Agdistis
Agdistis ( Greek Ἄγδιστις ) is a native to the Phrygian myth of Attis derived demonic hybrid creatures .
According to Pausanias , Zeus dropped his seed in his sleep on the earth, from which the hermaphroditic agdistis arose. But the gods, out of fear, cut off the male sexual organ of Agdistes and buried it. From it an almond tree grew from its fruits Nana, a daughter of the river god Sangariostook. She put an almond in her bosom, where it immediately disappeared. Soon after, she realized she was pregnant. After the birth, the boy was abandoned, but did not perish because a buck took care of him. The boy, Attis, was so beautiful that Agdistis fell in love with him. When Attis was about to marry the daughter of the king of Pessinus, the jealous Agdistis appeared at the wedding and made Attis and the bride's father go insane so that they emasculated themselves. Agdistis later regretted the act and obtained from Zeus that the corpse of Attis should never rot. Pausanias also mentions a mountain Agdistis near Pessinus, under which Attis is said to be buried.
Arnobius tells a largely similar story, referring to a Timotheus: In a mountain called Agdus near Pessinus , the Cybele , which Zeus tried in vain to attend, was said to have been made from a stone . So it was that Zeus' seed flowed on a rock, from which arose Agdistis, a terrible hybrid creature that was eventually overcome by Dionysus . He turned the water of a spring, from which Agdistis used to drink after the hunt, into wine, so that Agdistis fell asleep intoxicated from it. Dionysus tied the manhood of the Agdistis to a tree. When he / she sprang up from sleep, he / she emasculated himself. The blood of the torn limb became a pomegranate tree , the fruit of which, as above, Nana (mythology) , a daughter of the Sangarius, was pregnant. The abandoned boy was found and raised with honey and “buck milk” ( lac hirquinum ), which is why the boy was called Attis, since the Phrygians called the buck Attagus .
When Attis grew up, Agdistis and Cybele fought over the property of the beautiful young man, but he was supposed to marry Ia , the daughter of King Midas of Pessinus. With Agdistis' appearance, Attis went mad, emasculated and died under a spruce tree . From his limb buried by Cybele grew violets, with which the spruce was wreathed. Ia, the bride of Attis, also killed herself. From their blood grew violets, which were also buried by Cybele, and from which an almond tree grew. At Agdistis' request, Zeus granted that Attis's body would not deteriorate, that his hair would always grow and that his little finger would always move.
literature
- Gerhard J. Baudy. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 244, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996-2015, ISBN 3-476-01470-3 , Sp. 245-Agdistis.
- Georg Knaack : Agdistis 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 767 f.
- Roscher: Agdistis . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 100 f. ( Digitized version ).