Symbols of the Attis cult (2)

Text
Arnobius of Sicca, Adversus nationes 5.17:
Or if what we say is not so, speak out, tell us yourselves: those eunuchs and effeminates we see in your midst in the services for that divinity - what is their business there, what their concern, their charge? And why do they like mourners beat their arms and breasts and represent the misfortune of those who experience a woeful lot? What is the meaning of those garlands, those violets, those swathings and coverings of soft wool? Why, finally, is the pine itself, a little while before swaying in the thickets - an utterly inert piece of wood - next set up in the quarters of the Mother of the Gods like some present and most august divinity? Well, either this is the cause - the one we have found in your writings and treatises, and it is clear that you do not practice divine rites but that you are giving a representation of sad events; or, if there is another reason which the obscurity of the mystery has withheld from us, it, too, must be involved in the infamy of some disgrace. Indeed, who is there that would believe that there is anything noble in what those worthless Galli put their hands to, what effeminate debauchees perform.

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Arnobius of Sicca, Adversus nationes 5.17

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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