the Gods, from southern Gaul[51]
Romans knew Cybele asMagna Mater ("Great Mother"), or asMagna Mater deorum Idaea ("great Idaean mother of the gods"), equivalent to the Greek titleMeter Theon Idaia ("Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida"). Rome officially adopted her cult during theSecond Punic War (218 to 201 BC), after direprodigies, including a meteor shower, a failed harvest, and famine, seemed to warn of Rome's imminent defeat. TheRoman Senate and itsreligious advisers consulted theSibylline oracle and decided that Carthage might be defeated if Rome imported theMagna Mater ("Great Mother") of Phrygian Pessinos.[52] As this cult object belonged to a Roman ally, theKingdom of Pergamum, the Roman Senate sent ambassadors to seek the king's consent; en route, a consultation with theGreek oracle at Delphi confirmed that the goddess should be brought to Rome.[53] The goddess arrived in Rome in the form of Pessinos' black meteoric stone. Roman legend connects this voyage, or its end, to the matronClaudia Quinta, who was accused of unchastity but proved her innocence with a miraculous feat on behalf of the goddess.Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, supposedly the "best man" in Rome, was chosen to meet the goddess atOstia; and Rome's most virtuous matrons (includingClaudia Quinta) conducted her to thetemple of Victoria, to await the completion of her temple on thePalatine Hill. Pessinos' stone was later used as the face of the statue of the goddess.[54] In due course, the famine ended andHannibal was defeated.
Silver tetradrachm of Smyrna
Most modern scholarship agrees that Cybele's consort,Attis, and her eunuch Phrygian priests (Galli) would have arrived with the goddess, along with at least some of the wild, ecstatic features of her Greek and Phrygian cults. The histories of her arrival deal with the piety, purity, and status of the Romans involved, the success of their religious stratagem, and power of the goddess herself; she has no consort or priesthood, and seems fully Romanised from the first.[55] Some modern scholars assume that Attis must have followed much later; or that the Galli, described in later sources as shockingly effeminate and flamboyantly "un-Roman", must have been an unexpected consequence of bringing the goddess in blind obedience to the Sibyl; a case of "biting off more than one can chew".[56] Others note that Rome was well versed in the adoption (or sometimes,the "calling forth", or seizure) of foreign deities,[57] and the diplomats who negotiated Cybele's move to Rome would have been well-educated, and well-informed.[58]
Romans believed that Cybele, considered a Phrygian outsider even within her Greek cults, was the mother-goddess of ancientTroy (Ilium). Some of Rome's leadingpatrician families claimed Trojan ancestry; so the "return" of the Mother of all Gods to her once-exiled people would have been particularly welcome, even if her spouse and priesthood were not; its accomplishment would have reflected well on the principals involved and, in turn, on their descendants.[59] The upper classes who sponsored the Magna Mater's festivals delegated their organisation to theplebeian aediles, and honoured her and each other with lavish, private festival banquets from which her Galli would have been conspicuously absent.[60] Whereas in most of her Greek cults she dwelt outside thepolis, in Rome she was the city's protector, contained within her Palatine precinct, along with her priesthood, at the geographical heart of Rome's most ancient religious traditions.[61] She was promoted as patrician property; a Roman matron – albeit a strange one, "with a stone for a face" – who acted for the clear benefit of the Roman state.[62][63]
1st century BC marble statue of Cybele fromFormia,Lazio
Augustan ideology identified Magna Mater with Imperial order and Rome's religious authority throughout the empire. Augustus claimed a Trojan ancestry through his adoption byJulius Caesar and the divine favour ofVenus; in the iconography ofImperial cult, the empressLivia was Magna Mater's earthly equivalent, Rome's protector and symbolic "Great Mother"; the goddess is portrayed with Livia's face oncameos[64] and statuary.[65] By this time, Rome had absorbed the goddess's Greek and Phrygian homelands, and the Roman version of Cybele as Imperial Rome's protector was introduced there.[66]
Imperial Magna Mater protected the empire's cities and agriculture —Ovid "stresses the barrenness of the earth before the Mother's arrival.[67] Virgil'sAeneid (written between 29 and 19 BC) embellishes her "Trojan" features; she isBerecyntian Cybele, mother ofJupiter himself, and protector of theTrojan princeAeneas in his flight from the destruction of Troy. She gives the Trojans her sacred tree for shipbuilding, and begs Jupiter to make the ships indestructible. These ships become the means of escape for Aeneas and his men, guided toward Italy and a destiny as ancestors of the Roman people byVenus Genetrix. Once arrived in Italy, these ships have served their purpose and are transformed into sea nymphs.[68]
Stories of Magna Mater's arrival were used to promote the fame of its principals, and thus their descendants.Claudia Quinta's role as Rome'scastissima femina (purest or most virtuous woman) became "increasingly glorified and fantastic"; she was shown in the costume of aVestal Virgin, and Augustan ideology represented her as the ideal of virtuous Roman womanhood. The emperorClaudius claimed her among his ancestors.[69] Claudius promoted Attis to the Roman pantheon and placed his cult under the supervision of thequindecimviri (one of Rome's priestly colleges).[70]
Illustration of the month of April based on theCalendar of Filocalus (354 AD), perhaps either a Gallus or a theatrical performer for the Megalesia[71]
