#cybele

Mountains and mothers: Cybele before Cybele

A rudimentary map of Anatolia c. 800 BCE, with Phrygia in yellow (wikimedia commons) Cybele’s history begins in Phrygia. This instantly creates a variety of problems. In contrast with the easternmost part of Anatolia, where a reasonable amount of information about local religious beliefs can be recovered from hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions and to a smaller degree from earlier cuneiform sources reflecting the era of the Hittite Empire, the west offers very little to go by. To make matters worse, Phrygians were relative latecomers to Anatolia, migrating into the region only after the Bronze Age collapse, and were not particularly linguistically close to their neighbors like Carians or Lydians (Rostislav Oreshko, In Search of the Holy Cube Roots: Kubaba-Kubeleya-Κύβεβος-Kufaws and the Problem of Ethnocultural Contact in Early Iron Age Anatolia, p. 131-132). Their language was considerably closer to Greek, if anything (Ian Rutherford, Hittite Texts and Greek Religion: Contact, Interaction, and Comparison, p. 164).

The oldest known Phrygian texts come from around 800-400 BCE (Hittite Texts…, p. 166). Only one deity has been identified in them with certainty. Her name is Matar, “Mother”, and sometimes she is designated by the epithet kubeleya or kubileya (In Search of the Holy…, p. 135). It might go back to the name of a specific mountain in the proximity of Pessinus, possibly to be identified with the toponym Kubela associated with her in Greek sources (Hittite Texts…, p. 166). Another possibility is that it was a generic term for a mountain summit, used to refer to different mountains across Phrygia. The latter option explains the wide range of her attestations considerably better. If it's correct, the name and title of Matar Kubeleya would mean something along the lines of “mother of the mountain peaks” (In Search of the Holy…, p. 144-146).

While Matar is the best attested early Phrygian deity, it would be beyond credulous to claim she was the only one. The corpus of early Phrygian texts is very small, doesn’t offer a particularly diverse selection of genres, and decipherment poses multiple problems. Matar is thus likely not the only deity who was actively worshiped - and later, slightly more abundant Phrygian sources affirm the pantheon included multiple deities, such as the moon god Mas (or Men), a storm god identified with Zeus, possibly named Tiu̯s, the goddess Artimis (a cognate, but not quite an analog, of Greek Artemis and Lydian Artimus), the enigmatic deity Bas, and so on (In Search of the Holy…, p. 135-136). On top of that it’s also possible that Matar is not a singular deity, but rather a type of deity. Even in areas where Matar Kubeleya was worshiped, other “mothers” could be invoked, sometimes under their own bynames like Steunene. Some even have distinct iconography, like Matar Tetraprosopos (“Four-faced”; the title is Greek, not Phrygian, which is so far a unique case) from the Tembris Valley, depicted, true to the name, as four goddesses seated in a row. It’s ultimately uncertain if we’re dealing with one goddess who could be worshiped in many local forms, much as gods like Zeus were, or with an interconnected network of different goddesses who all happened to be called “mother” (Robert Parker, Religion in Roman Phrygia From Polytheism to Christianity, p. 45-47). I’m personally inclined to accept the latter possibility.

A statue of Matar with attendants (wikimedia commons). Next to the aforementioned texts the most informative source of evidence for Matar’s early career in Phrygia are numerous monuments representing her. They show remarkable consistency. The goddess was usually depicted as a mature woman wearing a gown with long sleeves. Her usual headwear was the polos, a type of tall, cylindrical crown. It was commonly paired with a long veil reaching to the waist. Overall her costume isn’t particularly distinct from depictions of other Anatolian goddesses and mortal women from the early first millennium BCE She could be portrayed holding a bird of prey in one hand (Lynn E. Roller, In Search of God the Mother: the Cult of Anatolian Cybele, p. 71-75). Sometimes she was also depicted in the company of lions (In Search…, p. 85-86). It is assumed that Matar’s iconography, and in particular the fairly consistent presence of predatory animals next to her, was meant to convey the idea of power (In Search…, p. 108-110). Despite the meaning of her name, there’s no depiction showing her giving birth, and she was only rarely, if ever, depicted holding a child in her later history (In Search…, p. 38). It has been suggested that she might instead have been imagined as the metaphorical “mother” of the Phrygian kingdom, or a mythical progenitor of the Phrygian people, though this is purely speculative (In Search…, p. 111). Alternatively, she might have been the “mother” of the natural world beyond the confines of civilization, represented by the animals accompanying her. In any case, we should not necessarily assume that her name should automatically indicate any stronger connection with conventional modern motherly qualities or with nurturing children (In Search…, p. 114).

Excursus: Matar, Kubaba (times two) and Kybebe

As I already noted before, Phrygian religion as a whole, and the cult of Matar in particular, show limited, if any, relation to bronze age Anatolian religious practice (In Search of the Holy…, p. 136). Her name doesn’t even resemble the word “mother” in any of the bronze age Anatolian languages (Hittite Texts…, p. 166). Despite that, attempts have been made to connect her with an earlier goddess, Kubaba, based on the vague similarity between her names and the epithet Kubeleya (Manfred Hutter, Kubaba in the Hittite Empire and the Consequences for her Expansion to Western Anatolia, p. 118). 

There’s a widespread online misconception that Kubaba is identical with a legendary queen of Kish from the Sumerian King List whose name in theory can be romanized as Kubaba (but really should be Ku-Baba or Ku-Bau). As a matter of fact, it is so firmly entrenched online that the reliefs of the former notoriously end up used as portraits of the latter on Wikipedia. In reality, the two have nothing to do with each other, and are separated by an enormous temporal and spatial gulf (John D. Hawkins, Kubaba A. Philological in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol. 6, p. 257).

In reality, Kubaba was the city goddess of Carchemish, a city located in the north of modern Syria, on the Euphrates. It’s possible that it was her original cult center, and that she spread from there across the region (In Search of the Holy…, p. 141). Alternatively she might have originated somewhere further west in the Amuq plain, since she was already worshiped in Alalakh in the seventeenth or sixteenth century BCE (Kubaba in…, p. 115).

By the late bronze age Kubaba became reasonably popular across northern Syria and in Kizzuwatna (classical Cilicia) in Anatolia (In Search of the Holy…, p. 141). She was introduced further west when the Hurrian pantheon of Kizzuwatna was adopted by the Hittite Empire and then by various Luwian statelets which arose after its fall. However, there’s no evidence she was worshiped anywhere north or west of Tabal (In Search of the Holy…, p. 143-144). The supposed connection between Kubaba and Matar was quite popular in scholarship in the second half of the 20th century, and occasionally can be mentioned even in recent publications. However, there are multiple issues. For starters, as already explained, Kubeleya has a plausible Phrygian etymology (In Search of the Holy…, p. 139-140).  Furthermore, the more closely Kubaba is examined, the more clear it becomes that she and Matar had nothing in common. Perhaps most importantly, Kubaba displays no maternal characteristics of any sort (Kubaba in…, p. 118-119). While her character is not well understood, it is clear that she had no particular connection with either mountains or wild animals - the primary spheres of interest for her supposed derivative (In Search of the Holy…, p. 142-143). Mountains were actually pretty much exclusively the domain of male deities in the religions of bronze age Anatolia, which complicates seeking a connection here even further (Hittite Texts…, p. 176).

A possible late form of Kubaba, Kufaws or Kuwaws (Herodotus’ Κυβήβη), occurs in Lydian sources, but due to scarcity of available information it’s up for debate if we’re dealing with westward transfer of the actual deity, or merely the recycling of a foreign theonym as a title of a local one instead (In Search of the Holy…, p. 139). Even the latter possibility is not entirely certain, though, as there’s no evidence of particularly close cultural links between Lydia and Luwian areas where Kubaba was worshiped. All that is certain is that Kufaws was not Cybele, let alone Kubaba mixed with Cybele (In Search of the Holy…, p. 157-158).

The mother of all stereotypes: Cybele in classical sources

A Roman statue of Magna Mater (Cybele) with lions (wikimedia commons).

The name Cybele developed after the Phrygian Matar Kubeleya was transferred to Greece. It remains uncertain how this happened - whether Phrygians actively “proselytized” in neighboring areas, or whether Greeks in Anatolian colonies gradually adopted local deities. The first Greek attestations of Cybele come from the seventh century BCE, and by the sixth she started to be portrayed in art. However, as late as in the fifth century BCE there was a degree of confusion involved in texts attempting to locate her original homeland. For instance, Sophocles in his play Philoctetes associates her with the river Pactolus, which was actually located in Lydia, not Phrygia (Hittite Texts…, p. 169-170). 

The Greek cult of Cybele seemingly wasn’t particularly organized at first, and only offerings made to her by private individuals are documented (Hittite Texts…, p. 171). It’s possible that she actually owed her early popularity to this, though. Prospective worshipers might have sought her cult sites specifically because of their relatively low profile. Combined with the unruly character ascribed to the goddess herself, this might have provided a unique sense of unrestrained contact with the divine  (In Search…, p. 141).

The private worship of Cybele took the form of mysteries - ceremonies in which only properly initiated individuals (mystai) could partake. Based on their depictions in art, it can be established that they took place at night. Participants had to carry torches as a result. Furthermore, vessels used for ritual purification played a role (In Search…, p. 149). 

Contemporary sources ascribe ecstatic and orgiastic character to the mysteries, but it remains uncertain to which degree that was the case in the first centuries after her arrival in Greece. On top of that, it’s up for debate if these elements necessarily had something to do with her origin in Phrygia, as commonly claimed in polemics (In Search…, p. 121). While the details of the behavior of the mystai during ceremonies remain unclear, the idea that they engaged in frantic, frenzied dances became a formidable trope, referenced in both writing and art. Playwrights such as Euripides compared erratic, irrational behavior to the effects of Cybele’s influence, or outright attributed it to possession by her. This seemingly wasn’t just a fanciful metaphor - according to one of the treatises attributed to Hippocrates, this sort of possession was viewed as a real, tangible phenomenon. He records that the “sacred disease” (ie. epilepsy) was conventionally viewed as the result of being possessed by Cybele (In Search…, p. 156; note he didn’t share this view himself). It should be noted that not all accounts of alleged possession presented it unfavorably - Plato (especially in Ion) and Diogenes both apparently believed that it can help with attaining inner peace, and perhaps even with reaching otherwise inaccessible wisdom. Furthermore, it should be noted that similar possession was also believed to sometimes befall devotees partaking in ceremonies dedicated to other deities, including but not limited to Apollo, Dionysus, muses and nymphs (In Search…, p. 157).

