W. J. Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (London, 1842), i. 393-395; H. F. Tozer, Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor, pp. 59 sq., 66-78; W. M. Ramsay, “Historical Relations of Phrygia and Asia Minor,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. xv. (1883) pp. 113-120; G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, iv. 623-656, 666-672; K. Humann und O. Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien, pp. 55-70, with Atlas, plates vii.-x.; E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadoce, pp. 3-5, 16-26; L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites, pp. 42-50; Th. Macridy-Bey, La Porte des Sphinx à Eyuk, pp. 13 sq. (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1908, No. 3, Berlin); Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums,2 i. 2. pp. 631 sq.; J. Garstang, The Land of the Hittites (London, 1910), pp. 196 sqq. (Boghaz-Keui) 256 sqq. (Eyuk). Compare P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier, pp. 165 sqq. In some notes with which my colleague Professor J. Garstang has kindly furnished me he tells me that the two animals wearing Hittite hats, which appear between the great god and goddess in the outer sanctuary, are not bulls but certainly goats; and he inclines to think that the two heaps on which the priest stands in the outer sanctuary are fir-cones. Professor Ed. Meyer holds that the costume which the priestly king wears is that of the Sun-goddess, and that the corresponding figure in the procession of males on the left-hand side of the outer sanctuary does not represent the priestly king but the Sun-goddess in person. “The attributes of the King,” he says (op. cit. p. 632), “are to be explained by the circumstance that he, as the Hittite inscriptions prove, passed for an incarnation of the Sun, who with the Hittites was a female divinity; the temple of the Sun is therefore his emblem.” As to the title of “the Sun” bestowed on Hittite kings in inscriptions, see H. Winckler, “Vorläufige Nachrichten über die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz-köi im Sommer 1907,” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, No. 35, December 1907, pp. 32, 33, 36, 44, 45, 53. The correct form of the national name appears to be Chatti or Hatti rather than Hittites, which is the Hebrew form (חתי) of the name. Compare M. Jastrow, in Encyclopaedia Biblica, ii. coll. 2094 sqq., s.v. “Hittites.”
An interesting Hittite symbol which occurs both in the sanctuary at Boghaz-Keui and at the palace of Euyuk is the double-headed eagle. In both places it serves as the support of divine or priestly personages. After being adopted as a badge by the Seljuk Sultans in the Middle Ages, it passed into Europe with the Crusaders and became in time the escutcheon of the Austrian and Russian empires. See W. J. Hamilton, op. cit. i. 383; G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, op. cit. iv. 681-683, pl. viii. E; L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites, p. 50.
In thus interpreting the youth with the double axe I agree with Sir W. M. Ramsay (“On the Early Historical Relations between Phrygia and Cappadocia,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. xv. (1883) pp. 118, 120), C. P. Tiele (Geschichte der Religion im Alterturm, i. 246, 255), and Prof. J. Garstang (The Land of the Hittites, p. 235; The Syrian Goddess, p. 8). That the youthful figure on the lioness or panther represents the lover of the great goddess is the view also of Professors Jensen and Hommel. See P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier, pp. 173-175, 180; F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients, p. 51. Prof. Perrot holds that the youth in question is a double of the bearded god who stands at the head of the male procession, their costume being the same, though their attributes differ (G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, iv. 651). But, as I have already remarked, it is unlikely that the same god should be represented twice over with different attributes in the same scene. The resemblance between the two figures is better explained on the supposition that they are Father and Son. The same two deities, Father and Son, appear to be carved on a rock at Giaour-Kalesi, a place on the road which in antiquity may have led from Ancyra by Gordium to Pessinus. Here on the face of the rock are cut in relief two gigantic figures in the usual Hittite costume of pointed cap, short tunic, and shoes turned up at the toes. Each wears a crescent-hilted sword at his side, each is marching to the spectator's left with raised right hand; and the resemblance between them is nearly complete except that the figure in front is beardless and the figure behind is bearded. See G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, iv. 714 sqq., with fig. 352; J. Garstang, The Land of the Hittites, pp. 162-164. A similar, but solitary, figure is carved in a niche of the rock at Kara-Bel, but there the deity, or the man, carries a triangular bow over his right shoulder. See below, p. 185.