TheMegalesia festival to Magna Mater commenced on April 4, the anniversary of her arrival in Rome. The festival structure is unclear, but it includedludi scaenici (plays and other entertainments based on religious themes), probably performed on the deeply stepped approach to her temple; some of the plays were commissioned from well-known playwrights. On April 10, her image was taken in public procession to theCircus Maximus, andchariot races were held there in her honour; a statue of Magna Mater was permanently sited on the racetrack's dividing barrier, showing the goddess seated on a lion's back.[72]
Roman bystanders seem to have perceived Megalesia as either characteristically "Greek";[73] or Phrygian. At the cusp of Rome's transition to Empire, the GreekDionysius of Halicarnassus describes this procession as wild Phrygian "mummery" and "fabulous clap-trap", in contrast to the Megalesian sacrifices and games, carried out in what he admires as a dignified "traditional Roman" manner; Dionysius also applauds the wisdom of Roman religious law, which forbids the participation of any Roman citizen in the procession, and in the goddess'smysteries;[74] Slaves are forbidden to witness any of this.[75] In the late republican era,Lucretius vividly describes the procession's armed "war dancers" in their three-plumed helmets, clashing their shields together, bronze on bronze,[76] "delighted by blood"; yellow-robed, long-haired, perfumed Galli waving their knives, wild music of thrumming tympanons and shrill flutes. Along the route, rose petals are scattered, and clouds of incense arise.[77] The goddess's sculpted image wears the Mural Crown and is seated within a sculpted, lion-drawn chariot, carried high on a bier.[78] The Roman display of Cybele's Megalesia procession as an exotic, privileged public pageant offers signal contrast to what is known of the private, socially inclusive Phrygian-Greek mysteries on which it was based.[79]
ThePrincipate brought the development of an extended festival or "holy week"[80] for Cybele and Attis in March (LatinMartius), from theIdes to nearly the end of the month. Citizens and freedmen were allowed limited forms of participation in rites pertaining to Attis, through their membership of twocolleges, each dedicated to a specific task; theCannophores ("reed bearers") and theDendrophores ("tree bearers").[81]
March 15 (Ides):Canna intrat ("The Reed enters"), marking the birth of Attis and his exposure in the reeds along the Phrygian riverSangarius,[82] where he was discovered—depending on the version—by either shepherds or Cybele herself.[83] The reed was gathered and carried by thecannophores.[84]
March 22:Arbor intrat ("The Tree enters"), commemorating the death of Attis under a pine tree. Thedendrophores ("tree bearers") cut down a tree,[85] suspended from it an image of Attis,[86] and carried it to the temple with lamentations. The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius.[87] A three-day period of mourning followed.[88]Cybele andAttis (seated right, withPhrygian cap andshepherd's crook) in a chariot drawn by four lions, surrounded by dancing Corybantes (detail from theParabiago plate; embossed silver,c. 200–400 AD, found inMilan, now at theArchaeological Museum of Milan)
March 23: on theTubilustrium, an archaic holiday toMars, the tree was laid to rest at the temple of the Magna Mater, with the traditional beating of the shields by Mars' priests theSalii and the lustration of the trumpets perhaps assimilated to the noisy music of the Corybantes.[89]
March 24:Sanguem orDies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood"), a frenzy of mourning when the devotees whipped themselves to sprinkle the altars and effigy of Attis with their own blood; some performed the self-castrations of the Galli. The "sacred night" followed, with Attis placed in his ritual tomb.[90]
March 27:Lavatio ("Washing"), noted byOvid and probably an innovation under Augustus,[95] Literary references indicate that thelavatio was "well established" by theFlavian period;[96] when Cybele's sacred stone was taken in procession from the Palatine temple to thePorta Capena and down theAppian Way to the stream calledAlmo, atributary of theTiber. There the stone and sacred iron implements were bathed "in the Phrygian manner" by a red-robed priest. Thequindecimviri attended. The return trip was made by torchlight, with much rejoicing. The ceremony alluded to, but did not reenact, Cybele's original reception in the city, and seems not to have involved Attis.[95]
March 28:Initium Caiani, sometimes interpreted as initiations into the mysteries of the Magna Mater and Attis at theGaianum, near the Phrygianum sanctuary at theVatican Hill.[97]
Scholars are divided as to whether the entire series was more or less put into place under Claudius,[98] or whether the festival grew over time.[99] The Phrygian character of the cult would have appealed to the Julio-Claudians as an expression of their claim to Trojan ancestry.[100] It may be that Claudius established observances mourning the death of Attis, before he had acquired his full significance as a resurrected god of rebirth, expressed by rejoicing at the laterCanna intrat and by the Hilaria.[101] The full sequence at any rate is thought to have been official in the time ofAntoninus Pius (reigned 138–161), but among extantfasti appears only in theCalendar of Philocalus (354 AD).[102][95]