While Cybele remained a deity of wild nature, and continued to be associated with mountains in particular, much like her Phrygian form, through the fifth century BCE she came to be worshiped more commonly in Greek cities (In Search…, p. 144). Her oldest Greek temple was likely located in Daskalopetra on Chios. However, she was also relatively quickly recognized as a civic deity in Athens, and her local temple, the Metroon, doubled as the state archive (Hittite Texts…, p. 171). The same name later came to be used as a generic designation of her sanctuaries. Records of the foundation of new ones are abundant. Themistocles had one constructed in Magnesia in 464 BCE after the goddess appeared to him in a dream to warn him about an assassination attempt, for instance (In Search…, p. 161). Cybele’s perception changed once again in the fourth century BCE due to a broader shift in the Greek view of Phrygia. Unfavorable attitudes towards Phrygians were nothing new, but their status as the archetypal “eastern barbarians” at this point in time resulted with their identification with legendary Trojans. This was a novelty - in the Iliad and other early literature it is rather clear they are two different peoples. However, the apparent conflation is already present in Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, and finds its full expression in the works of Aeschylus. The identification of Phrygians as Trojans had far reaching implications for the role of the former in Greek imagination. Trojans were already quite firmly identified with Persians in Greek imagination in the fifth century BCE, combining the image of a legendary enemy with that of a contemporary one. The Phrygians came to function as a stand-in for both, which by extension placed cults associated with them - such as those of Cybele or Sabazios - in an awkward position (In Search…, p. 168-169). As a result of the new role Phrygians came to play in Greek imagination, Cybele herself was “orientalized”. This had little to do with her actual eastern origins, though (In Search…, p. 185). She didn’t return to her roots, but instead became a divine representation of Greek stereotypes about foreigners (In Search…, p. 231). By the third century BCE, this manifested particularly strongly in literary texts in which she is portrayed irreverently, or even humorously. In compositions such as the Epidaurian Hymn to the Mother of the Gods she acts in a similarly erratic way as her devotees were stereotypically expected to. Furthermore, her association with mountains and more broadly the wilderness could be turned into an eccentric personality quirk, rather than a source of awe or fear (In Search…, p. 227). It should be noted that there was a sharp distinction between this new literary image of Cybele and her cult in the private sphere, which continued despite the polemics and parodies (In Search…, p. 233). Furthermore, even though Phrygian culture declined overall, she remained a popular deity in Anatolia (In Search…, p. 232). Gradual cultural hellenization resulted in an influx of Greek elements into her representations, though. This is well attested in the old Phrygian capital, Gordion, where she started to be depicted largely in the same way as in Greece (In Search…, p. 188-189).

Perhaps the most noticeable change in Cybele’s iconography was the addition of Greek clothes (In Search…, p. 139). While initially her headwear was a polos much like in Phrygia, in Pergamon, and later elsewhere, she received a mural crown to indicate her close ties with cities associated with her (In Search…, p. 276).  Cybele’s chief attribute in Greek art, the tympanon, finds no precedent in her Anatolian iconography, too (In Search…, p. 136). Despite its strong association with her mysteries in Greece it is not actually attested in association with her cult in Anatolia, either (Religion in…, p. 75). However, it did arrive in Greece from the east - just not necessarily from Phrygia. It’s plausible that it was assigned to Cybele as an attribute due to their shared status as foreign imports (In Search…, p. 137).

A Hellenistic figurine of Cybele seated on a lion (wikimedia commons). In contrast with the tympanon, Cybele’s equally common animal symbol, the lion, had direct forerunners in Phrygian art, as discussed earlier. However, Greek art somewhat homogenized her repertoire of animal associates, making big cats the default (In Search…, p. 148). From at least the fourth century BCE, she could be depicted riding on the back of a lion (In Search…, p. 209). A chariot drawn by lions was an option too (In Search…, p. 290). A further attribute of Cybele in Greek art was a phiale, a type of bowl used to pour out offerings. However, it’s not exclusive to her, and can be essentially treated as a generic indicator of divinity (In Search…, p. 145-146). The next major stage in Cybele’s career happened far away from Greece. In 204 BCE, she was officially introduced to Rome. A barrage of calamities, including the events of the Second Punic War, as well as stones falling from the sky, created an unparalleled sense of anxiety among Romans in the preceding years. The Sibylline Books were consulted in hopes of locating a remedy. A prophecy declaring that a foreign enemy will be expelled only if “Magna Mater” - “the great mother” (in other words, the “heroine” of this article) - will be brought to Rome was deemed the most relevant. Where exactly the Romans opted to seek her varies from source to source. Pessinus is the conventional option, though Varro insists on Pergamon and Ovid on Mt. Ida near Troy. Livy might have tried to reconcile the contradictory evidence, and states that while king Attalos I of Pergamon was involved in the affair, mediating on behalf of Rome, the goddess ultimately came from Pessinus (In Search…, p. 264-265). There’s some uncertainty over whether the conventional story of Cybele’s arrival in Rome reflects genuine history. The first accounts only come from the first century BCE, and the story continued to be embellished, finally reaching a point where Magna Mater physically took part in the Punic Wars and personally expelled Hannibal from Italy. Furthermore, this firmly positive portrayal of her cult clashes with the accounts of it given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Catullus, who characterize it as distinctly un-Roman (In Search…, p. 267-268). On the other hand, seeking a foreign deity in face of a major crisis finds direct parallels in the cases of Roman interest in Aesculapius, Venus Erycina, and both Delphian and Pythian Apollo. Furthermore, there’s limited evidence for earlier Etrurian reception of Cybele in Italy, including a single sixth century BCE depiction in a characteristic local cap, the tutulus, so perhaps she wasn’t all that alien to the Romans (In Search…, p. 280-281). Romans held Pessinus to be the most ancient and most important cult center of their newly adopted goddess. With time, a tradition that her image transferred from there was so ancient it was not the work of human hands but rather a stone that fell from the sky developed. This is almost definitely pure fiction, as there is no evidence that Cybele was ever worshiped in the form of a non-anthropomorphic stone. Both in Phrygia and in Greece she was provided with fully anthropomorphic cult images. There’s also no evidence that Pessinus was a site of particular antiquity. It only came into the spotlight in the second century BCE thanks to the kings of Pergamon (In Search…, p. 269-271). It might have only gained its later renown because the older Phrygian cities like Gordion lost their prominence, leaving a vacuum to fill (In Search…, p. 192-193).

The deity carved into Mount Sipylus (wikimedia commons) Furthermore, competing opinions existed. According to Pausanias, Mount Sipylus was the most ancient site associated with Cybele. The statue identified with her in antiquity, carved into the mountain itself, as a matter of fact preceded not only Greek, but even Phrygian presence in the region - but it didn’t originate as a depiction of Cybele. In all due likeness it was a Hittite work of art reinterpreted as a depiction of her long after its original context was forgotten - for who else would be carved into a mountain if not the “Mountain Mother” (In Search…, p. 200)? Regardless of where the Romans found Cybele, it’s pretty clear that the Roman cult of Magna Mater resembled its Hellenistic forerunner, rather than Phrygian tradition (In Search…, p. 283-284). Still, Roman authors attributed many peculiarities of it - especially those they might have distrusted, like loud music played on unfamiliar instruments  - to Phrygians, as opposed to Greeks (In Search…, p. 295-296). Regrettably, this has continued in scholarship at least as late as the 1980s and 1990s (In Search…, p. 23). A novel development exclusive to Rome was attributing a connection to both agricultural and human fertility to Magna Mater. This was of little interest to both the original Matar and Greek Cybele. Dwelling in the wilderness by default meant a disconnect from agriculture (In Search…, p. 280). Instead of representing some primal aspect of the goddess’ character, this role reflected the needs of Roman society: having children was presented almost as a national duty of a Roman citizen, and a deity closely tied to the state would thus be prayed to in order to secure safe birth of healthy progeny, as well as more general prosperity exemplified by bountiful harvests (In Search…, p. 318). Another Roman contribution was a novel take on the taurobolium (bull sacrifice), which most likely developed in the fourth century CE. It’s mentioned by Prudentius, an early Christian author, in Peristephanon, a collection of poems about martyrs. Supposedly a bull had to be placed on a platform above a pit, and over the course of the rite was slowly stabbed to death so that blood would drip on a participant standing below. There’s no earlier evidence for it, though, and while the term itself appears in earlier Anatolian sources, it appears to describe a festival more similar to contemporary running of the bulls (In Search…, p. 338-339). Overall, while the Greco-Roman cults of Cybele might exhibit features which go back to Phrygia, it’s best to think of them as a phenomenon similar to Greco-Roman cults of Isis. The goddess herself was imported from overseas, but the way in which she was perceived and worshiped reflected her new surroundings, instead of representing an unbroken, unchanged stream of tradition (Hittite Texts…, p. 173). She was effectively a composite figure, a mix of elements with genuine Phrygian origin and later additions (In Search…, p. 121-122). 

The other mother(s): Cybele, Rhea and Demeter

It should be noted that even before the introduction of Cybele, a “Mother of the Gods” was a member of the Greek pantheon. Mycenaean texts from Pylos already mention a goddess named Mater Thehia, “Divine Mother”, and classical sources regularly refer to Meter Theōn or Megale Meter, without necessarily indicating Cybele is meant. It could be that the imported goddess was essentially superimposed over a preexisting, if minor, figure (Hittite Texts…, p. 173-175). This is highly speculative, though, and the lax Mycenaean texts provide no information about how Mater Thehia’s motherhood was actually understood (In Search…, p. 134).

Rhea giving Cronus a rock disguised as baby Zeus (wikimedia commons).

A further problem which might arise when only the title “Mother of the Gods” or similar is used is that it was also applied to Rhea, who, as explained in the Theogony and a variety of other sources, was the mother of the six Olympian gods (In Search…, p. 123). Sometimes it’s clear which one of the two is meant. One example is the fourteenth of the Homeric hymns, dated to the late sixth century. It’s dedicated to the “Mother of the Gods”. While short, it portrays her as a deity who dwells away from urban civilization, in the company of wild animals like wolves and lions, and enjoys the sound of the tympanon and other similar instruments. The name Cybele doesn’t appear, but the repertoire of attributes makes it clear that she is the deity meant (In Search…, p. 122-123).

However, the matter isn’t always as straightforward. Cybele and Rhea were closely associated, to the point of direct identification. It’s not clear how it originally arose, though. Possibly identifying Cybele with Rhea helped with placing a newcomer within the relatively well established structure of the pantheon. As a bonus, Rhea’s widely recognized role helped with explaining just what the motherhood Cybele’s titles referenced entailed. It might have been a pun, too - if Greeks were aware the original Phrygian form meant something along the lines of “mountain mother”, they might have connected the direct Greek translation, mater oreia, with Rhea through word play. It probably also helped that Rhea, through the myth about Zeus’ childhood, was associated with Mt. Ida on Crete - which just so happened to share its name with a mountain in Anatolia associated with Cybele (In Search…, p. 171-172).