With regard to the lionesses or panthers, a bas-relief found at Carchemish, the capital of a Hittite kingdom on the Euphrates, shows two male figures in Hittite costume, with pointed caps and turned-up shoes, standing on a crouching lion. The foremost of the two figures is winged and carries a short curved truncheon in his right hand. According to Prof. Perrot, the two figures represent a god followed by a priest or a king. See G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, iv. 549 sq.; J. Garstang, The Land of the Hittites, pp. 123 sqq. Again, on a sculptured slab found at Amrit in Phoenicia we see a god standing on a lion and holding a lion's whelp in his left hand, while in his right hand he brandishes a club or sword. See Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. iii. 412-414. The type of a god or goddess standing or sitting on a lion occurs also in Assyrian art, from which the Phoenicians and Hittites may have borrowed it. See Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. ii. 642-644. Much evidence as to the representation of Asiatic deities with lions has been collected by Raoul-Rochette, in his learned dissertation “Sur l'Hercule Assyrien et Phénicien,” Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xvii. Deuxième Partie (Paris, 1848), pp. 106 sqq. Compare De Vogüé, Mélanges d'Archéologie Orientale, pp. 44 sqq.
The name 'Athar-'atheh occurs in a Palmyrene inscription. See G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions, No. 112, pp. 267-270. In analysing Atargatis into 'Athar-'atheh ('Atar-'ata) I follow E. Meyer (Geschichte des Altertums,2 i. 2. pp. 605, 650 sq.), F. Baethgen (Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, pp. 68-75), Fr. Cumont (s.v. “Atargatis,” Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ii. 1896), G. A. Cooke (l.c.), C. P. Tiele (Geschichte der Religion im Altertum, i. 245), F. Hommel (Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients, pp. 43 sq.), Father Lagrange (Études sur les Religions Sémitiques,2 p. 130), and L. B. Paton (s.v. “Atargatis,” J. Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 164 sq.). In the great temple at Hierapolis-Bambyce a mysterious golden image stood between the images of Atargatis and her male partner. It resembled neither of them, yet combined the attributes of other gods. Some interpreted it as Dionysus, others as Deucalion, and others as Semiramis; for a golden dove, traditionally associated with Semiramis, was perched on the head of the figure. The Syrians called the image by a name which Lucian translates “sign” (σημήιον). See Lucian, De dea Syria, 33. It has been plausibly conjectured by F. Baethgen that the name which Lucian translates “sign” was really 'Atheh (עתה), which could easily be confused with the Syriac word for “sign” (אהא). See F. Baethgen, op. cit. p. 73. A coin of Hierapolis, dating from the third century a.d., exhibits the images of the god and goddess seated on bulls and lions respectively, with the mysterious object between them enclosed in a shrine, which is surmounted by a bird, probably a dove. See J. Garstang, The Syrian Goddess (London, 1913), pp. 22 sqq., 70 sq., with fig. 7.
The modern writers cited at the beginning of this note have interpreted the Syrian 'Atheh as a male god, the lover of Atargatis, and identical in name and character with the Phrygian Attis. They may be right; but none of them seems to have noticed that the same name 'Atheh (עתה) is applied to a goddess at Tarsus.
As to Isis see Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 16. As to Demeter see Homer, Hymn to Demeter, 231-262; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5. 1; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 547-560. As to Thetis see Apollonius Rhodius, Argon, iv. 865-879; Apollodorus, Bibl. iii. 13. 6. Most of these writers express clearly the thought that the fire consumed the mortal element, leaving the immortal. Thus Plutarch says, περικαίειν τὰ θνητὰ τοῦ σώματος. Apollodorus says (i. 5. 1), εἰς πῦρ κατετίθει τὸ βρέφος καὶ περιῄρει τὰς θνητὰς σάρκας αὐτοῦ, and again (iii. 13. 6), εἰς τὸ πῦρ ἐγκρυβοῦσα τῆς νυκτὸς ἔφθειρεν ὂ ἦν αὐτῷ θνητὸν πατρῷον. Apollonius Rhodius says,
ἡ μὲν γὰρ βροτέας αἰεὶ περὶ σάρκας ἔδαιεν νύκτα διὰ μέσσην φλογμῷ πυρός.
And Ovid has,
“Inque foco pueri corpus vivente favilla Obruit, humanum purget ut ignis onus.”
On the custom of passing children over a fire as a purification, see my note, “The Youth of Achilles,” Classical Review, vii. (1893) pp. 293 sq. On the purificatory virtue which the Greeks ascribed to fire see also Erwin Rohde, Psyche3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), ii. 101, note 2. The Warramunga of Central Australia have a tradition of a great man who “used to burn children in the fire so as to make them grow strong” (B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, London, 1904, p. 429).
Lucian, De dea Syria, 8. The discoloration of the river and the sea was observed by H. Maundrell on 17/27 March 1696/1697. See his Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, at Easter, a.d. 1697, Fourth Edition (Perth, 1800), pp. 59 sq.; id., in Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine, edited by Thomas Wright (London, 1848), pp. 411 sq. Renan remarked the discoloration at the beginning of February (Mission de Phénicie, p. 283). In his well-known lines on the subject Milton has laid the mourning in summer:—
“Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon
allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his
fate
In amorous ditties all a
summer's day.”
Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 41. See Robinson Ellis, Commentary on Catullus (Oxford, 1876), pp. 206 sq.; H. Hepding, Attis, pp. 142 sqq.; Fr. Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain2 (Paris, 1909), pp. 83 sq.
It is held by Prof. A. von Domaszewski that the Claudius who incorporated the Phrygian worship of the sacred tree in the Roman ritual was not the emperor of the first century but the emperor of the third century, Claudius Gothicus, who came to the throne in 268 a.d. See A. von Domaszewski, “Magna Mater in Latin Inscriptions,” The Journal of Roman Studies, i. (1911) p. 56. The later date, it is said, fits better with the slow development of the worship. But on the other hand this view is open to certain objections. (1) Joannes Lydus, our only authority on the point, appears to identify the Claudius in question with the emperor of the first century. (2) The great and widespread popularity of the Phrygian worship in the Roman empire long before 268 a.d. is amply attested by an array of ancient writers and inscriptions, especially by a great series of inscriptions referring to the colleges of Tree-bearers (Dendrophori), from which we learn that one of these colleges, devoted to the worship of Cybele and Attis, existed at Rome in the age of the Antonines, about a century before the accession of Claudius Gothicus. (3) Passages of the Augustan historians (Aelius Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 37; Trebellius Pollio, Claudius, iv. 2) refer to the great spring festival of Cybele and Attis in a way which seems to imply that the festival was officially recognized by the Roman government before Claudius Gothicus succeeded to the purple; and we may hesitate to follow Prof. von Domaszewski in simply excising these passages as the work of an “impudent forger.” (4) The official establishment of the bloody Phrygian superstition suits better the life and character of the superstitious, timid, cruel, pedantic Claudius of the first century than the gallant soldier his namesake in the third century. The one lounged away his contemptible days in the safety of the palace, surrounded by a hedge of lifeguards. The other spent the two years of his brief but glorious reign in camps and battlefields on the frontier, combating the barbarian enemies of the empire; and it is probable that he had as little leisure as inclination to pander to the superstitions of the Roman populace. For these reasons it seems better with Mr. Hepding and Prof. Cumont to acquiesce in the traditional view that the rites of Attis were officially celebrated at Rome from the first century onward.
An intermediate view is adopted by Prof. G. Wissowa, who, brushing aside the statement of Joannes Lydus altogether, would seemingly assign the public institution of the rites to the middle of the second century a.d. on the ground that the earliest extant evidence of their public celebration refers to that period (Religion und Kultus der Römer,2 Munich, 1912, p. 322). But, considering the extremely imperfect evidence at our disposal for the history of these centuries, it seems rash to infer that an official cult cannot have been older than the earliest notice of it which has chanced to come down to us.
Catullus, Carm. lxiii. I agree with Mr. H. Hepding (Attis, p. 140) in thinking that the subject of the poem is not the mythical Attis, but one of his ordinary priests, who bore the name and imitated the sufferings of his god. Thus interpreted the poem gains greatly in force and pathos. The real sorrows of our fellow-men touch us more nearly than the imaginary pangs of the gods.
As the sacrifice of virility and the institution of eunuch priests appear to be rare, I will add a few examples. At Stratonicea in Caria a eunuch held a sacred office in connexion with the worship of Zeus and Hecate (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, No. 2715). According to Eustathius (on Homer, Iliad, xix. 254, p. 1183) the Egyptian priests were eunuchs who had sacrificed their virility as a first-fruit to the gods. In Corea “during a certain night, known as Chu-il, in the twelfth moon, the palace eunuchs, of whom there are some three hundred, perform a ceremony supposed to ensure a bountiful crop in the ensuing year. They chant in chorus prayers, swinging burning torches around them the while. This is said to be symbolical of burning the dead grass, so as to destroy the field mice and other vermin.” See W. Woodville Rockhill, “Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of Korea,” The American Anthropologist, iv. (Washington, 1891) p. 185. Compare Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 56 sq. It appears that among the Ekoi of Southern Nigeria both men and women are, or used to be, mutilated by the excision of their genital organs at an annual festival, which is celebrated in order to produce plentiful harvests and immunity from thunderbolts. The victims apparently die from loss of blood. See P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1912), pp. 74 sqq. Mr. Talbot writes to me: “A horrible case has just happened at Idua, where, at the new yam planting, a man cut off his own membrum virile” (letter dated Eket, Nr Calabar, Southern Nigeria, Feb. 7th, 1913). Amongst the Ba-sundi and Ba-bwende of the Congo many youths are castrated “in order to more fittingly offer themselves to the phallic worship, which increasingly prevails as we advance from the coast to the interior. At certain villages between Manyanga and Isangila there are curious eunuch dances to celebrate the new moon, in which a white cock