Significant anniversaries, stations, and participants in the 204 arrival of the goddess – including her ship, which would have been thought a sacred object – may have been marked from the beginning by minor, local, or private rites and festivals at Ostia, Rome, andVictoria's temple. Cults to Claudia Quinta are likely, particularly in the Imperial era.[103] Rome seems to have introduced evergreen cones (pine or fir) to Cybele's iconography, based at least partly on Rome's "Trojan ancestor" myth, in which the goddess gave Aeneas her sacred tree for shipbuilding. The evergreen cones probably symbolised Attis' death and rebirth.[104][105] Despite the archaeological evidence of early cult to Attis at Cybele's Palatine precinct, no surviving Roman literary or epigraphic source mentions him untilCatullus, whose poem 63 places him squarely within Magna Mater's mythology, as the hapless leader and prototype of her Galli.[106]
Eroded inscription fromLugdunum (modernLyon, in France) commemorating a taurobolium for the Mother of the Gods under the titleAugusta[107]Inscription set up by the dendrophores of Lugdunum for the wellbeing of the emperor, hisnumen, and his divine household, marking a taurobolium; the presence of anarchigallus is noted[108]
Rome's strictures against castration and citizen participation in Magna Mater's cult limited both the number and kind of her initiates. From the 160s AD, citizens who sought initiation to her mysteries could offer either of two forms of bloody animal sacrifice – and sometimes both – as lawful substitutes for self-castration. TheTaurobolium sacrificed a bull, the most potent and costlyvictim in Roman religion; theCriobolium used a lesser victim, usually a ram.[109][110]
A late, melodramatic and antagonistic account by the Christian apologistPrudentius has a priest stand in a pit beneath a slatted wooden floor; his assistants or junior priests dispatch a bull, using a sacred spear. The priest emerges from the pit, drenched with the bull's blood, to the applause of the gathered spectators. This description of a Taurobolium as blood-bath is, if accurate, an exception to usual Roman sacrificial practice;[111] it may have been no more than a bull sacrifice in which the blood was carefully collected and offered to the deity, along with its organs of generation, the testicles.[112]
The Taurobolium and Criobolium are not tied to any particular date or festival, but probably draw on the same theological principles as the life, death, and rebirth cycle of the March "holy week". The celebrant personally and symbolically took the place of Attis, and like him was cleansed, renewed or, in emerging from the pit or tomb, "reborn".[113] These regenerative effects were thought to fade over time, but they could be renewed by further sacrifice. Some dedications transfer the regenerative power of the sacrifice to non-participants, includingemperors, the Imperial family and the Roman state; some mark adies natalis (birthday or anniversary) for the participant or recipient. Dedicants and participants could be male or female.[114]
The sheer expense of the Taurobolium ensured that its initiates were from Rome's highest class, and even the lesser offering of a Criobolium would have been beyond the means of the poor. Among the Roman masses, there is evidence of private devotion to Attis, but virtually none for initiations to Magna Mater's cult.[115]
In the religious revivalism of the later Imperial era, Magna Mater's notable initiates included the deeply religious, wealthy, and eruditepraetorian prefectPraetextatus; thequindecimvirVolusianus, who was twice consul; and possibly theEmperor Julian.[116] Taurobolium dedications to Magna Mater tend to be more common in the Empire's western provinces than elsewhere, attested by inscriptions in (among others) Rome andOstia in Italy,Lugdunum in Gaul, andCarthage in Africa.[117]
"Attis" may have been a name or title of Cybele's priests or priest-kings in ancient Phrygia.[118] Most myths of the deifiedAttis present him as founder of Cybele's Galli priesthood but in Servius' account, written during the Roman Imperial era, Attis castrates a king to escape his unwanted sexual attentions, and is castrated in turn by the dying king. Cybele's priests find Attis at the base of a pine tree; he dies and they bury him, emasculate themselves in his memory, and celebrate him in their rites to the goddess. This account might attempt to explain the nature, origin, and structure of Pessinus' theocracy.[119] AHellenistic poet refers to Cybele's priests in the feminine, asGallai.[120] The Roman poetCatullus refers to Attis in the masculine until his emasculation, and in the feminine thereafter.[121] Various Roman sources refer to the Galli as a middle orthird gender (medium genus ortertium sexus).[122] The Galli's voluntary emasculation in service of the goddess was thought to give them powers of prophecy.[123]
Pessinus, site of the temple whence the Magna Mater was brought to Rome, was a theocracy whose leading Galli may have been appointed via some form of adoption, to ensure "dynastic" succession. The highest ranking Gallus was known as "Attis", and his junior as "Battakes".[124] The Galli of Pessinus were politically influential; in 189 BC, they predicted or prayed for Roman victory in Rome's imminent war against the Galatians. The following year, perhaps in response to this gesture of goodwill, the Roman senate formally recognisedIllium as the ancestral home of the Roman people, granting it extra territory and tax immunity.[125] In 103, a Battakes traveled to Rome and addressed its senate, either for the redress of impieties committed at his shrine, or to predict yet another Roman military success. He would have cut a remarkable figure, with "colourful attire and headdress, like a crown, with regal associations unwelcome to the Romans". Yet the senate supported him; and when a plebeian tribune who had violently opposed his right to address the senate died of a fever (or, in the alternative scenario, when the prophesied Roman victory came) Magna Mater's power seemed proven.[126]