A further possibility is that the deciding factor was the fact that while well established as a part of the conventional family tree of the gods, Rhea was effectively a blank slate beyond that. She was rarely depicted in art, with no notable examples from before the fourth century BCE. When she was provided with distinct iconography, it was a copy of Cybele’s. It’s fair to ask if perhaps the result of the identification wasn’t a deity who, despite taking over Rhea’s mythological role as the mother of the (Greek) gods. was for all intents and purposes Cybele with a new name as far as character, iconography and cult (a sphere in which the “original” Rhea is notably rare) were concerned (In Search…, p. 171).

The oldest case of identification between Cybele and Rhea can be found in a fragment of one of Hipponax’s poems, in which “Kybelis” is explained as Rhea (In Search…, p. 124). In later works, even when the name Rhea is used, traits which one would expect to be associated with Cybele are frequently referenced. Rhea acquires a taste for the sound of the tympanum and frequently roams the mountains in tragedies, for instance (In Search…, p. 170-171).

There are cases where it was Rhea who impacted Cybele’s character, not the other way around. Most notably, the music and dances associated with Cybele’s mysteries were sometimes described as an emulation of dances performed by the Kouretes who protected baby Zeus on Crete on Rhea’s behalf (In Search…, p. 171-172). In Hellenistic Pergamon and Aizanoi Cybele was worshiped side by side with Zeus precisely because the notion of equivalence between her and Rhea was introduced from Greece (In Search…, p. 201-202). Furthermore, depictions of her with an infant in her lap, which are uncommon, might reflect her identification as the mother of Zeus, as opposed to a general role of a kourothropos, a deity linked with young children and their mothers (In Search…, p. 210) Regardless of how widespread the identification or at least interchange of traits between Cybele and Rhea were, like most if not all instances of interpretatio graeca it was not necessarily an absolute or exclusive association. Nothing illustrates this point better than the fact Cybele was also closely linked with Demeter (In Search…, p. 143). They most likely were associated with each other to varying degrees due to being linked to mystery cults (In Search…, p. 175-176). The earliest example is a sixth century BCE depiction of Demeter from her sanctuary in Gela on Sicily, which shows her seated and in the company of a lion - effectively in the form of Cybele (In Search…, p. 174).

A Roman figure of Magna Mater (Cybele) in a chariot drawn by lions (wikimedia commons).

Perhaps the most famous example of apparent identification between the two can be found in Euripides’ play Helen, though (In Search…, p. 167). It features an apparent Cybele-themed retelling of Demeter’s search for Persephone - the lost goddess is instead sought by the “Mother of the Gods”, who rides a chariot drawn by lions (In Search…, p. 175). It has been suggested that the link with Demeter, who was popular in Athens, might have helped Cybele with quickly attaining an elevated position in this city’s pantheon (In Search…, p. 163). A scholia on Aristophanes' Ploutos states that a Phrygian priest (metragyrtes) who originally brought the cult of Cybele to Athens preached that she is searching for Kore, but the historicity of this account is dubious at best, and the priest’s arguments are described unfavorably (In Search…, p. 164). Ultimately no full conflation between them ever occurred (In Search…, p. 169).

A cutting edge divine romance: Cybele and Attis

Cybele and Attis on a Roman silver patera (wikimedia commons). This section of the article contains descriptions of graphic violence, including sexual violence. Skip it if that might be an issue. Next to her close links with Rhea and Demeter, a key aspect of Cybele’s mythology in Greece was her association with Attis, a figure absent from early Phrygian tradition (Hittite Texts…, p. 171). He’s absent from Greek sources from before the fourth century BCE, too (In Search…, p. 177). In Hellenistic Anatolia he only appears in any meaningful capacity in Pergamon (In Search…, p. 212). Overall he is best attested quite late on in Rome, where he enjoyed much greater renown than anywhere further east, judging from the sheer number of votives dedicated to him (In Search…, p. 277).

Paris of Troy as a stereotypical “eastern barbarian” (wikimedia commons). The oldest depictions of Attis have been dated to the second half of the fourth century BCE. They already show him in a stereotypical eastern costume - a tunic, trousers, and pointed shoes and cap. Not only Phrygians, but also other foreigners, both real like Persians (as a matter of fact, Achaemenid fashion was likely the original model for similar costumes), and fictional like Trojans and Amazons, were depicted in a similar manner. In particular, traditional depictions of Paris of Troy are remarkably close to Attis’ iconography (In Search…, p. 178-180). The name Attis is a Hellenized form of an ordinary Phrygian word, “father” (Maria Grazia Lancellotti, Attis Between Myth and History: King, Priest and God, p. 31). Its original form, Ata, might be attested as a theonym, and on this basis it has been suggested that Cybele’s forerunner Matar was worshiped alongside a god analogously named Ata in the early centuries of Phrygian history. However, there’s no way to demonstrate any connection between this possible deity and Attis (Kubaba in…, p. 119).

Attis is well attested as an ordinary, non-religious given name in Phrygia. As a matter of fact, it’s the single most common masculine Phrygian name. With that in mind, it’s possible that Cybele’s companion could simply be one of the many cases of assigning it to a stereotypical Anatolian character in Greek literature (In Search…, p. 244-245).

Additionally, the term attis (ates) seemed to function as a Phrygian priestly title (Attis Between…, p. 37). It was sporadically used in Greece too, specifically in Rhamnous and in Samothrace (In Search…, p. 178). In Anatolia it is well attested at Pessinous in particular, where it denoted the local high priest (Attis Between…, p. 47-48). It might be that it was derived from the personal name. More specifically, it has been suggested that the attis continued a religious role which was originally the domain of kings, with Attis perhaps being a particularly popular royal name (In Search…, p. 245).

A further possibility is that Attis originated as a personification of a cry associated with mystic rites, attes, mentioned by Demosthenes. This would parallel the development of another minor god, Iacchos, from iache, a similar cry associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries (In Search…, p. 181).

Whatever Attis’ origin was, in the earliest Greek sources he appears to function as an intercessory god meant to mediate with Cybele on behalf of her devotees. No references to the later myth focused on them are present yet (In Search…, p. 181-182). Strictly speaking, there was no singular agreed upon myth of Cybele and Attis - but it’s clear enough that the notion that they were regarded as a couple in one way or another did enjoy widespread popularity (In Search…, p. 237-238). Three main sources documenting myths focused on it are the works of Ovid, Pausanias and Arnobius, though numerous other variants exist too, References can be found in the writings of authors such as Theocritus, Lucian of Samosata, Seneca, Clement, Tertullian and others (In Search…, p. 241).

A detail from Pierre Antoine Patel’s painting Cybele Blasting the Tree of Sagaritis (wikimedia commons). Ovid’s Fasti preserves the oldest of the three major versions. Attis, an extraordinarily beautiful mortal shepherd from Phrygia, is the target of affection of a goddess described only as “towered” (turrigera), a nod to Cybele’s mural crown. He swears an oath of eternal faithfulness to her. However, he later has an affair with the nymph Sagaritis. Both lovers are doomed as a result. The goddess destroys the nymph’s tree, which leads to her death, while Attis goes mad and eventually castrates himself. Ovid also mentions Attis in passing in Ibis, where it is said his death was caused by a pine, and in Metamorphoses, where he instead turns into the same tree (Attis Between…, p. 2). The second oldest most commonly discussed version was recorded by Pausanias, who states that it represents a local tradition from Pessinus. It starts with Zeus’ semen pouring into the earth (Ge) while he was asleep. This results in the birth of a daimon named Adgistis, who has both male and female genitals. The gods are terrified of them and decide to castrate them. An almond tree grows from the discarded body part. Some time later a woman described only as the daughter of the river Sangarius (modern Sakarya in Turkey) picks up a single fruit from it. When she places it in her lap, it disappears and she miraculously falls pregnant. In due time, Attis is born, but he is abandoned and only survives thanks to a male goat taking care of him. When he grows up, he becomes an extraordinarily beautiful young man, and Adgistis falls in love with him. However, his relatives want him to marry the daughter of the king. A wedding is arranged, but Adgistis crashes the ceremony and induces mania in the participants. Attis as a result castrates himself and dies. Adgistis feels bad about it and asks Zeus to preserve Attis’ body so that it won’t putrefy or wither away (Attis Between…, p. 2-3).

A relief of Attis (wikimedia commons). The final of the three major versions comes from Arnobius’ Adversus Nationes. It begins with the description of Agdos, an enormous stone located somewhere in Phrygia. As supposedly revealed by an oracle of Themis, stones removed from it were used by Deucalion and Pyrra to repopulate the earth. Furthermore, Magna Mater was originally fashioned from it, and then animated divinely (it’s not explained by whom). It apparently was also her favorite place to rest, since we’re next introduced to her as she’s sleeping on top of it. Jupiter wishes to have sex with her, but she’s not interested. Out of frustration he ejaculates into the stone. After some time passes, the stone gives birth to Agdestis, who, just like in Pausanias’ version, has both masculine and feminine characteristics. They are violent, destructive and possess extraordinary libido. Due to their unique origin they are also incredibly strong, so that neither gods nor mortals can interfere with them - and apparently most of what they’re interested in is wanton destruction. The gods gather to come up with a solution, and eventually Liber is selected to enact their plan. He mixes the waters of Agdestis’ favorite spring with wine, so that they fall into slumber after drinking from it. He then ties their genitals to their feet. When they wake up, they accidentally castrate themself as a result. A pomegranate tree grows from the spilled blood. Some time later a certain Nana, daughter of Sangarius (Arnobius appears to be uncertain if he’s a river god or a king) picks up a fruit from the tree. After she places it in her lap, she becomes pregnant. Her father concludes that she disgraced herself, and locks her up in a tower so that she’ll die of starvation. However, Magna Mater intervenes on her behalf and provides her with fruits. As a result she survives and gives birth to Attis. Sangarius declares that the baby should be abandoned, though he manages to survive thanks to the help of a male goat, who feeds him with his own milk (apparently milk of a male goat was an omen of good luck, as discussed by Aristotle in Historia Animalium). When Attis grows up, he becomes a favorite of Magna Mater. However, he also meets Agdestis, who similarly falls in love with him. To get his attention they take him on hunts and let him take the game they acquire. Attis takes advantage of that by presenting himself as a great hunter to his mortal peers. However, one day he gets drunk and reveals the origin of the game he brings. Midas, the king of Pessinus, learns of this and decides that Attis should marry his daughter Ia to prevent any further Agdestis antics. When the day of the wedding comes, Midas has all the gates of his city locked so that nobody can interfere with the planned course of events. Magna Mater, who knows that Attis will only remain safe if he’s unmarried and wants to save him, manages to get in by lifting the city wall with her head (an allusion to her mural crown). Agdestis also manages to enter Pessinous, though in contrast with Magna Mater they do so out of anger. They induce madness among the gathered crowds; Magna Mater’s appearance actually also contributes to the people’s frenzied reactions, though. Attis is affected, castrates himself, and dies from blood loss under a pine tree. Magna Mater gathers everything he cut off and buries it under the tree in a funerary cloth. She then mourns him with Ia) and Agdestis. An almond tree eventually grows from Magna Mater’s tears. Agdestis instead decides to ask Jupiter to bring Attis back to life. He refuses, though, and merely prevents his body from rotting, lets his hair grow even in death and makes his little finger move. With no other options left, Agdestis opts to honor Attis’ memory with regular religious ceremonies  (Attis Between…, p. 3-5).