is thrown up into the air alive, with clipped wings, and as it falls towards the ground it is caught and plucked by the eunuchs. I was told that originally this used to be a human sacrifice, and that a young boy or girl was thrown up into the air and torn to pieces by the eunuchs as he or she fell, but that of late years slaves had got scarce or manners milder, and a white cock was now substituted” (H. H. Johnston, “On the Races of the Congo,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) p. 473; compare id., The River Congo, London, 1884, p. 409). In India, men who are born eunuchs or in some way deformed are sometimes dedicated to a goddess named Huligamma. They wear female attire and might be mistaken for women. Also men who are or believe themselves impotent will vow to dress as women and serve the goddess in the hope of recovering their virility. See F. Fawcett, “On Basivis,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, ii. 343 sq. In Pegu the English traveller, Alexander Hamilton, witnessed a dance in honour of the gods of the earth. “Hermaphrodites, who are numerous in this country, are generally chosen, if there are enough present to make a set for the dance. I saw nine dance like mad folks for above half-an-hour; and then some of them fell in fits, foaming at the mouth for the space of half-an-hour; and, when their senses are restored, they pretend to foretell plenty or scarcity of corn for that year, if the year will prove sickly or salutary to the people, and several other things of moment, and all by that half hour's conversation that the furious dancer had with the gods while she was in a trance” (A. Hamilton, “A New Account of the East Indies,” in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, viii. 427). So in the worship of Attis the Archigallus or head of the eunuch priests prophesied; perhaps he in like manner worked himself up to the pitch of inspiration by a frenzied dance. See H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, vol. ii. Pars i. pp. 142, 143, Nos. 4130, 4136; G. Wilmanns, Exempla Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1873), vol. i. p. 36, Nos. 119a, 120; J. Toutain, Les Cultes Païens dans l'Empire Romain, ii. 93 sq. As to the sacrifice of virility in the Syrian religion compare Th. Nöldeke, “Die Selbstentmannung bei den Syrern,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, x. (1907) pp. 150-152.
Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 22, “Nocte quadam simulacrum in lectica supinum ponitur et per numeros digestis fletibus plangitur: deinde cum se ficta lamentatione satiaverint, lumen infertur: tunc a sacerdote omnium qui flebant fauces unguentur, quibus perunctis hoc lento murmure susurrat:
θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ θέου σεσωσμένου; ἔσται γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐκ πόνων σωτήρια.
Quid miseros hortaris gaudeant? quid deceptos homines laetari compellis? quam illis spem, quam salutem funesta persuasione promittis? Dei tui mors nota est, vita non paret.... Idolum sepelis, idolum plangis, idolum de sepultura proferis, et miser cum haec feceris, gaudes. Tu deum tuum liberas, tu jacentia lapidis membra componis, tu insensibile corrigis saxum.” In this passage Firmicus does not expressly mention Attis, but that the reference is to his rites is made probable by a comparison with chapter 3 of the same writer's work. Compare also Damascius, in Photius's Bibliotheca, p. 345 a, 5 sqq., ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1824), τότε τῇ Ἱεραπόλει ἐγκαθευδήσας ἐδόκουν ὄναρ ὁ Ἄττης γένεσθαι, καί μοι ἐπιτελεῖσθαι παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς τῶν θεῶν τὴν τῶν ἱλαρίων καλουμένων ἑορτήν; ὅπερ ἐδήλου τὴν ἐξ ᾅδου γεγονυῖαν ἡμῶν σωτηρίαν. See further Fr. Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain2 (Paris, 1909), pp. 89 sq.
Spenser St. John, op. cit. i. 204. See further G. A. Wilken, “Iets over de schedelvereering,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxviii. (1889) pp. 89-129; id., Verspreide Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), iv. 37-81. A different view of the purpose of head-hunting is maintained by Mr. A. C. Kruyt, in his essay, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja's van Midden-Celebes, en zijne Beteekenis,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Vierde Reeks, iii. 2 (Amsterdam, 1899), pp. 147 sqq.
The natives of Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, think it necessary to obtain the heads of their enemies for the purpose of celebrating the final obsequies of a dead chief. Their notion seems to be that the ghost of the deceased ruler demands this sacrifice in his honour, and will punish the omission of it by sending sickness or other misfortunes on the survivors. Thus among these people the custom of head-hunting is based on their belief in human immortality and on their conception of the exacting demands which the dead make upon the living. When the skulls have been presented to a dead chief, the priest prays to him for his blessing on the sowing and harvesting of the rice, on the fruitfulness of women, and so forth. See C. Fries, “Das ‘Koppensnellen’ auf Nias,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, February, 1908, pp. 73-88. From this account it would seem that it is not the spirits of the slain men, but the ghost of the dead chief from whom the blessings of fertility and so forth are supposed to emanate. Compare Th. C. Rappard, “Het eiland Nias en zijne bewoners,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, lxii. (1909) pp. 609-611.