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Updated: May 19, 2025
We may conjecture that in old days the priest who bore the name and played the part of Attis at the spring festival of Cybele was regularly hanged or otherwise slain upon the sacred tree, and that this barbarous custom was afterwards mitigated into the form in which it is known to us in later times, when the priest merely drew blood from his body under the tree and attached an effigy instead of himself to its trunk.
But the lovers were so full of their own happiness that they forgot to pay due honor to Venus; and the goddess was provoked at their ingratitude. She caused them to give offence to Cybele. That powerful goddess was not to be insulted with impunity.
Even then the Hellenic culture of the higher circles was secretly undermining their ancestral faith; Ennius introduced the allegorizing and historical versions of the Hellenic religion into Italy; the senate, which subdued Hannibal, had to sanction the transference of the worship of Cybele from Asia Minor to Rome, and to take the most serious steps against other still worse superstitions, particularly the Bacchanalian scandal.
"All right," said Zopyrus laughing. "Anything you like except a shop- keeper. So in three days we are off. I am glad I shall just have time to make sure of the satrap's little daughter, and to visit the grove of Cybele at last. Now, goodnight, Bartja; don't get up too early. What will Sappho say, if you come to her with pale cheeks?" The sun of a hot midsummer-day had risen on Naukratis.
Jupiter happened then to be holding a grand council about certain urgent affairs, and old gammer Cybele was just giving her opinion, or, if you would rather have it so, it was young Phoebus the beau; but, in short, Tom's outcries and lamentations were so loud that they were heard with no small amazement at the council-board, by the whole consistory of the gods.
Down the road, through the gate, walked a man, bare-headed, bare-footed, alone,—Artaphernes, despot of all Lydia, going to pay his abject homage. Presently the eunuch priests of Cybele, perched above the gate, clashed their cymbals and raised their hymn of welcome.
"All right," said Zopyrus laughing. "Anything you like except a shop-keeper. So in three days we are off. I am glad I shall just have time to make sure of the satrap's little daughter, and to visit the grove of Cybele at last. Now, goodnight, Bartja; don't get up too early. What will Sappho say, if you come to her with pale cheeks?" The sun of a hot midsummer-day had risen on Naukratis.
In the torchlit gardens I perceived at once that it would be very easy for Maternus to edge close to the actual bodyguard, mingle with them, pass himself off as one, get near the Emperor and make a rush at him. He had chosen a spot where the procession was to circle thrice about a great statue of Cybele set up for that occasion on a temporary base in the middle of a round grass-plot.
The religions of Greece and Western Asia likewise contain myths that can be compared almost point for point with the tale of the two brothers. In Phrygia, for example, Atyo scorns the love of the goddess Cybele, as does Bata the love of Anpu's wife. Like Bata, again, he mutilates himself, and is transformed into a pine instead of a persea tree.
Are you for the White or the Black Mass? Cybele or the Holy Ghost? Catherine or Hermes Trismegistus? Siena will give you any and yet more cunning confections. It is very strange. The approach to her three hills, if you are not flattened by the intolerable pilgrimage from Florence, is fine.
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