Some more space has to be dedicated to the figure Arnobius calls Agdestis, while Pausanias - Agdistis  (In Search…, p. 240). This theonym had a relatively long history in Phrygia. Its original form was seemingly Angdisis or Angdistis, though numerous variant spellings are recorded too (In Search…, p. 244-246). The deity known under all of these variant names is entirely absent from the early Phrygian texts, but started to appear increasingly frequently in the Hellenistic period in private dedications from various parts of Anatolia - and beyond. Examples are known from Attica, Lesbos, Paxos, and even from Egypt. Angdistis commonly appears as the only theonym, but sometimes the deity is also identified as Meter, and their iconography is virtually identical with that of Cybele (In Search…, p. 196-198). The two names sometimes, but not always, appear to be treated as synonyms (Hittite Texts…, p. 178). While it’s not stated explicitly, in theory it can be argued that this might be the case for Pausanias (In Search…, p. 240). However, in Arnobius’ account they’re evidently two separate figures (Attis Between…, p. 92). As a matter of fact, it can be argued that they are effectively rivals competing for Attis (In Search…, p. 240).

It’s possible that in origin Agdistis was the title of (a) Matar tied to a specific location, just like kubileya. Perhaps Arnobius’ stone Agdos was a genuine toponym tied to this deity. Particular concentration of inscriptions dedicated to Agdistis occurs in the proximity of Docimion and “Midas City”, so it might have been a mountain located somewhere in this area  (In Search…, p. 245-246). It has also been suggested that Agdistis was outright the name of Matar in this location (Hittite Texts…, p. 172). Note that "Midas City" is only a conventional modern name. This early Phrygian site is mostly known from a monument inscribed with a formula mentioning an individual named Midas, probably the historical king of Phrygia known from Greek and Mesopotamian sources, hence this moniker (In Search…, p. 69). 

Midas interviewing Silenus (wikimedia commons). While the myth might allude to this historical ruler, it’s also possible that any generic fictional Phrygian king would be called Midas simply because it’s the Phrygian royal name Greco-Roman authors would be the most familiar with. It doesn’t even necessarily indicate any greater degree of familiarity with one of its historical bearers (In Search…, p. 246). An argument for assuming we’re dealing with (a) fictional Midas here is that Arnobius might have adapted the method through which Liber puts Adgistis to sleep from a tale in which he similarly entraps Silenus by mixing wine into the water of a spring (In Search…, p. 255).

Interestingly, Adgistis’ unusual physical characteristics seem to be absent in the votive texts, in which the name consistently designates a female figure (In Search…, p. 246). Lynn E. Roller proposes that the assignment of both feminine and masculine qualities to them might have essentially been a complex way to make motifs from myths of divine dynastic succession applicable to them - like the castration of an elder deity seen as a potential danger, with the best known example being Uranus in Hesiod’s Theogony (In Search…, p. 249-250). I personally think it would be tempting to speculate if assignment of both feminine and masculine traits of Adgistis might have originated as an attempt at casting them in a cosmogonic role, before this element was incorporated into the Attis narrative. A potential parallel would be the unusual description of Cronus, cast in the role of a primordial creator deity, as “both male and female” in one of the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri, the Oracle of Kronos demanding, called little mill. Elsewhere the Orphic cosmogonic figure Phanes is described in similar terms, too (Eleni Pachoumi, The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri, p. 96-97). A further difference between the myth and the cultic texts is that there’s no indication in the latter that Adgistis was perceived as cruel or dangerous. If anything, the votive inscriptions listing them together with Asclepius or counting them among “saving deities” (theoi soteres) would point in an opposite direction (In Search…, p. 246).

To be entirely fair, Pausanias’ Agdistis isn’t portrayed as malevolent either, the gods just opt to mutilate them for no real reason. It’s really just Arnobius’ version that acts out of malice (Attis Between…, p. 22). And while his version of the myth is by far the longest and the most detailed, it’s arguably also one with the most clearly identifiable potential bias. As the work of an early Christian author, it might’ve been meant to portray other systems of belief unfavorably. Therefore, it’s easy to see why Arnobius would dedicate so much space to sex and violence. While he cites an earlier author, Timotheus, as his source, the identity of this individual is virtually impossible to uncover - it was one of the most common Greek names overall  (In Search…, p. 244).

A statue of Attis in a contemplative pose (wikimedia commons).

It’s commonly assumed that the focus on castration in myths dealing with Attis and his affair(s) with Cybele and/or Adgistis reflected the self-castration performed by the galli, a class of religious personnel associated with Cybele (In Search…, p. 257-258). It remains uncertain when this custom first emerged, though at least at Pessinus it was already observed in the third century BCE (Attis Between…, p. 48-49). Given that this is ultimately an article about the history of a specific boss in a quirky rpg from 2009,  I won’t delve into the reception of the galli in Greek and Roman literature and academic debates about their identity here - it’s a topic which would warrant a lengthy treatment of its own (I won’t write it though, sorry).

The connection between Attis the galli might not be quite as simple as commonly assumed, though. Both Pausanias’ and Arnobius’ versions of the myth feature a separate character quite obviously related to them. In the former it’s the anonymous father-in-law of Attis, in the latter Gallus, apparently a guest at his wedding. Both of them castrate themselves when Attis does, but in contrast with him don’t die as a result. Stephen of Byzantium, relying on Alexander Polyhistor, actually outright derives the practices of the galli from Gallus - precisely because, in contrast with Attis, he lived on. It has been pointed out that if Attis was not directly a model for the galli, it becomes less puzzling why, despite functioning as a priestly title, attis never became just a synonym of gallus. Perhaps while related, the two institutions were distinct, just as Attis and Gallus are two separate figures in the myth (Attis Between…, p. 100-101).

It’s also worth noting that versions of the myth in which Attis doesn’t engage in any sort of self harm exist too  (In Search…, p. 254). One example has been collected by Diodorus. Bear in mind it is an example of euhemerism - reinterpretation of myths meant to remove supernatural elements in favor of uncovering “real” history (In Search…, p. 242). The myth begins with the introduction of Cybele, here a daughter of the king of Lydia, Maion, and his wife Didymene. She was abandoned at Mt. Cybelon (hence the name), where she miraculously survived among wild animals. Due to her unusual kindness to them - as well as to children - she came to be called the “great mother” and “mountain mother”. After coming of age she fell in love with a Phrygian named Attis, became pregnant, and got reunited with her parents (In Search…, p. 239). However, after discovering her pregnancy, they have her lover killed and leave his body unburied. Out of grief Cybele starts to wander the countryside, accompanied by Marsyas (yes, the one from that Apollo myth). Meanwhile, a plague breaks out, and an unspecified god is asked what to do to spare the kingdom from it. He reveals that it will stop if Cybele and Attis are recognized as deities. While she is still around, not even Attis’ body was possible to recover, and a statue was fashioned to serve as a proxy for him. Later on a temple was constructed for him and Cybele in Pessinus by a new king, Midas (Attis Between…, p. 8-9). Pausanias also records a different myth according to which Attis was a devout priest of Cybele, but otherwise not personally involved with her. He was supposedly infertile, though this doesn’t factor into the narrative. At some point in his career he moved from Phrygia to Lydia, where he spread his enthusiasm for rites of Cybele so effectively that her cult eclipsed that of Zeus. Zeus was less than thrilled, though, and sent a boar to kill him. The manner of his death supposedly resulted in the development of a taboo on pork consumption observed by Galatians living in Pessinus (In Search…, p. 240). A related account where Attis was a lover of Cybele - but still a mortal - and Zeus sent a boar to kill him out of jealousy is preserved by Nicander (Attis Between…, p. 59).  A further variant argued to be a close relative of the sources attributing Attis’ death to a boar can be found in Servius’ commentary on the Aeneid (In Search…, p. 240). Here Attis is introduced as a mortal consecrated to Magna Mater. However, the nameless king of the similarly nameless city he lives in lusts after him. Attis castrates him in self defense, leading to his death from blood loss, but not before being similarly wounded by the dying attacker. His corpse is found under a pine tree by Magna Mater’s priests, who take it to her temple for a burial (Attis Between…, p. 6).

Ultimately the differences between the versions reflect the different aims of people who compiled them. The earliest authors probably simply aimed to find ways to explain Attis’ rapid rise to prominence as Cybele’s associate within the sphere of cult. Later versions, especially those emphasizing the Anatolian setting, added more elements reflecting either genuine knowledge of local customs and history (note Pausanias’ reference to Galatians, who only arrived in Anatolia in the third century BCE, for instance) or Greco-Roman stereotypes about foreigners. Finally, Arnobius retold the myth in a way which suited his goal of presenting his preferred system of beliefs as more moral than the alternatives. Ultimately both Attis and the myths focused on him were anything but static, much like Cybele herself (In Search…, p. 257-258).

Maternal manias and phantasmagoric prehistory: the birth of a new myth

While Cybele eventually ceased to be worshiped due to the rise of Christianity across the Mediterranean, she never fully disappeared. Through the middle ages she continued to enjoy some popularity as a literary character - sometimes in areas she was never even worshiped in. For instance, it has been suggested that, after entering Ireland through the writings of st. Isidore of Seville, she left such an impression on literati that they attempted to invent an Irish counterpart for her, in spite of the quite likely absence of such a figure from the local pre-Christian pantheon and mythology (Mark Williams, Ireland’s Immortals. A History of the Gods of Irish Myth, p. 189-191; Brigid K. Ehrmantraut, Interpretatio Hiberniana: Classical Influences in Medieval Irish Depictions of Otherworldly Characters, p. 39-40; stay tuned for a future article exploring the intersection of Christianity, Greco-Roman literature and native mythological tradition in medieval Ireland in more detail). It took until the nineteenth century for Cybele to once again take the center stage. Ironically, while obviously no longer worshiped, she attained a position perhaps more elevated than ever before. In highly questionable scholarship she became the goddess par excellence, and a highly debatable take on the social position of her cult was turned into a model for understanding the past as a whole (In Search…, p. 18). Cybele's revival started when a new myth was born in 1861. In this year the Swiss lawyer-turned-classicist Johann J. Bachofen published his opus magnum, Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach Ihrer Religiösen und Rechtlichen Natur - “Mother Right: A Study of the Religious and Juridical Nature of Gynecocracy in the Ancient World” (Cynthia Eller, Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861–1900, p. 6). To be entirely fair, if we were to treat definitions loosely, minor “matriarchal myths” were already present in western scholarship before Bachofen. Typically they were the result of particularly far reaching interpretations of Greek narratives involving Amazons, embellished with new elements. To the Greeks, the Amazons were simply a deliberately strange society invented to populate distant, unfamiliar lands. They essentially belong to the same category of beings as centaurs or cyclopses. There was no real consensus on antiquity regarding just where they lived - typically just far enough to make it plausible they would take part in famous legendary events (like the Trojan War), but far enough to justify why travelers visiting lands further and further away from Greece failed to ever meet them. Depending on the source, they could be portrayed as more or less realistic; sometimes they were said to cut off one breast (though interestingly this is largely limited to textual sources), sometimes they had to kill three enemies in battle before they could marry, sometimes they were pretty similar to stereotypes about historical inhabitants of Anatolia, just with the gender relations reversed. Regardless of how out there or grounded their customs were, the goal was chiefly to juxtapose them with the prevailing patriarchal Greek models as fictional, deliberately dysfunctional foils (Gentlemen and…, p. 16-17).

