Chapter 35. Attis as a God of Vegetation.
THE ORIGINAL character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought out
plainly by the part which the pine-tree plays in his legend, his
ritual, and his monuments. The story that he was a human being
transformed into a pine-tree is only one of those transparent
attempts at rationalising old beliefs which meet us so frequently in
mythology. The bringing in of the pine-tree from the woods, decked
with violets and woollen bands, is like bringing in the May-tree or
Summer-tree in modern folk-custom; and the effigy which was
attached to the pine-tree was only a duplicate representative of the
tree-spirit Attis. After being fastened to the tree, the effigy was kept
for a year and then burned. The same thing appears to have been
sometimes done with the May-pole; and in like manner the effigy of
the corn-spirit, made at harvest, is often preserved till it is replaced
by a new effigy at next year's harvest. The original intention of
such customs was no doubt to maintain the spirit of vegetation in
life throughout the year. Why the Phrygians should have
worshipped the pine above other trees we can only guess. Perhaps
the sight of its changeless, though sombre, green cresting the
ridges of the high hills above the fading splendour of the autumn
woods in the valleys may have seemed to their eyes to mark it out
as the seat of a diviner life, of something exempt from the sad
vicissitudes of the seasons, constant and eternal as the sky which
stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps, ivy was sacred
to Attis; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests were tattooed
with a pattern of ivy leaves. Another reason for the sanctity of the
pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the stone-pine
contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food
since antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer
classes in Rome. Moreover, a wine was brewed from these seeds,
and this may partly account for the orgiastic nature of the rites of
Cybele, which the ancients compared to those of Dionysus.
Further, pine-cones were regarded as symbols or rather
instruments of fertility. Hence at the festival of the Thesmophoria
they were thrown, along with pigs and other agents or emblems of
fecundity, into the sacred vaults of Demeter for the purpose of
quickening the ground and the wombs of women. 1
Like tree-spirits in general, Attis was apparently thought to wield
power over the fruits of the earth or even to be identical with the
corn. One of his epithets was "very fruitful": he was addressed as
the "reaped green (or yellow) ear of corn"; and the story of his
sufferings, death, and resurrection was interpreted as the ripe grain
wounded by the reaper, buried in the granary, and coming to life
again when it is sown in the ground. A statue of him in the Lateran
Museum at Rome clearly indicates his relation to the fruits of the
earth, and particularly to the corn; for it represents him with a
bunch of ears of corn and fruit in his hand, and a wreath of
pine-cones, pomegranates, and other fruits on his head, while from
the top of his Phrygian cap ears of corn are sprouting. On a stone
urn, which contained the ashes of an Archigallus or high-priest of
Attis, the same idea is expressed in a slightly different way. The top
of the urn is adorned with ears of corn carved in relief, and it is
surmounted by the figure of a cock, whose tail consists of ears of
corn. Cybele in like manner was conceived as a goddess of fertility
who could make or mar the fruits of the earth; for the people of
Augustodunum (Autun) in Gaul used to cart her image about in a
waggon for the good of the fields and vineyards, while they danced
and sang before it, and we have seen that in Italy an unusually fine
harvest was attributed to the recent arrival of the Great Mother. The
bathing of the image of the goddess in a river may well have been
a rain-charm to ensure an abundant supply of moisture for the
crops. 2