AGDISTIS

Greek Name Transliteration Latin Spelling Translation Αγδιστις Agdistis Agdistis Of Mount Agdistis (in Phrygia)

AGDISTIS was a hermaphroditic creature born of Gaia (Earth) when she was accidentally impregnated by the sleeping sky-god Zeus. The gods feared the strange double-gendered creature and castrated it, and it then became Kybele (Cybele), the great Phrygian goddess.This story related by Pausanias was a Greek translation of a tale from Phrygian myth. In the original, the parents of Agdistis-Kybele would have been the Phrygian Sky-God and Earth-Mother. Since Kybele was usually identified by the Greeks with Rhea, it is somewhat curious that the sky-god of the myth is here named Zeus rather than Ouranos. PARENTS ZEUS & GAIA [or, more accurately, the Phrygian Sky-God & Earth-Mother] (Pausanias 7.17.8) OFFSPRING ATTIS (by Nana impregnated by an almond fallen from a tree that was germinated from the severed genitals of Agdistis) (Pausanias 7.17.8) ENCYCLOPEDIA AGDISTIS (Agdistis), a mythical being connected with the Phrygian. worship of Attes or Atys. Pausanias (vii. 17. § 5) relates the following story about Agdistis. On one occasion Zeus unwittingly begot by the Earth a superhuman being which was at once man and woman, and was called Agdistis. The gods dreaded it and unmanned it, and from its severed aidoia there grew up an almond-tree. Once when the daughter of the river-god Sangarius was gathering the fruit of this tree, she put some almonds into her bosom ; but here the almonds disappeared, and she became the mother of Attes, who was of such extraordinary beauty, that when he had grown up Agdistis fell in love with him. His relatives, however, destined him to become the husband of the daughter of the king of Pessinus, whither he went accordingly. But at the moment when the hymeneal song had commenced, Agdistis appeared, and Attes was seized by a fit of madness, in which he unmanned himself; the king who had given him his daughter did the same. Agdistis now repented her deed, and obtained from Zeus the promise that the body of Attes should not become decomposed or disappear. This is, says Pausanias, the most popular account of an otherwise mysterious affair, which is probably part of a symbolical worship of the creative powers of nature. A hill of the name of Agdistis in Phrygia, at the foot of which Attes was believed to be buried, is mentioned by Pausanias. (i. 4. § 5.) According to Hesychius (s. v.) and Strabo (xii. p. 567; comp. x. p. 469), Agdistis is the same as Cybele, who was worshipped at Pessinus under that name. A story somewhat different is given by Arnobius. (Adv. Gent. ix. 5. § 4 ; comp. Minuc. Felix, 21.) Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.