Amazons in the Nuremberg Chronicle, a fifteenth century encyclopedia (wikimedia commons). This continued through the middle ages and beyond. During the era of conquest of the Americas, it became popular to situate the Amazons on the other side of the Atlantic. This new idea could be reconciled with classical sources through fanciful narratives according to which the death of the Homeric Amazon queen Penthesilea prompted her subjects to seek new lands to settle far away from the classical world. These ideas were so popular that the conquistadors named the longest river they found after the Amazons. The name of California also originates in Amazon literature - the original was a fictional Amazon kingdom from the novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (otherwise mostly notable for being one of the tomes whose contents were responsible for the condition of the eponymous main character of Don Quixote). In the following centuries interest in Amazons waxed and waned, though they nonetheless remained a fixture of fiction well into the nineteenth century, serving largely the same roles as in antiquity (Gentlemen and…, p. 18-22).

Bachofen’s new matriarchal myth also involved Amazons, and most likely owed quite a bit to their prominence in art and writing both in antiquity and in the nineteenth century (Gentlemen and…, p. 7). However, that was not its core. Rather, it revolved around the idea that humanity’s most primal religion was the worship of an all-encompassing “mother goddess” - which, in turn, as far as Bachofen was concerned, reflected a matriarchal prehistory (In Search…, p. 10). The notion of a singular goddess probably developed after Bachofen met the early archeologist Eduard Gerhard in the early 1850s (Gentlemen and…, p. 39). Gerhard was not a proponent of any matriarchal myths himself, but he was convinced that all Greek goddesses were actually different guises of one universal goddess worshiped in yet more remote antiquity (Gentlemen and…, p. 34). Soon after the meeting, Bachofen started pondering about a “primordial feminine goddess” (sic) himself (Gentlemen and…, p. 39). Bachofen absolutely abhorred the figure he constructed, and believed moving past the belief in her marked the point in history when mankind started to strive towards more lofty spiritual goals. The core of his work was explaining how this process unfolded across multiple stages (In Search…, p. 10).

The model postulated by Bachofen consists of five ages, which he called “hetaerism, Demetrian matriarchy, Dionysian matriarchy, Amazonism, and the Apollonian age”. The first stage was matrilineal, but not matriarchal, and reflected “communal ownership of women” in a system dominated by the notion of “might makes right”. He argued it came to an end with the development of a new form of rule based on motherhood and monogamy, enforced by the rise of his idealized take on the Amazons. This in turn leads into a stage that can be described as Oedipal at the absolute best: a culture focused on “the mother’s eroticized worship of her son” arises, with Dionysus held to be the archetypal example (and also, inexplicably, a sun god). This eventually goes too far, though, leading to a rebellion of women - once again patterned on Amazons, though this time of a variety more in line with ancient and medieval fiction. Bachofen reveals that their primary goal was to be sexually alluring to men, though, and in the end the system they formed collapsed, finally leading to the rise of the “Apollonian age”, which he describes as the first period of true equality. However, to him that meant the subservience of women to men, because, as he argued, the former are like the moon, in that they possess no light of their own and can only reflect the spiritual grandeur of men, who in this new era can finally focus on the quest for enlightenment (Gentlemen and…, p. 41-47). Even the small sample above shows that Bachofen’s writing is, to put it bluntly, incoherent, and even the historical proponents of his ideas often had trouble with telling what exactly he wanted to communicate (Gentlemen and…, p. 41). Cybele only comes up directly in passing in Bachofen’s manifesto, in a passage explaining that the rise of mystery cults in Rome - especially those dedicated to her and Isis - was a distraction from pursuing the path to genuine “Apollonian” enlightenment (Gentlemen and…, p. 46-47). He also states that all of the parts unsavory to him clearly reflected the eastern roots (In Search…, p. 19-20). Bachofen saw the east - and Anatolia in particular - as vital for his ideas about the past. A major component of his argument was a questionable reading of Herodotus’ account of Lycia. Herodotus only claimed the Lycians are matrilineal - ie. that they track ancestry only through one’s mother - and not that they’re matriarchal. The frequent use of patronymics in Lycian texts indicates that even this is incorrect in the first place, and ancestry through the father’s line was very much recognized. Still, to Bachofen this basically confirmed that his assumptions were entirely correct (In Search…, p. 10-11). Overall Bachofen’s writing is, to put it bluntly, incoherent, and even the historical proponents of his ideas often had trouble with telling what exactly he wanted to communicate (Gentlemen and…, p. 41). His work depended on at best questionable interpretations of primary sources (if any are consulted at all), it successfully created a connection between ancient Anatolia and the phantasmagoric matriarchal prehistory filled with cults of an all-encompassing great goddess (In Search…, p. 11-12).

While this is only tangentially related to the topic of this article, it’s important to stress that, baseless as they were, at the peak of their popularity, visions of primal matriarchy were seized by thinkers from virtually all over the political spectrum, from communists and feminists all the way up to fascists (Gentlemen and…, p. 7). By 1884 even Friedrich Engels himself adopted the notion of matriarchal prehistory. In Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State he lifted directly from Bachofen. The main difference is that he recast the fictional matriarchal era as, essentially, an utopian golden age (Gentlemen and…, p. 105-106). Note that while Engels considered this work a direct continuation of his earlier cooperation with Karl Marx, nothing indicates that the latter, who already passed away by the time his long-time collaborator opted to explore prehistory, ever accepted the idea of ancient matriarchy, though. Quite the opposite, he argued that many other political thinkers are drawn to abstract visions of prehistory because it’s easy to fill the unrecorded past with speculation unbound by facts - a view at the time shared by Engels (Gentlemen and…, p. 107-109). Putting aside minor differences between these two thinkers, it's important to note that recasting Bachofen's matriarchal prehistory as a golden age was just a new twist on an idea which arguably goes back much further. In the west the belief that mankind’s remote past was a golden age and everything since has been a gradual downfall has been continuously present through biblical literalism. In a way, the supposed golden age of matriarchy was just a novel on the motif of the garden of Eden and the fall of its inhabitants (Cynthia Eller, From Motherkin to the Great Goddess: Matriarchal Myth in Anthropology and the Classics, p. 241-242).

Voyeurism and worldbuilding: James G. Frazer, the mother, and the son

While much more could be said about the various attempts at attaching the myth of matriarchal prehistory to preexisting political ideologies, they are ultimately of little relevance to the specific line of transmission this article deals with, and to Cybele’s return to relevance. Its next stage were instead the works of James G. Frazer. Strictly speaking, he was not outright an advocate of matriarchal prehistory (Gentlemen and…, p. 96). He was a firm believer in an evolutionary model of religion and society much like Bachofen, though. His take on this idea only involved three stages which he referred to as magic, religion and science. The twist was that the middle stage was an outlier, and the third was supposed to be a refined version of the first (Cynthia Eller, Two Knights and a Goddess: Sir Arthur Evans, Sir James George Frazer, and the Invention of Minoan Religion, p. 89).  Frazer’s take on the matriarchal myth was overall closer to Bachofen’s than those of many other authors who followed in his footsteps (From Motherkin…, p. 147). Ironically, he didn’t even read Bachofen’s work in full - as he confessed, “I have not had the patience to read through his long dissertation” (Gentlemen and…, p. 212). That might be the most relatable and sympathetic thing he’s ever said, honestly. However, he had a penchant for purple prose himself (Jonathan Z. Smith, When the Bough Breaks, p. 347-348).

Frazer’s writing also abounds in purposely scandalizing descriptions of sexual acts supposedly widespread in the “primitive” past (Two Knights…, p. 89). He was, for instance, propagating the now discredited notion of “sacred prostitution” (Jo Ann Hackett, Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us? Ancient Near Eastern "Fertility" Goddesses, p. 74-75). Granted, this was hardly unique to him - speculating about alleged debauched sexual customs was equal parts unnerving and titillating to many Victorian authors (Gentleman and…, p. 170). Frazer’s most important work was The Golden Bough, originally published in two volumes in 1890. By 1936 it reached twelve, though, not counting various supplements (Gentlemen and…, p. 96). At its core lies a fabrication cobbled together from pieces of Strabo’s and Servius’ writings: a tale about a sacred grove of Diana near Rome maintained by a priest who could only be replaced by his own murderer. Frazer aimed to solve this supposed mystery (which he invented himself), but the scope of his worldbuilding project was much greater than just that. Using cherrypicked evidence from different areas and time periods, he sought to uncover a supposed archetypal myth involving a “mother goddess” and her son, the “dying god”, who first becomes her lover, then dies, and then is reborn to repeat the cycle. The son, as he was convinced, was symbolized by priests and/or kings who, as he argued, were periodically sacrificed to mimic his fate. He sought the roots of such customs in a lost “primite” age characterized by matriliny and ancestor worship, with the “mother goddess” being the ancestor par excellence - and also a personification of fertility in all its forms (From Motherkin…, p. 145-147).

Of course, it’s pretty easy to notice that casting Cybele in this role reflects obvious biases. Her status as an ambivalent “barbarian” deity who represented the Greco-Roman attitude towards the east was essentially reinterpreted as an indication of origin in an earlier stage of human history, a bizarre throwback from an era Greeks and Romans, as more “advanced” societies, already left behind (In Search…, p. 18-19). I think it’s fair to say Frazer’s characters owed more to Attis than Cybele, though. He envisioned the “dying god” as a personification of vegetation - largely based on his interpretation of Attis (Attis Between…, p. 143). He didn’t consider Attis the original, though. To him, he was actually an alternate name of Dumuzi - as were numerous other deities, including, perhaps most bafflingly, Osiris (Bendt Alster, Tammuz(/Dumuzi) in RlA vol. 13, p. 433). For the most part, he selected gods - and at most vaguely divine figures like Adonis - to equate basically at random (Attis Between…, p. 144).

