ABSTRACT
The youth loved by the Phrygian goddess Cybele, the Great Mother. There are many versions of the story of her love for him. According to the original Phrygian account, the other gods castrated the hermaphrodite deity Agdistis, whose genitals fell on the ground and grew into an almond tree. The fruit of this tree fell into the lap of Nana, a rivernymph, who bore a son. This child was abandoned, reared by a goat, and later became a shepherd. Agdistis, now female and named Cybele, saw him and loved him so jealously that she could not bear the idea of his marrying (alternatively, he had promised to be faithful to her, yet later proposed to marry a nymph, Sagaritis); she therefore made him go out of his mind and castrate himself. Attis died of his wound; Cybele was overcome with grief and turned him into a pine tree. She also caused him to be mourned every year, and ordained that, in his memory, only eunuchs could act as priests in her temple. Other traditions recounted that Cybele bore a child by Attis and that her father Meion, king of Phrygia, killed both Attis and the baby. Cybele went wild with remorse and rushed through the countryside lamenting for Attis to the accompaniment of a drum. When a famine ensued, the Phrygians were instructed by an oracle to bury Attis and revere Cybele as a goddess. Cybele then revived her dead lover and the pair were worshipped together throughout Phrygia. In a Lydian version of the myth, Attis is not killed by his castration but by a wild boar, like Adonis. See CYBELE.