Statue of a Gallus (priest of Cybele) late 2nd century (Capitoline Museums)
In Rome, the Galli and their cult fell under the supreme authority of thepontifices, who were usually drawn from Rome's highest ranking, wealthiest citizens.[127] The Galli themselves, although imported to serve the day-to-day workings of their goddess's cult on Rome's behalf, represented an inversion of Roman priestly traditions in which senior priests were citizens, expected to raise families, and personally responsible for the running costs of their temples, assistants, cults, and festivals. As eunuchs, incapable of reproduction, the Galli were forbidden Roman citizenship and rights of inheritance; like their eastern counterparts, they were technically mendicants whose living depended on the pious generosity of others. For a few days of the year, during the Megalesia, Cybele's laws allowed them to leave their quarters, located within the goddess' temple complex, and roam the streets to beg for money. They were outsiders, marked out as Galli by their regalia, and their notoriously effeminate dress and demeanour, but as priests of a state cult, they were sacred and inviolate. From the start, they were objects of Roman fascination, scorn, and religious awe.[128] No Roman, not even a slave, could castrate himself "in honour of the Goddess" without penalty; in 101 BC, a slave who had done so was exiled.[129] Augustus selected priests from among his own freedmen to supervise Magna Mater's cult, and brought it under Imperial control.[130]Claudius introduced the senior priestly office ofArchigallus, who was not a eunuch and held full Roman citizenship.[131]
The religiously lawful circumstances for a Gallus's self-castration remain unclear; some may have performed the operation on the Dies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood") in Cybele and Attis' March festival.Pliny describes the procedure as relatively safe, but it is not known at what stage in their career the Galli performed it, or exactly what was removed,[132] or even whether all Galli performed it. Some Galli devoted themselves to their goddess for most of their lives, maintained relationships with relatives and partners throughout, and eventually retired from service.[133] Galli remained a presence in Roman cities well into the Empire's Christian era. Some decades afterChristianity became the sole Imperial religion, St. Augustine saw Galli "parading through the squares and streets of Carthage, with oiled hair and powdered faces, languid limbs and feminine gait, demanding even from the tradespeople the means of continuing to live in disgrace".[134]
The earliest known temple for Cybele in the Greek world is theDaskalopetra monument onChios, which dates to the sixth or early fifth centuries BC.[135] A Sanctuary of Cybele is also to be found in the city ofMytilene,Lesbos. The original structure dates back at least to the seventh century BC, with structural additions up until the fifth to sixth century AD.[136] In Greek, a temple to Cybele was often called aMetroon. Several Metroa were established in Greek cities from the fifth century BC onward. The Metroon at Athens was established in the early fifth century BC on the west side of theAthenian Agora, next to theBoule (town council). It was a rectangular building with three rooms and an altar in front. It was destroyed during thePersian sack of Athens in 480 BC, but repaired around 460 BC. The cult was deeply integrated into civic life; the Metroon was used as the statearchive and Cybele was one of the four main deities, to whom serving councillors sacrificed, along with Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. The highly influential fifth-century BC statue of Cybele enthroned by Agoracritus was located in this building. The building was rebuilt around 150 BC, with separate rooms for cult worship and archival storage, and it remained in use until Late Antiquity.[137] A second Metroon in the Athenian suburb of Agrae was associated with theEleusinian Mysteries.[138] At the end of the fifth century BC, a Metroon was established atOlympia. It is a small hexastyle temple, the third to be built on the site after the archaicHeraion and the mid-fifth centuryTemple of Zeus. In the Roman period it was used for theImperial cult.[139] In the fourth century, further Metroa are attested atSmyrna andColophon, where they also served as state archives, as in Athens.[140]
Magna Mater's temple stood high on the slope of thePalatine, overlooking the valley of theCircus Maximus and facing the temple ofCeres on the slopes of theAventine. It was accessible via a long upward flight of steps from a flattened area or proscenium below, where the goddess'sfestival games andplays were staged. At the top of the steps was a statue of the enthroned goddess, wearing a mural crown and attended by lions. Her altar stood at the base of the steps, at the proscenium's edge. The first temple was damaged by fire in 111 BC, and was repaired or rebuilt. It burnt down in the early Imperial era, and was restored byAugustus; it burned down again soon after, and Augustus rebuilt it in more sumptuous style; theAra Pietatis relief shows its pediment.[141] The goddess is represented by her empty throne and crown, flanked by two figures of Attis reclining ontympanons; and by two lions who eat from bowls, as if tamed by her unseen presence. The scene probably represents asellisternium, a form of banquet usually reserved for goddesses, in accordance with "Greek rite" as practiced in Rome.[142] This feast was probably held within the building, with attendance reserved for the aristocratic sponsors of the goddesses rites; the flesh of her sacrificial animal provided their meat.