A typical depiction of Osiris from a New Kingdom tomb (wikimedia commons).

Needless to say, even in the rare cases when Attis and Osiris come up in the same sources, in most cases no evidence for any particularly close connection between them emerges. Plutarch mentions them together simply because they were two foreign gods he was aware of; Ovid because both of them underwent a metamorphosis of some sort. And even Attis’ slightly better attested connections with Adonis and Dionysus are not particularly common, and tend to heavily depend on context. Simply put, none of these identifications were a part of the common perception of Attis, let alone the other figures involved (Attis Between…, p. 140-141). 

Two hymns dated to the first century BCE equate Attis with Osiris - but they do so in order to elevate Attis’ position by assigning the roles of other, normally distinct, figures to him. Furthermore, he’s also equated in this context with the moon god Men, so it’s not like the gods share any particular theme. In the end, it’s a fairly standard example of a phenomenon rooted in the theology of the first centuries CE, best represented in the magical papyri - the assignment of multiple deities’ competences to just one. It cannot be projected back in time, and doesn’t represent Attis as he was understood in the preceding centuries (Attis Between…, p. 117-118). There’s a further, perhaps even more glaring, issue with Frazer’s approach. Attis actually had nothing to do with the annual cycle of vegetation. His most recurring plant symbol was the pinecone, which was closely associated with the dead in general, not just with him, as is well documented in Roman sources (Attis Between…, p. 138). Furthermore, there’s no indication he was believed to resurrect. Quite the opposite, it’s precisely what was denied to him, as made clear by both Pausanias and Arnobius. He had to die, and remain dead, in order to be worshiped in the first place -  or so the myth goes, at least (Attis Between…, p. 153-154). Perhaps even more tellingly, depictions of Attis frequently occur in funerary context (Attis Between…, p. 161).

Despite the obvious flaws, Frazer’s scholarship was enthusiastically embraced by a host of other authors in the late nineteenth century and beyond (From Motherkin…, p. 147). His work only came under much deserved academic criticism in the 1950s (From Motherkin…, p. 145). However, it still lingers in various dark corners of academia. And, perhaps more importantly, it arguably warped the popular perception of many deities.

For the most part, goddesses have been more impacted than gods. Despite Frazer dedicating quite a lot of space to inventing his own version of Osiris, the average person who recognizes his name today in all due likeness will have a decent grasp of his position in the Egyptian pantheon. They will probably be able to tell that he was a god of the dead, and might be able to recall that a popular myth revolved around his brother Seth killing him and scattering his body parts across Egypt, and that his wife Isis managed to more or less put him back together and then helped their son Horus attain an elevated position among the gods. Or something to that effect, at least.

Meanwhile, if you by some miracle manage to find a person who recognizes the name Astarte (always Astarte, never Ashtart, which is an issue in its own right - but that’s a topic for another time) odds are pretty high you will hear nebulous stories about some sort of nondescript “Great Goddess” (who encompasses every deity with at least a vaguely similar name, spatial and temporal differences and views from primary sources be damned -  “Ishtar/Astarte/whatever” is a phrase I’ve seen myself),  “fertility cult”, “sacred prostitution” and so on. The actual primary aspects of her (or rather their) character are absent from popular perception, replaced by Frazerian visions. The problem is major enough to actually require highlighting in the academic study of Ashtart (Aren M. Wilson-Wright, Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation of a Goddess in the Late Bronze Age, p. 9).

In the case of Ashtart, the person to blame might be specifically the (in)famous Bible scholar William F. Albright. He employed a Frazerian methodology to accomplish the goal of making Greco-Roman accounts of (actually unattested) “phallic cults” and “sacred prostitution” supposedly found in the “decadent” east, a grand expression of unchanging historical truth. This in turn was a part of a broader project to present biblical monotheism as uniquely morally upstanding compared to virtually any culture he wanted to incorporate into his grand theories. Phrases such as “sordid depths of social degradation” abound in his works (Athtart…, p. 5-6).

I feel obliged to point out exceptions from the rule that Frazer influenced perception of goddesses more than gods do exist, though. Dumuzi in particular has greatly suffered under the yoke of his imitators. For example, in the 1930s Maurus Witzel attempted to elevate him to the rank of the head of the pantheon on the account of his nonexistent connection to a Frazerian “Mother Earth” he envisioned. It will suffice to say that at the core Dumuzi wasn’t even a god of vegetation, but a divine shepherd, and his mother was Duttur - a minor deity associated with sheep. It should therefore come as no surprise that his annual descent to the underworld, which is first attested in the Old Babylonian period, coincided with the time when sheep didn’t give milk - the midsummer. His only real connection to vegetation was a secondary development reflecting the interchange of motifs in laments focused on him, Ningishzida (a god with actual floral connections) and Damu (Tammuz…, p. 434-438).

Faience Frankenstein and maternal snowmen: Arthur Evans’ sundry crimes against Minoan art

The supposed “Minoan goddess” (wikimedia commons).

As if misinterpretation of actually attested deities was not enough, there are also cases where disciples of the luminaries of matriarchal mythology just invented new ones. Perhaps the most notable case is that of Arthur Evans, the original excavator of Knossos, and his “Minoan goddess” (Two Knights…, p. 82-83). Ironically, Evans’ first acknowledgment of the “Great Mother”, as he eventually came to call her, was quite negative in tone. In his early writing on Crete, he actually wanted to prove the worship of some nebulous universal goddess - who he inexplicably referred to as “Istar [sic] or the Mother Goddess” - was only present as a foreign intrusion, interfering with the truly indigenous cult of “Cretan Zeus”, which, as he believed at the time, went back to the stone age (Two Knights…, p. 78).

In 1903, Evans made his perhaps most famous discovery - the leftovers of three faience figurines. Relying on the services of the Danish artist Halvor Bagge, he had two of them essentially frankensteined together into one, with snake accessories thrown in for good measure, since the third figure holds a snake-like object (Two Knights…, p. 82-83).

Seemingly due to her exposed breasts, Evans declared her a “maternity goddess” or “mother goddess”, though he didn’t fully commit to this interpretation yet. His reservations didn’t linger on for too long - mere two years later he was able to find supposed symbols of an universal maternal deity virtually anywhere, and started to boldly assert that she was the only goddess worshiped by the Minoans, with the pantheon otherwise only including a lesser male god, her son (Two Knights…, p. 84).

The change was rather sudden, but its results are hardly unambiguous: suddenly Evans basically adopted the core dramatis personae of The Golden Bough as a model for his understanding of Minoan religion. How exactly this occurred remains unclear. There are multiple possibilities. He was aware of this publication since at least 1901. He was also familiar with many of the same classicists Frazer depended on, and might therefore regarded him as a suitable point of reference. His acquaintance Jane E. Harrison considered Frazer an inspiration, too, and at one point visited the excavations at Knossos, possibly influencing Evans in the process. Finally, it cannot be ruled out that the sheer popularity Frazer enjoyed at the time was enough on its own, and Evans wasn’t too different from his other readers who uncritically embraced his views (Two Knights…, p. 91-93). Evans’ embrace of Frazerian ideas might also have been partially fueled by forgeries he surrounded himself with. Through the early decades of the twentieth century he was both the to-go authority on Minoan culture consulted by prospective buyers, and more than happy to spend huge sums on supposed Minoan artifacts to fuel his speculation further. Many forgeries were very likely made specifically with him in mind, and depended heavily on his interpretation of Minoan culture, providing him with exactly what he expected and reinforcing his new beliefs further. The fakes also fueled other, more minor misconceptions - for instance, the fact that it’s often claimed Minoans worshiped a “snake goddess” is mostly a result of the dissemination of forgeries made based on Evans’ hodgepodge figure holding snakes. At least 14 were sold to museums in the early decades of the previous century (Two Knights…, p. 93-94).

Evans’ “woman of ample and matronly contours” (Two Knights…, p. 85; reproduced here for educational purposes only).

Through his career Evans was also deeply invested in denying that there was anything sexual about the depictions of women in Minoan art. As a matter of fact, he asserted nothing the Minoans depicted was of "indecent nature”, and presented them favorably compared to virtually anyone living further east, specifically because, as he asserted, they were more “pure” and didn’t produce any sexual art. Instead, as he believed, they focused on motherhood, and this motif permeated all of their works. For instance, the clay object above, as he argued, represented "a woman of ample and matronly contours” accompanied by an infant. Cynthia Eller notes that the objects, whatever they wouldn’t be, look more like snowmen; I think that's much more apt (Two Knights…, p. 84-85).

Restoration of a Minoan fresco from Knossos showing a group of women (wikimedia commons).

To be entirely fair to Evans, I don’t think it’s easy to determine how Minoans themselves perceived the ubiquitous, to put it colloquially, boob windows. We know a lot about what their Mesopotamian and Egyptian contemporaries thought was erotic because of the large text corpora dealing with these topics; Minoans left no comparable evidence, or at least none that can be deciphered at the moment. Perhaps the fact that most women are depicted in outfits which leave the breasts exposed and with very thin waists indeed had a rationale different from sex appeal, that’s a perfectly fair assumption. However, what is clear is that nothing about how women are depicted in Minoan art had particularly maternal implications. There isn’t even a single Minoan work showing a woman breastfeeding or holding a child in her arms. If anything, it would be easier to argue that Minoans consciously avoided depicting anything that could hint at motherhood, even though they clearly had no issues with creating art focused on women. Accordingly, there’s no reason to suspect they worshiped a goddess resembling that envisioned by Evans (Stephanie L. Budin, Maternity, Children and ‘Mother Goddesses’ in Minoan Iconography, p. 31-34; note that while this is a great article, Budin has since engaged in more questionable pursuits, to put it lightly). 

Ultimately, Evans “found” a singular Minoan goddess who was maternal, but simultaneously chaste (or even virginal) because he wasn’t actually trying to understand what the Minoans might have believed. He was merely projecting the lingering Victorian values back into the remote past. His goddess could not be sensual, because that would be a trait unsuitable for who he saw as the antecedents of the west as he understood it. Sensuality was reserved for the “decadent” east, which he wanted to separate the Minoans from (Maternity, Children…, p. 33). It’s hardly incidental that he also championed the idea that the Minoan script was free from foreign (ie. Asian or African) influence - it was a form of European exceptionalism all the way down (Two Knights…, p. 77).  By making the Minoans at least quasi-monotheist, Evans aimed to present them as more advanced than their contemporaries, and more similar to himself and his peers (Two Knights…, p. 86). If this wasn’t blunt enough already, for a time he tried to claim the Christian cross was really a Minoan symbol all along (Two Knights…, p. 77). Funnily enough, at the time of initial publication of the supposed snake goddess statuette he was still in this phase, and dedicated as much if not more space to implying the since the site yielded a piece of marble with a cross emblem, continuity from remote prehistory down to the contemporary Orthodox Church is basically confirmed (Two Knights…, p. 84). The need to make the Minoans as distinct as possible from their contemporaries was also responsible for the most major difference between Evans’ goddess and her predecessor from The Golden Bough. He abhorred incest and considered it an “oriental” (his words, not mine) addition to a “beautiful and natural” relationship between mother and child which he saw as the center of Minoan religious life (Two Knights…, p. 91). Make no mistake, though - he accepted Frazerian conclusions wholesale when it came to deities from any other culture. His views about Ishtar or Isis and their cults were, if anything, even more extreme than Frazer’s, since he only ever brought them up to contrast the supposed depravity with the purity of the Minoan goddess, her alleged son, and their worshipers (Two Knights…, p. 88).

