Editing Cybele (section)

== Priesthoods ==
{{See also|Galli|Sacerdos Matris Deum Magnae Idaeae}}
"Attis" may have been a name or title of Cybele's priests or priest-kings in ancient Phrygia.<ref>As it was of her priest at Pessinus in the 2nd century BC: see {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=178–181}}.</ref> Most myths of the deified [[Attis]] present him as founder of Cybele's Galli priesthood but in Servius' account, written during the Roman Imperial era, Attis castrates a king to escape his unwanted sexual attentions, and is castrated in turn by the dying king. Cybele's priests find Attis at the base of a pine tree; he dies and they bury him, emasculate themselves in his memory, and celebrate him in their rites to the goddess. This account might attempt to explain the nature, origin, and structure of Pessinus' theocracy.<ref>Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, ''Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,'' Brill, 2002, p. 6, citing Servius, ''Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid,'' 9.115.</ref> A [[Ancient Greek literature#Hellenistic poetry|Hellenistic poet]] refers to Cybele's priests in the feminine, as ''Gallai''.<ref>"Gallai of the mountain mother, raving [[thyrsus]]-lovers," {{lang|grc|Γάλλαι μητρὸς ὀρείης φιλόθυρσοι δρομάδες}}, tentatively attributed to [[Callimachus]] as fr. inc. auct. 761 [[Rudolf Pfeiffer|Pfeiffer]].</ref> The Roman poet [[Catullus]] refers to Attis in the masculine until his emasculation, and in the feminine thereafter.<ref>See Catullus 63: [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/catullus.shtml#63 Latin text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106095741/http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/catullus.shtml#63 |date=2012-11-06 }}</ref> Various Roman sources refer to the Galli as a middle or [[third gender]] (''medium genus'' or ''tertium sexus'').{{sfn|Roscoe|1996|page=203}} The Galli's voluntary emasculation in service of the goddess was thought to give them powers of prophecy.<ref>The Christian apologist [[Firmicus Maternus]] describes them as [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#monstrum|unnatural monstrosities]] and [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigium|prodigies]], filled "with an unholy spirit so as to seemingly predict the future to idle men"; see {{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=196}}.</ref>

[[File:Archigallus of Cherchel.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Statue of an [[Archigallus]] (high priest of Cybele) 2nd–3rd century AD ([[Archaeological Museum of Cherchell]])]]
[[Pessinus]], site of the temple whence the Magna Mater was brought to Rome, was a theocracy whose leading Galli may have been appointed via some form of adoption, to ensure "dynastic" succession. The highest ranking Gallus was known as "Attis", and his junior as "Battakes".<ref>Lancellotti, Maria Grazia, ''Attis, between myth and history: king, priest, and God,'' Brill, 2002, pp 101 – 104. This priestly "dynasty" may have begun around the 3rd century BC.</ref> The Galli of Pessinus were politically influential; in 189 BC, they predicted or prayed for Roman victory in Rome's imminent war against the Galatians. The following year, perhaps in response to this gesture of goodwill, the Roman senate formally recognised [[Troy|Illium]] as the ancestral home of the Roman people, granting it extra territory and tax immunity.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=206}} In 103, a Battakes traveled to Rome and addressed its senate, either for the redress of impieties committed at his shrine, or to predict yet another Roman military success. He would have cut a remarkable figure, with "colourful attire and headdress, like a crown, with regal associations unwelcome to the Romans". Yet the senate supported him; and when a plebeian tribune who had violently opposed his right to address the senate died of a fever (or, in the alternative scenario, when the prophesied Roman victory came) Magna Mater's power seemed proven.<ref>See {{harvnb|Roller|1999|pages=290–291}}, citing Diodorus's description of Battakes, and the latter's prediction of Roman victory in Plutarch, "Life of Marius," 17.</ref>

[[Image:Statue of Gallus priest.jpg|thumb|upright=.75|Statue of a Gallus (priest of Cybele) late 2nd century ([[Capitoline Museums]])]]
In Rome, the Galli and their cult fell under the supreme authority of the [[pontifices]], who were usually drawn from Rome's highest ranking, wealthiest citizens.<ref>Beard, 1994, p. 173 ff.</ref> The Galli themselves, although imported to serve the day-to-day workings of their goddess's cult on Rome's behalf, represented an inversion of Roman priestly traditions in which senior priests were citizens, expected to raise families, and personally responsible for the running costs of their temples, assistants, cults, and festivals. As eunuchs, incapable of reproduction, the Galli were forbidden Roman citizenship and rights of inheritance; like their eastern counterparts, they were technically mendicants whose living depended on the pious generosity of others. For a few days of the year, during the Megalesia, Cybele's laws allowed them to leave their quarters, located within the goddess' temple complex, and roam the streets to beg for money. They were outsiders, marked out as Galli by their regalia, and their notoriously effeminate dress and demeanour, but as priests of a state cult, they were sacred and inviolate. From the start, they were objects of Roman fascination, scorn, and religious awe.{{sfn|Roller|1999|pages=318–319}} No Roman, not even a slave, could castrate himself "in honour of the Goddess" without penalty; in 101 BC, a slave who had done so was exiled.{{sfn|Roller|1999|page=292}} Augustus selected priests from among his own freedmen to supervise Magna Mater's cult, and brought it under Imperial control.<ref>{{harvnb|Roller|1999|page=315}}, citing [[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]l 6.496.</ref> [[Claudius]] introduced the senior priestly office of [[Galli#Archigallus|Archigallus]], who was not a eunuch and held full Roman citizenship.<ref>Fear, in {{harvnb|Lane|1996|page=47}}.</ref>

The religiously lawful circumstances for a Gallus's self-castration remain unclear; some may have performed the operation on the Dies Sanguinis ("Day of Blood") in Cybele and Attis' March festival. [[Pliny the elder|Pliny]] describes the procedure as relatively safe, but it is not known at what stage in their career the Galli performed it, or exactly what was removed,<ref>{{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=203}}, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 11.261; 35.165, and noting that "Procedures called "castration" in ancient times encompassed everything from vasectomy to complete removal of penis and testicles.</ref> or even whether all Galli performed it. Some Galli devoted themselves to their goddess for most of their lives, maintained relationships with relatives and partners throughout, and eventually retired from service.<ref>{{harvnb|Roscoe|1996|page=203}}, and note 34, citing as example, the thanksgiving dedication to the Mother Goddess by a Gallus from [[Cyzicus]] (in Anatolia), in gratitude for her intervention on behalf of the soldier Marcus Stlaticus, his partner "(''oulppiou'', a term also applied to a husband or wife)".</ref> Galli remained a presence in Roman cities well into the Empire's Christian era. Some decades after [[State church of the Roman Empire|Christianity became the sole Imperial religion]], St. Augustine saw Galli "parading through the squares and streets of Carthage, with oiled hair and powdered faces, languid limbs and feminine gait, demanding even from the tradespeople the means of continuing to live in disgrace".<ref>St. Augustine, Book 7, 26, in Augustine, (trans. R W Dyson), [[City of God (book)|''The city of God against the pagans, Books 1 – 13'']],  Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.299.</ref>