After the establishment of the empire the apprehensive distrust in which the worship of Cybele and Attis had been held gave way to marked favor and the original restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman citizens were chosen for archigalli, and the holidays of the Phrygian deities were solemnly and officially celebrated in Italy with even more pomp than had been displayed at Pessinus.
According to Johannes Lydus, the Emperor Claudius was the author of this change. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of the statement made by this second-rate compiler, and it has been claimed that the transformation in question took place under the Antonines. This is erroneous. The testimony of inscriptions corroborates that of the Byzantine writer.[[13]] In spite of his love of archaism, it was Claudius who permitted this innovation to be made, and we believe that we can divine the motives of his action.
Under his predecessor, Caligula, the worship of Isis had been authorized after a long resistance. Its stirring festivities and imposing processions gained considerable popularity. This competition must have been disastrous to the priests of the Magna Mater, who were secluded in their temple on the Palatine, and Caligula's successor could not but grant to the Phrygian goddess, so long established in the city, the favor accorded the Egyptian divinity who had been admitted into Rome but very recently. In this way Claudius prevented too great an ascendency in Italy of this second stranger and supplied a distributary to the current of popular superstition. Isis must have been held under great
suspicion by a ruler who clung to old national institutions.[[14]]
The Emperor Claudius introduced a new cycle of holidays that were celebrated from March 15th to March 27th, the beginning of spring at the time of the revival of vegetation, personified in Attis. The various acts of this grand mystic drama are tolerably well known. The prelude was a procession of cannophori or reed-bearers on the fifteenth; undoubtedly they commemorated Cybele's discovery of Attis, who, according to the legends, had been exposed while a child on the banks of the Sangarius, the largest river of Phrygia, or else this ceremony may have been the transformation of an ancient phallephory intended to guarantee the fertility of the fields.[[15]] The ceremonies proper began with the equinox. A pine was felled and transferred to the temple of the Palatine by a brotherhood that owed to this function its name of "tree-bearers" (dendrophori). Wrapped like a corpse in woolen bands and garlands of violets, this pine represented Attis dead. This god was originally only the spirit of the plants, and the honors given to the "March-tree"[[16]] in front of the imperial palace perpetuated a very ancient agrarian rite of the Phrygian peasants. The next day was a day of sadness and abstinence on which the believers fasted and mourned the defunct god. The twenty-fourth bore the significant name of Sanguis in the calendars. We know that it was the celebration of the funeral of Attis, whose manes were appeased by means of libations of blood, as was done for any mortal. Mingling their piercing cries with the shrill sound of flutes, the Galli flagellated themselves and cut their flesh, and neophytes performed the supreme
sacrifice with the aid of a sharp stone, being insensible to pain in their frenzy.[[17]] Then followed a mysterious vigil during which the mystic was supposed to be united as a new Attis with the great goddess.[[18]] On March 25th there was a sudden transition from the shouts of despair to a delirious jubilation, the Hilaria. With springtime Attis awoke from his sleep of death, and the joy created by his resurrection burst out in wild merry-making, wanton masquerades, and luxurious banquets. After twenty-four hours of an indispensable rest (requietio), the festivities wound up, on the twenty-seventh, with a long and gorgeous procession through the streets of Rome and surrounding country districts. Under a constant rain of flowers the silver statue of Cybele was taken to the river Almo and bathed and purified according to an ancient rite (lavatio).
The worship of the Mother of the Gods had penetrated into the Hellenic countries long before it was received at Rome, but in Greece it assumed a peculiar form and lost most of its barbarous character. The Greek mind felt an unconquerable aversion to the dubious nature of Attis. The Magna Mater, who is thoroughly different from her Hellenized sister, penetrated into all Latin provinces and imposed herself upon them with the Roman religion. This was the case in Spain, Brittany, the Danubian countries, Africa and especially in Gaul.[[19]] As late as the fourth century the car of the goddess drawn by steers was led in great state through the fields and vineyards of Autun in order to stimulate their fertility.[[20]] In the provinces the dendrophori, who carried the sacred pine in the spring festivities, formed associations recognized by the state. These associations had charge of the work of our
modern fire departments, besides their religious mission. In case of necessity these woodcutters and carpenters, who knew how to fell the divine tree of Attis, were also able to cut down the timbers of burning buildings. All over the empire religion and the brotherhoods connected with it were under the high supervision of the quindecimvirs of the capital, who gave the priests their insignia. The sacerdotal hierarchy and the rights granted to the priesthood and believers were minutely defined in a series of senate decrees. These Phrygian divinities who had achieved full naturalization and had been placed on the official list of gods, were adopted by the populations of the Occident as Roman gods together with the rest. This propagation was clearly different from that of any other Oriental religion, for here the action of the government aided the tendencies that attracted the devout masses to these Asiatic divinities.
This popular zeal was the result of various causes. Ancient authors describe the impression produced upon the masses by those magnificent processions in which Cybele passed along on her car, preceded by musicians playing captivating melodies, by priests wearing gorgeous costumes covered with amulets, and by the long line of votaries and members of the fraternities, all barefoot and wearing their insignia. All this, however, created only a fleeting and exterior impression upon the neophyte, but as soon as he entered the temple a deeper sensation took hold of him. He heard the pathetic story of the goddess seeking the body of her lover cut down in the prime of his life like the grass of the fields. He saw the bloody funeral services in which the cruel death of the young man was mourned,
and heard the joyful hymns of triumph, and the gay songs that greeted his return to life. By a skilfully arranged gradation of feelings the onlookers were uplifted to a state of rapturous ecstasy. Feminine devotion in particular found encouragement and enjoyment in these ceremonies, and the Great Mother, the fecund and generous goddess, was always especially worshiped by the women.