Evans’ ideas started to be criticized after WWII, with authors such as Martin Nilsson arguing it is more plausible that Minoan religion was fairly standard Bronze Age polytheist fare, not a monotheist creed focused on a single motherly goddess (Joan Gulizio, Dimitri Nakassis, The Minoan Goddess(es): Textual Evidence for Minoan Religion, p. 116). Even open mockery became possible - for example, in the late 1950s Gordon Childe called the quest for the supposed mother goddess “a harmless outlet for the sexual impulses of old men” (Maternity, Children…, p. 32). I’d debate if it really was “harmless”, honestly - as you’ll see, it continues to linger in the least expected places. With time, the decipherment of Mycenaean texts provided fairly sound evidence that multiple deities were actively worshiped on Crete (The Minoan…, p. 125). Many of them were very obviously introductions from the mainland - for example Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon, Potnia and Diwia, who occur in every corpus of Mycenaean texts discovered so far and either correspond to gods of classical antiquity or have clear Greek etymologies. However, some of them not only appear exclusively in texts from Knossos, but on top of that their names have no plausible explanations at all. It is very likely that at least some of them were Minoan deities the Mycenaean administration of Crete incorporated into their own pantheon. Six possible examples have been identified: Pipituna (the suffix -tuna might be reflected in later Diktynna as well but that’s uncertain), Mbati, Pasaja, Sijamato, Pade and Qerasija. They are often clustered in the same texts, as if they were a group (The Minoan…, p. 119-122).

It’s also worth noting that around three-fourths of personal names recorded in the Mycenaean texts from Crete have no plausible Greek etymologies either. This further strengthens the proposal that they might preserve information about non-Mycenaean  culture, even if contemporary Knossos and Chania were in all due likeness controlled by Mycenaeans already, as reflected for example in the introduction of burial styles popular on the Greek mainland (The Minoan…, p. 116). It might be significant that when Pipituna and co. appear alongside deities whose names would indicate they arrived from the mainland, the latter are provided with unique titles stressing their connection to Cretan locales. For example, Diktajo Diwe appears to be “Diktaian Zeus”, and Dapuritojo Potnija is pretty clearly “Potnia of the Labirynth”. It cannot be determined if they represent instances of making offerings to mainland deities in a specific Minoan locale, or a prototype of interpretatio graeca of sorts, with local deities hidden behind the names (The Minoan…, p. 125).

A cavalcade of Cybeles: other invented goddesses

Evans is perhaps the most egregious example of inventing a goddess, but hardly the only one. Carl Jung, yet another author who contributed to the survival of Bachofen’s matriarchal myth in the twentieth century (Gentlemen and…, p. 96), went even further and simply made the imaginary goddess both a mainstay of prehistoric religion and an innate part of human consciousness. His disciple Erich Neumann in his book The Great Mother additionally concluded that all female “archetypes” are really just aspects of this supposed primal figure. He also outright admitted that he based his ideas on far reaching interpretations of Cybele and Attis, since they represented the beliefs of a truly ancient society driven by “savage instincts”, as far as he was concerned (In Search…, p. 16-17).

It would also be unfair to also leave out the countless instances of identifying any figurines from the Paleolithic or Neolithic which happen to look at least vaguely feminine as depictions of a “mother goddess”, courtesy of authors such as Marija Gimbutas or E. O. James. Spatial and temporal distinctions don’t matter, material from different time periods, locations, both agricultural and hunter-gatherer (and anything in between) sites, from dump heaps and houses alike is all analyzed as if it represented one coherent system of beliefs of a remarkably closely knit together society. If a woman (or, at least, a shape which appears vaguely feminine to a given author) was depicted in art predating recorded history, on any continent at any point in time, clearly she was a goddess. And if she was a goddess, she must’ve been a mother goddess of the sort envisioned by Bachofen and his successors (In Search…, p. 14-16). Interestingly, analogous far reaching claims are never made about figures of men or animals from the same assemblages (The Minoan…, p. 117). Even in the case of sites which probably did have a religious purpose - like Çatalhöyük in Turkey - it’s impossible to establish what purpose figurines of women might have played in the beliefs of their inhabitants. It cannot even be established if they necessarily worshiped personified deities in the first place, let alone if they worshiped a goddess with maternal traits, however they wouldn’t be conceptualized by them (In Search…, p. 36-37).

A neolithic figure from Çatalhöyük; whoever they wouldn’t be, they’re not Cybele (wikimedia commons). Cybele is regularly brought into this discussion. According to authors keen on interpreting every figurine from any period or location as a mother goddess, her existence clearly demonstrates that her supposed primal forerunner not only was real, but actually survived well into classical antiquity (In Search…, p. 16). Needless to say, the fact her character was hardly static across recorded history in the first place makes any effort to project it back into remote prehistory beyond foolish (In Search…, p. 38-39). As soberly pointed out by Alfonso Archi, no universal mother goddess is actually attested, and all the speculation is ultimately just a series of ever continuing attempts at reviving Bachofen (The Anatolian Fate-Goddesses and their Different Traditions, p. 17).

Strangest journeys: Barbara Walker enters the scene

Mem Aleph (Megami Tensei wiki)

The pursuit of a “primordial” universal goddesses is the strain of matriarchal mythmaking which arguably influenced the plot of Strange Journey the most. The game's final boss, Mem Aleph, “mother spirit in representation of what Earth once was”, is very obviously a Megaten take on the imaginary “great mother” envisioned by the authors I’ve introduced in the previous sections of this article.

The two faces of Barbara G. Walker (The Yarnist; reproduced here for educational purposes only). However, Mem Aleph doesn’t originate in any of the questionable treatises discussed previously, let alone in any actual historical system of beliefs. Rather, she is a creation of Barbara Walker, knitting expert (her knitting books seem genuinely well received) temporarily turned purveyor of ancient matriarchy. As far as I’m aware, at the moment the oldest certain references to her works in Megaten material date back to the original Devil Summoner (when’s that fan translation coming, by the way?) - her Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets is listed in the bibliography of Devil Summoner World Guidance (p. 514; The Golden Bough is listed on the same page, by the way). However, Strange Journey is where her influence reached its maximal extent. 

The cover Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Bookshop Apocalypse; reproduced here for educational purposes only). Note the use of Evans’ Minoan patchwork. In the prologue of the aforementioned book, Walker outlines her aim to uncover an universal “Great Goddess” (The Woman’s…, p. VIII). She presents an idyllic vision of a woman-centric golden age, later lost, but possible to uncover through ventures such as her own (The Woman’s…, p. X). At least nominally, she falls closer to Engels and Evans than Bachofen or Frazer. However, as will be shown later, both of them impacted her quite heavily. Walker argues that the supposed universal goddess was originally simply known as Ma, and her numerous guises ought to have her original name hidden in theirs in some way. Mem Aleph, as she asserts, is the form present on “Jewish amulets dating from the early 9th century B.C.” supposedly described by William F. Albright in Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (The Woman’s…, p. 560). While I’m by no means fond of Albright - quite the opposite, as you could read earlier - as originally pointed out by Eirikr, the book cited by Walker doesn’t actually postulate the existence of a figure named Mem Aleph. Albright merely describes the personal seal (not an “amulet” let alone multiple of them!) of a certain mr. Shemaiah, whose name happens to have a mem and an aleph in it. All he pointed out is that the form of both letters is remarkably archaic and can be used to date the object to the ninth century BCE (Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, p. 198). Walker claims that Mem Aleph was a derivative of Persian “Mourdad-Ameretat”, a name she explains as “Death-Rebirth” (The Woman’s…, p. 632). In reality, Mourdad and Ameretat are two forms of the same name, not names of two different figures. Ameretat is the oldest attested form, appearing in the Avesta, the most important Zoroastrian scripture; Mourdad is a romanization of a more contemporary pronunciation. She’s a yazata (a class of benevolent supernatural beings) representing the concept of longevity or immortality (Mary Boyce, Amurdād in Encyclopedia Iranica). As far as I’m aware, turning the two forms of this name - not even two distinct names - into two distinct figures is an innovation of Walker. Furthermore, while it’s sensible to assume Zoroastrianism had a considerable impact on numerous other cultures, and perhaps was even instrumental for the development of many key tenets of abrahamic faiths, in the ninth century BCE Persians didn’t even cross the Zagros yet. Granted, perhaps Walker is simply documenting an alternate reality where history went down slightly differently than in ours. How else to explain the offhand reference to “Babylon’s Buddha”, one of “history’s leading magicians” (The Woman’s…, p. 566)? Pairing Anat with Jesus (The Woman’s…, p. 468)? Seeking Ganesha on Elephantine in Egypt (The Woman’s…, p. 336)? Claiming Abraham is derived from Brahma (The Woman’s…, p. 5)? While Mem Aleph's inclusion makes it quite obvious Walker was a major inspiration for Strange Journey, I don’t think she was a unique corrupting influence who took Megaten down the path of pseudohistory. Even the people involved from the very beginning, Kazunari Suzuki or Aya Nishitani, not only are purveyors of all sorts of fringe, conspiratorial ideas (at least in Suzuki’s case this extends to politics), but invent new ones wholesale. While I was working on this article, it was revealed that Seth’s original serpentine design isn’t a homage to his namesake from Conan, but rather the result of Nishitani’s conviction that ancient Egyptians reached Izumo (sic), for instance. Crankery is, regrettably, built into Megaten’s DNA. It has been there from the very beginning, and in the end that’s probably what prompted Atlus to use Walker’s book and to essentially base the plot of a game on their own take on the Victorian interpretations of Cybele.