From at least 139 AD, Rome's port atOstia, the site of the goddess's arrival, had a fully developed sanctuary to Magna Mater and Attis, served by a local Archigallus and college ofdendrophores (the ritual tree-bearers of "Holy Week").[143]
Ground preparations for the building of St. Peter's basilica on the Vatican Hill uncovered a shrine, known as the Phrygianum, with some 24 dedications to Magna Mater and Attis.[144] Many are now lost, but most that survive were dedicated by high-status Romans after a taurobolium sacrifice to Magna Mater. None of these dedicants were priests of the Magna Mater or Attis, and several held priesthoods of one or more different cults.[145]
NearSetif (Mauretania), thedendrophores and the faithful (religiosi) restored their temple of Cybele and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 AD. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and her processional chariot; the latter received a new canopy with tassels in the form offir cones.[146] Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; whenSt. Theodore of Amasea was granted time to recant his beliefs, he spent it by burning a temple of Cybele instead.[147]
Rome characterised the Phrygians as barbaric, effeminate orientals, prone to excess. While some Roman sources explained Attis' death as punishment for his excess devotion to Magna Mater, others saw it as punishment for his lack of devotion, or outright disloyalty.[148] Only one account of Attis and Cybele (related byPausanias) omits any suggestion of a personal or sexual relationship between them; Attis achieves divinity through his support ofMeter's cult, is killed by a boar sent by Zeus, who is envious of the cult's success, and is rewarded for his commitment with godhood.[149]
The most complex, vividly detailed, and lurid accounts of Magna Mater and Attis were produced as anti-pagan polemic in the late 4th century by the Christian apologistArnobius, who presented their cults as a repulsive combination of blood-bath, incest, and sexual orgy, derived from the myths of Agdistis.[149] This has been presumed the most ancient, violent, and authentically Phrygian version of myth and cult, closely following an otherwise lost orthodox, approved version preserved by the priest-kings at Pessinous and imported to Rome. Arnobius claimed several scholarly sources as his authority; but the oldest versions are also the most fragmentary and, during an interval of several centuries, apt to diverge into whatever version suited a new audience, or potentially, new acolytes.[149] Greek versions of the myth recall those concerning the mortalAdonis and his divine lovers, -Aphrodite, who had some claim to cult as a 'Mother of all", or her rival for Adonis' love,Persephone - showing the grief and anger of a powerful goddess, mourning the helpless loss of her mortal beloved.[150]
The emotionally charged literary version presented inCatullus 63 follows Attis' initially ecstatic self-castration into exhausted sleep, and a waking realisation of all he has lost through his emotional slavery to a domineering and utterly self-centered goddess; it is narrated with a rising sense of isolation, oppression, and despair, virtually an inversion of the liberation promised by Cybele's Anatolian cult.[151] Contemporaneous with this, more or less, Dionysius of Halicarnassos pursues the idea that the "Phrygian degeneracy" of the Galli, personified in Attis, be removed from the Megalensia to reveal the dignified, "truly Roman" festival rites of the Magna Mater. Somewhat later, Vergil expresses the same deep tension and ambivalence regarding Rome's claimed Phrygian, Trojan ancestors, when he describes his hero Aeneas as a perfumed, effeminate Gallus, a half-man who would, however, "rid himself of the effeminacy of the Oriental in order to fulfill his destiny as the ancestor of Rome." This would entail him and his followers shedding their Phrygian language and culture, to follow the virile example of the Latins.[152] In Lucretius' description of the goddess and her acolytes in Rome, her priests provide an object lesson in the self-destruction wrought when passion and devotion exceed rational bounds; a warning, rather than an offer.[150]
For Lucretius, Roman Magna Mater "symbolised the world order": her image held reverentially aloft in procession signifies the Earth, which "hangs in the air". She is the mother of all, ultimately the Mother of humankind, and the yoked lions that draw her chariot show an otherwise ferocious offspring's duty of obedience to the parent.[153] She herself is uncreated, and thus essentially separate from and independent of her creations.[154]
In the early Imperial era, the Roman poetManilius inserts Cybele as the thirteenth deity of an otherwise symmetrical, classic Greco-Romanzodiac, in which each of twelvezodiacal houses (represented by particular constellations) is ruled by one of twelve deities, known in Greece as theTwelve Olympians and in Rome as theDi Consentes. Manilius has Cybele andJupiter as co-rulers ofLeo (the Lion), in astrological opposition toJuno, who rulesAquarius.[155] Modern scholarship remarks that as Cybele's Leo rises above the horizon, Taurus (the Bull) sets; the lion thus dominates the bull. Some of the possible Greek models for Cybele's Megalensia festival include representations of lions attacking and dominating bulls. The festival date coincided, more or less, with events of the Roman agricultural calendar (around April 12) when farmers were advised to dig their vineyards, break up the soil, sowmillet, "and – curiously apposite, given the nature of the Mother's priests – castrate cattle and other animals."[156]
A crowd gathers in Plaza de Cibeles to celebrate the victory at the2017 UEFA Champions League final. The fountain is fenced to keep the fans from damaging the monument.
