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.