Who knows Matar best? Cybele (and Attis) in The Woman’s Encyclopedia and Megaten

Cybele as she appears in Megaten from Soul Hackers onward (Megami Tensei wiki). A final matter left to investigate is how Cybele herself fares in Megaten, and whether Walker had any influence on her portrayal. Curiously, despite Walker’s book firmly belonging to the tradition heavily indebted to mistaken assumptions about Cybele, her interest in Cybele as she actually was seems minimal. She repeats many of the expected tropes, placing her origins in a remote time when “fatherhood was unknown or negligible” (The Woman’s…, p. 155) and making her interchangeable with a host of completely unrelated goddesses simply because they happen to be female (The Woman’s…, p. 452). However, some more unique twists are offered too. Walker proclaims Cybele (and also Demeter and a variety of figures selected seemingly at random from other pantheons) merely a western derivative of Kurukulla (The Woman’s…, p. 518), a Hindu and Buddhist figure in reality first attested in the late first millennium CE. That’s over 1500 years later than the earliest references to Cybele’s original Phrygian form. Needless to say, I don’t think early Phrygians were time traveling to study tantric texts.  The erroneous equation with Kubaba is taken to an unparalleled extreme, too. Based on incredibly vague phonetic similarity with this name, Walker enthusiastically proclaims the Kaaba a representation of Cybele, an “emblem of yoni” (The Woman’s…, p. 487).

Overall I don’t think there’s much to discuss about Walker’s treatment of Cybele, though. Compared to, say, her coverage of Anat which I talked about previously, she doesn’t really seem to be at the top of her game and largely rehashes what was said by other questionable authors before. She actually seems more invested in Attis than Cybele, as they get respectively 61 and 46 mentions. I think this isn’t very surprising, considering her reference material: Frazer is listed as a source around 100 times (Bachofen, for the record, around 30). To be entirely fair, he doesn’t seem to be her favorite - for comparison, Richard Graves of triple goddess fame is cited over 400 times (that’s on average one reference to him per less than three pages). While he is also among the major proponents of Bachofen’s matriarchal myth (In Search…, p. 13), his work had next to no direct impact on Megaten, so I opted to leave him out of this article.

If nothing else, at least Walker proudly affirms that she relied on those authors. Many contributors to the spread of the matriarchal myth, especially Jungians, rarely, if ever, acknowledge that their  “mother goddess” or “great mother” goes back to Bachofen and Frazer (In Search…, p. 18).

Walker’s vision of Attis is clearly shaped by Frazer’s to an extreme degree, so in his case all of the expected tropes come up too (The Woman’s…, p. 77-79). Even the conflation with Osiris is present. Walker puts her own unique spin on it, though. She claims it’s reflected in references to Attis as Menotyrannos, a title she interprets as derived from  “Men or Mennu, Osiris as the resurrected, ithyphallic moon-bull” (The Woman’s…, p. 78; the ithyphallic Min was neither Osiris nor a lunar or bull god). In reality, Menotyrannos (“Men the tyrant”) - which is indeed attested as a title of Attis in at least three late dedications - reflects his occasional conflation with the Anatolian moon god Men (Attis Between…, p. 136). Tyrannos is Men’s single most common moniker (Religion in…, p. 45) - stay tuned for further exploration of its implications in a separate article; they’re not very relevant here.

Perhaps Walker’s lack of interest in Cybele explains why she for the most part doesn’t seem to suffer from own questionable legacy in Megaten. Her compendium entries are fairly accurate, brief as they are (comparison taken from her Megami Tensei wiki article):

About the only thing that’s firmly inaccurate is calling Attis her son - as you learned already, the nature of their relationship varied, but Attis either wasn’t physically related to her, or at most was detached from her by a few generations worth of unconventional procreation. I’m also not very fond of one of her lines in Dx2:

A bigger issue is Cybele’s entry in the Soul Hackers Complete Guide, though. It proclaims her “the Phrygian form of the mother goddess, who originated as Sumerian Inanna and was called Ishtar or Aruru in Assyria”. As a bonus it presents Artemis and Diana as her Greek and Roman counterparts, respectively (p. 58). This doesn’t directly line up with Walker, but it’s still dreadfully bad in its own way. I get the impression this book as a whole aims to create some sort of heavily processed goddess slurry. Recall that Anat’s entry, which I covered in the previous installment of this series, similarly pushes highly implausible equations, for instance. Since until relatively recently Cybele’s appearances in the series were limited to spinoffs - specifically Devil Summoner and Persona - there isn’t much to cover otherwise about her use in the series. Her absence in Strange Journey was quite weird given the themes of the game, so I’m glad she was at least added to Redux (which I don’t like overall, but hey).

The final matter to consider is Cybele’s design. It’s… unorthodox at best. It’s pretty clearly fanservice, but honestly out of context I like it. The expression is one of my favorites as far as Kaneko’s art goes - both first Devil Summoner titles provided a variety of quite memorable demon faces.

For what it’s worth, while virtually no part of Cybele’s conventional iconography is present, I think there are much more questionable fanservice designs in the series. Emphasizing the sexual aspect of Cybele’s relationship with Attis is a genuine undercurrent in ancient literature. For example, one of Catullus’ poems (#63) arguably portrays her as a domineering femme fatale who Attis is excessively attracted to. However, many classicists suspect Catullus was essentially using the goddess as a stand-in for his ex Lesbia (as in "woman from Lesbos", not "woman who is into women"), likely to be identified as his contemporary Clodia (In Search…, p. 305-307).

Kaneko’s design commentary (translated by Dijeh) doesn’t really explain much. He does specify that he gave her swords and opted to make her look intimidating because “her cult required sacrifices”. Given the bull head decorations on the handles I assume he’s referring to the taurobolium (could this also be where the horns came from…?), though the self-castration of her clergy is a sensible guess too. Or rather - would be, if it wasn’t for a detail I’ll get to soon.

Cybele as she appears in Devil Summoner (Megami Tensei wiki) The only other hint about Cybele’s design Kaneko provides is that he had Gundam Quebeley in mind while working on her. That’s just a pun - キュベレイ (Quebeley) is one sign away from キュベレ (Cybele). The color scheme more or less matches her original appearance from Devil Summoner, I suppose.

Attis as he appears in Megaten (Megami Tensei wiki) Attis surprisingly gets a longer comment. Kaneko refers to him as Cybele’s lover or “one-sided crush”, not as her son, which indicates at least some familiarity with the source material. What’s surprising is that he doesn’t reference the self-castration, though - rather, he seems to operate under the assumption that Attis sliced and diced his entire body into pieces. As far as I’m aware, no such version of the myth exists. His body is, with the exception of one relatively small part, left intact. I was worried that the bandages might be a result of embracing Frazer’s (and Walker’s) conflation between Attis and Osiris - but that doesn’t come up in their compendium entries or in the design commentaries. Perhaps whatever bizarre inaccurate summary Kaneko depended on referenced a detail from Arnobius’ version of the myth, where, as already mentioned earlier, the results of Attis’ self mutilation are buried wrapped in the “cloth of the dead” (Attis Between…, p. 84)? Unsurprisingly, the Soul Hackers guidebook adds some truly bizarre takes, claiming that Attis was crucified on a pine tree so that his blood could redeem the earth and then came back to life after three days (sic). This is probably a result of Walker’s influence (The Woman’s…, p. 78). His compendium entries are relatively tame, though, save for emphasizing his supposed rebirth. Not quite as decent as Cybele’s, but mostly serviceable. Given that Attis has been even less relevant than Cybele through the series’ history, questionable interpretations of his character thankfully didn't influence the plot of any game (for now). As far as minor positives go, his passive skill in SMT V: Vengeance, Pine Tree Rebirth, is a fun nod to his fate in Ovid’s Metamorphoses - perhaps not the reference I’d go for since it’s clearly a non-standard tradition, but a sensible choice given the sheer recognizability of this work. Design-wise, Attis doesn’t really resemble his classical depictions particularly closely, much like Cybele. However, I like how well their designs match each other - the horns, body markings, blades with bull-themed decorations and unusual skin coloration recur in both. I think they fit reasonably well with other Greco-Roman additions from the same era of Megaten, too - Persephone and Dionysus in particular. Overall they’re obviously not exactly the most accurate depictions of those two figures, and there were definitely some misreadings involved in the design process, but with so few modern takes on either which wouldn't be rooted in the matriarchal myth I’m not going to complain too much. The worst excesses of past Cybele scholarship were surprisingly avoided, and the series delivered some much, much worse Greek designs further down the line (and earlier, for that matter). 

Conclusions: Fake Goddess Reincarnation?

Over the course of this article, it hopefully became clear why I called Strange Journey a game about Cybele. Perhaps not about any version of Cybele as she was actually understood in antiquity - whether by Phrygians, Greeks or Romans -  but at the very least about a Cybele byform of sorts developed in the nineteenth century. A goddess reincarnation, if you will. I feel obliged to point out Strange Journey is not uniquely responsible for propagating the myth of ancient matriarchy and its goddess. If anything, it’s probably less insidious than most other examples. It remains up for debate how seriously the developers took Walker. For instance, the Amaterasu side quest is almost definitely a reference - she refers to her as the “mother of the world” (The Woman’s…, p. 683) and explains her name as “Mother Creation-Spirit (The Woman’s…, p. 739), presumably based on her conviction about the universal meaning of the syllable ma, because the disconnect from the actual etymology (“who shines in heaven”) is evident. However, in the end its central character opts to pack up and go home, instead of partaking in whatever maternal routine was awaiting her - and the player is rewarded for facilitating that. It’s also interesting that with the exception of Tiamat - who wasn’t actually worshiped - Mem Aleph’s cronies in the base game are not actual deities. Maya is simply an abstract concept. Ouroboros according to Megaten Maniacs is little more than a placeholder boss (p. 133). Perhaps in the end it’s all just kayfabe and the game is self-aware to a degree. Or maybe it isn’t - there’s no shortage of compendium entries taking Walker for granted. Still, this is an issue that goes beyond Megaten. Pop culture as a whole in the east and west alike overflows with the remnants of Victorian matriarchal manias. Listing every single instance would be physically impossible. 

It will suffice to point out that, for instance, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code - a work considerably more popular than any installment of Megaten, whether mainline or not - is filled with allusions to “the goddess” - always singular. The plot involves uncovering some sort of hidden universal nature-worshipping fertility cult, “matriarchal paganism” from a lost golden age of balance between “yin and yang” (sic). Both the protagonist and the victim of the murder which kicks off the plot are purveyors of “the goddess”, guaranteeing the reader gets a healthy dose of the same sort of indistinct semidivine slurry which kept popping up through this article (Gentlemen and…, p. 3-4). Attempts to utilize the matriarchal myth to political ends - often seemingly coupled with unawareness of its roots - remain quite common too. The infamous Christian extremist cartoonist Jack Chick regularly sought hidden cults of “satanic” universal goddess everywhere, but especially within Catholicism. On the other hand, former American vice-president Al Gore is (was?) apparently convinced that a good argument for environmental policies is presenting them as a spiritual return to the era of prehistoric harmony in which everyone worshiped “a single earth goddess” (Gentlemen and…, p. 6).