^With reference to Cybele's origins and precursors, S.A. Takács describes "A terracotta statuette of a seated (mother) goddess giving birth with each hand on the head of a leopard or panther,"Cybele, Attis and related cults: essays in memory of M.J. Vermaseren 1996:376; of this iconic typeWalter Burkert says "The iconography found leads directly to the image of Kybele sitting upon her throne between two lions" (Burkert,Homo Necans (1983:79)).
^Elizabeth Simpson, "Phrygian Furniture from Gordion", inGeorgina Herrmann (ed.),The Furniture of Ancient Western Asia, Mainz 1996, pp. 198–201.
^Roller 1999, pp. 67–68. This displaces the root meaning of "Cybele" as "she of the hair": seeC.H.E. Haspels,The Highlands of Phrygia, 1971, I 293 no 13, noted inBurkert 1985 notes 17 and 18.
^Kubaba was a queen ofKish's Third dynasty. She was worshipped atCarchemish, and her name wasHellenized asKybebe.Motz 1997, pp. 105–106 takes this as the likely source ofkubilya (cf.Roller 1999, pp. 67–68, where kubileya = mountain).
^Pausanias,Description of Greece: "the Magnesians, who live to the north of Spil Mount, have on the rock Coddinus the most ancient of all the images of the Mother of the gods. The Magnesians say that it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalus." The image was probably Hittite in origin; seeRoller 1999, p. 200.
^Roller 1999, pp. 111, 114, 140; for quotation, see p. 146.
^Vecihi Özkay, "The Shaft Monuments and the 'Taurobolium' among the Phrygians",Anatolian Studies, Vol. 47, (1997), pp. 89–103, British Institute at Ankara.
^Roller 1999, p. 125, citingPindar, fragment 80 (Snell),Despoina Kubéla Mātēr ([δέσπ]οιν[αν] Κυβέ[λαν] ματ[έρα]).
^Potnia Therōn (Πότνια Θηρῶν) can sometimes be found as a title in ancient sources, but is used in modern scholarship for an iconographic schema, in which a female figure is flanked by or grips two animals.
^Roller 1999, pp. 171–172 (and notes 110 – 115), 173.
^Roller believes that the name "Attis" was originally associated with the Phrygian Royal family and inherited by a Phrygian priesthood or theocracy devoted to the Mother Goddess, consistent with Attis' mythology as deified servant or priest of his goddess. Greek cults and Greek art associate this "Phrygian" costume with several non-Greek, "oriental" peoples, including their erstwhile foes, the Persians and Trojans. In some Greek states, Attis was met with outright hostility; but his vaguely "Trojan" associations would have been counted in his favour for the eventual promotion of his Roman cult. SeeRoller 1994, pp. 248–256. See alsoRoscoe 1996, pp. 198–199, and Johnstone, inLane 1996, p. 106-107.
^Both names are inscribed on the stele. Roller offers Agdistis as Phrygian Kybele's personal name. SeeRoller 1994, pp. 248–56. For discussion and critique on this and other complex narrative, cultic and mythological links among Cybele, Agdistis, and Attis, see Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, Brill, 2002Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,Archived 2016-04-29 at theWayback Machine Brill, 2002.
^The syrinx was a simple rustic instrument, associated withPan, Greek god of shepherds, flocks, wild and wooded places, and unbridled sexuality. See Johnston, inLane 1996, pp. 107–111, andRoller 1994, pp. 177–180. Pan is a "natural companion" for Cybele, and there is evidence of their joint cults.
^Beard 1994, p. 168, following Livy 29, 10 – 14 for Pessinos (ancient Galatia) as the shrine from which she was brought. Varro'sLingua Latina, 6.15 hasPergamum. Ovid Fasti 4.180–372 has it brought directly from Mt. Ida. For discussion of problems attendant on such precise claims of origin, see Tacaks, inLane 1996, pp. 370–373.
^Summers, inLane 1996, pp. 363–364: "a rather bizarre looking statue with a stone for a face",Prudentius describes the stone as small, and encased in silver.
^Beard 1994, pp. 168, 178–9. See also Summers, inLane 1996, pp. 357–359. Attis' many votive statuettes at Cybele's Roman temple are evidence of his early, possibly private Roman cult.
^Beard 1994, p. 177, citing Vermaseren, M.J.,Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult, Thames and Hudson, 1977, p. 96.
^Several major Greek deities were adopted by Rome at about this time, including the Greek godsAesclepius andApollo. A version ofDemeter'sThesmophoria was incorporated within the Roman cults toCeres at around the same; Greek priestesses were brought to run the cult "for the benefit of the Roman state".
^Takacs, inLane 1996, p. 373, remarks that to presume Roman ignorance of the cult's true nature "makes Roman nobles look like buffoons, which they hardly were".
^In Roman tradition, the she-wolf who found Romulus and Remus sheltered them in her lair on the Palatine, theLupercal. See alsoRoller 1999, p. 273
^Roller 1999, pp. 282–285. For statue description, see Summers, inLane 1996, pp. 363–364.
^cf the Roman response in 186 BC to the popular, unofficial, ecstaticBacchanalia cults (originating as festivals toDionysus, similar in form to Cybele's Greek cults),suppressed with great ferocity by the Roman state, very soon after the official introduction of Cybele's cult.
^P. Lambrechts, "Livie-Cybele,"La Nouvelle Clio 4 (1952): 251–60.
^C. C. Vermeule, "Greek and Roman Portraits in North American Collections Open to the Public,"Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 108 (1964): 106, 126, fig. 18.
^In Greece and Phrygia, most cults to the goddess were popular, and privately funded; her former, ancient role as goddess of the former Phrygian State was as defunct as the state itself. SeeRoller 1999, p. 317.
^Roller 1999, p. 280, citing Ovid,Fasti, 4. 299; cf "Phrygian Mater and Greek Meter, for whom fertility was rarely an issue, and whose association with wild and unstructured mountain landscape was directly at odds with agriculture and the settled countryside".
^Michele Renee Salzman,On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 83–91, rejecting the scholarly tradition that the image represents an old man in an unknown rite for Venus
^It was probably copied from a Greek original; the same appears on thePergamon Altar. SeeRoller 1999, p. 315.
^In the late Republican era,Cicero describes the hymns and ritual characteristics of Megalensia as Greek. See Takacs, inLane 1996, p. 373.
^Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus,Roman Antiquities, trans. Cary, Loeb, 1935,2, 19, 3 – 5. See also commentary inRoller 1999, p. 293 and note 39: "... one can see how a Phrygian [priest] in an elaborately embroidered robe might have clashed noticeably with the plain, largely monochromatic Roman tunic and toga"; cf Augustus's "efforts to stress the white toga as the proper dress for Romans."
^Roller 1999, p. 296, citing Cicero,De Haruspicum Responsis, 13. 28.
^Recalling the Kouretes and Corybantes of Cybele's Greek myths and cults.
^See Robertson, N., inLane 1996, pp. 292–293. See also Summers, K., inLane 1996, pp. 341, 347–349.
^Maria Grazia Lancellotti,Attis, Between Myth and History: King, Priest, and God (Brill, 2002), p. 81;Bertrand Lançon,Rome in Late Antiquity (Routledge, 2001), p. 91; Philippe Borgeaud,Mother of the Gods: From Cybele to the Virgin Mary, translated by Lysa Hochroth (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), pp. 51, 90, 123, 164.
^Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater",Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 97, (1966), p. 195[1]Archived 2016-12-02 at theWayback Machine
^Tertullian,Adversus Iudaeos 8;Lactantius,De Mortibus Persecutorum 2.1; Gary Forsythe,Time in Roman Religion: One Thousand Years of Religious History (Routledge, 2012), p. 88; Lancellotti,Attis, Between Myth and History, p. 81.
^Michele Renee Salzman,On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), p. 166.
^Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater",Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 97, (1966), p. 195.
^Salzman,On Roman Time, pp. 165, 167. Lawrence Richardson,A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 180, suggests thatInitium Caiani might instead refer to the "entry of Gaius" (Caligula) into Rome on March 28, 37 AD, when he was acclaimed asprinceps. The Gaianum was a track used by Caligula for chariot exercises. Salzman (p. 169) sees the Gaianum as a site alternative to the Phrygianum, access to which would have been obstructed in the 4th century by the construction ofSt. Peter's.
^Forsythe,Time in Roman Religion, p. 88, notingJérôme Carcopino as the chief proponent of this view.
^Summers, K., inLane 1996, pp. 377 ff.; for Catullus, see Takacs, inLane 1996, pp. 367 ff.. For online Latin text and English translation of Catullus's poem 63, seevroma.orgArchived 2014-05-28 at theWayback Machine
^SeeDuthoy 1969, p. 1 ff. Possible Greek precursors for the taurobolium are attested around 150 BC in Asia Minor, includingPergamum, and at Ilium (the traditional site of ancientTroy), which some Romans assumed as their own and Cybele's "native" city. The form of taurobolium presented by later Roman sources probably developed over time, and was not unique to Magna Mater – one was given atPuteoli in 134 AD to honourVenus Caelestia (C.I.L. X.1596) – but anti-pagan polemic represents it as hers. Some scholarship defines the Criobolium as a rite of Attis; but some dedication slabs show the bull's garlanded head (Taurobolium) with a ram's (Criobolium), and no mention of Attis.
^See also Vecihi Özkay, "The Shaft Monuments and the 'Taurobolium' among the Phrygians",Anatolian Studies, Vol. 47, (1997), pp. 89–103, British Institute at Ankara, for speculation that some Phrygian shaft monuments anticipate the Taurobolium pit.
^Prudentius is the sole original source for this version of a Taurobolium. Beard, p. 172, referring to it; "[this is] quite contrary to the practice of traditional civic sacrifice in Rome, in which the blood was carefully collected and the officiant never sullied."Duthoy 1969, p. 1 ff., believes that in early versions of these sacrifices, the animal's blood may have simply have been collected in a vessel; and that this was elaborated into what Prudentius more-or-less accurately describes.Cameron 2010, p. 163, outright rejects Prudentius' testimony as anti-pagan hearsay, sheer fabrication, and polemical embroidery of an ordinary bull-sacrifice.
^Cameron 2010, p. 163 cf., the self-castration of Attis and the Galli.
^Duthoy 1969, p. 61 ff., 107, 101-104, 115 Some Taurobolium and Criobolium markers show a repetition between several years and more than two decades after.
^Duthoy 1969, p. 1 ff. (listing the relevant inscriptions).
^As it was of her priest at Pessinus in the 2nd century BC: seeRoller 1999, pp. 178–181.
^Lancellotti, Maria Grazia,Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God, Brill, 2002, p. 6, citing Servius,Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid, 9.115.
^"Gallai of the mountain mother, ravingthyrsus-lovers,"Γάλλαι μητρὸς ὀρείης φιλόθυρσοι δρομάδες, tentatively attributed toCallimachus as fr. inc. auct. 761Pfeiffer.
^Lancellotti, Maria Grazia,Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God, Brill, 2002, pp 101 – 104. This priestly "dynasty" may have begun around the 3rd century BC.
^SeeRoller 1999, pp. 290–291, citing Diodorus's description of Battakes, and the latter's prediction of Roman victory in Plutarch, "Life of Marius," 17.
^Roscoe 1996, p. 203, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 11.261; 35.165, and noting that "Procedures called "castration" in ancient times encompassed everything from vasectomy to complete removal of penis and testicles.
^Roscoe 1996, p. 203, and note 34, citing as example, the thanksgiving dedication to the Mother Goddess by a Gallus fromCyzicus (in Anatolia), in gratitude for her intervention on behalf of the soldier Marcus Stlaticus, his partner "(oulppiou, a term also applied to a husband or wife)".
^The sellisternium and various other elements of ritus Graecus "proved Rome's profound religious and cultural rooting in the Greek world". See Scheid, John, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor),A Companion to Roman Religion, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p.226.
^Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater,"Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 97, (1966), p. 199.
^Summers, inLane 1996, p. 339-340, 342; Lucretius claims the authority of "the old Greek poets" but describes the Roman version of Cybele's procession; to most of his Roman readers, his interpretations would have seemed familiar ground.
^Roller 1999, pp. 297–299, citing Lucretius,De Rerum Natura, 2,598 – 660.
^Hannah, Robert, "Manilius, the Mother of the Gods and the "Megalensia": an Astrological Anomaly resolved ?"Latomus, T. 45, Fasc. 4 (OCTOBRE-DÉCEMBRE 1986), pp. 864–872, Societe d’Etudes Latines de Bruxelles[2], citing Manlius,Astronomica, (trans. GP Goold, London, 1977) 2. 439 – 437.
^Hannah, p. 872, citingVarro,De Re Rustica, 1. 30;Columella,De Re Rustica, 11. 2. 32 – 35;Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, 18. 246 – 249.
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