Lessico

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Attis

Buste d'Attis portant le bonnet phrygien, II siècle ap. J.-C.
Cabinet des médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale de France

  

In greco Áttis o Áttës, da taluni detto anche Átys. Mitico personaggio frigio entrato nella mitologia greca come un pastore bellissimo conteso da Cibele e Agdistis, un essere selvaggio androgino. Reso folle da Agdistis, si uccise evirandosi. Il suo cadavere venne reso incorruttibile da Zeus: i suoi capelli continueranno a crescere e un dito mignolo rimarrà vivo in eterno.

Il complesso mitico-rituale di Attis non è stato ancora sufficientemente spiegato. Attis appare come una personificazione divina dell'evirazione rituale praticata in un culto frigio della dea Cibele. Ma sfugge il senso di tale evirazione, anche se il tardo assetto mistico dato al complesso lascia pensare a una specie di rinuncia al mondo in vista di una salvezza oltremondana.

Enciclopedia De Agostini

Attis

Attis  (Áttis o Áttës in greco) secondo alcuni miti pare fosse amante di Cibele*, era il servitore eunuco che guidava il carro della dea trainato dai leoni. Il centro principale del suo culto era Pessinunte, nella Frigia, da cui approssimativamente nel VII secolo aC attraverso la Lidia passò nelle colonie greche dell'Asia Minore e successivamente nel continente, da cui fu esportato a Roma nel 204 aC.

Origini del mito

Secondo la tradizione frigia, conservata in Pausania Perieghesis VII,17,9 e in Adversus Nationes, V, 5-7 dell'apologista cristiano Arnobio di Sicca (morto ca. 327), il demone bisessuale Agdistis sarebbe nato dallo sperma di Zeus caduto sulla terra mentre il dio cercava di accoppiarsi con la Grande Madre sul monte Agdos. Gli dei dell'Olimpo, spaventati dalla forza e dalla ferocia dell'essere, lo evirarono. Dalle gocce del sangue fuoriuscito dalla ferita nacque un albero di mandorlo. La figlia del fiume Sangarios, Nana, colse un frutto dall'albero e rimase incinta.

Tempo dopo nacque Attis, così chiamato per essere stato allattato da una capra (in frigio attagos) dopo essere stato cacciato sulle montagne per ordine di Sangarios. Attis crebbe e fu mandato a Pessinunte per sposare la figlia del re. Durante la celebrazione del matrimonio, Agdistis, innamorato del giovane, fece impazzire Attis, che si recise i genitali sotto un pino. La madre degli dei, Cibele, ottenne che il corpo del giovane rimanesse incorrotto.

Culto nella Roma antica

In epoca imperiale il ruolo di Attis, la cui morte e resurrezione simboleggiava il ciclo vegetativo della primavera, si accentuò gradualmente, dando al culto una connotazione misterica e soteriologica. Ad Attis era dedicato un ciclo di festività che si tenevano tra il 15 e il 28 marzo, durante le quali si celebravano la morte e la rinascita del dio. Tra queste vi erano Sanguis e Hilaria. Tracce di questi culti, che presero il nome di Attideia, sono presenti anche in colonie greco-romane (per esempio quella di Egnazia in Puglia).

Attis

Attis wearing the Phrygian cap.
Terracotta thymiaterion from Tarsus, 1st or 2nd century BC, Louvre.

Attis, a life-death-rebirth deity, was the lover of Cybele, her eunuch attendant and driver of her lion-driven chariot; he was driven mad by her – or by Agdistis - and castrated himself. Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a daemon, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.

The story of his origins from Agdistis, as told to the traveller Pausanias, have some distinctly non-Greek elements: Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes. But the Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana who was a daughter of the river Sangarios picked the fruit and laid it in her bosom. It at once disappeared, but she was with child. In time her son was born and exposed on the hillside, but the infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parents of Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter. According to some versions the King of Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. Attis' father-in-law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the self-castrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay. (Pausanias, Greece VII,17,9)

Attis was reborn as the evergreen pine. At the temple of Cybele/Rhea in Pessinos, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer Strabo recounted. (Geography, 12.5.3)

Sculpture of Attis. Museum of Ephesus, Efes, Turkey.

As neighboring Lydia came to control Phrygia, the cult of Attis was given a Lydian context too. Attis is said to have introduced to Lydia the cult of the Mother Goddess Cybele, incurring the jealousy of Zeus, who sent a boar to destroy the Lydian crops. Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar. Pausanias adds, to corroborate this story, that the Gauls who inhabited Pessinos abstained from pork. This myth element may have been invented solely to explain the unusual dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele were known as Galli*, or "Gauls."

As the orgiastic cult of Cybele spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in the time of Claudius, the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her. The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus. but it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-establish cult of Cybele until the early Empire. The much later Imperial Roman calendar given in the Fasti Philocali was set thus: March 15 - Canna Intrat (procession of the reed-bearers and syrinx-blowers); March 22 - Arbor Intrat [equinox]- (entrance of the sacred pine tree; burial of Attis in effigy strapped to a stake); March 24 - Sanguis (day of mourning, sacrifice, and bloodletting); March 25 - Hilaria (day of Attis' resurrection); March 27 - Lavatio (day of ablution).

A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from Magna Graecia, is in the archaeological museum, Venice. A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the Mosel was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier. It shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the legs with toggles and the Phrygian cap.

Attis

Attis et ses attributs: bonnet phrygien et anaxyrides
(pantalon oriental ouvert rappelant son émasculation),
Musée rhénan de Trèves.

Attis est une divinité d'origine phrygienne, parèdre de la déesse Cybèle, dont il est l'amant. Il peut être comparé à Adonis, parèdre d'Aphrodite-Astarté, ou encore Tammuz, parèdre d'Ishtar. Son culte à mystères s'est répandu en Grèce, puis dans tout l'Empire romain.

Mythe

Dans la version phrygienne du mythe, Zeus donne naissance à l'hermaphrodite Agditis en se masturbant sur Cybèle — ou, selon la version, en répandant son sperme sur le sol pendant son sommeil. Effrayés par sa force, les dieux émasculent Agditis; du sang d'Agditis naît l'amandier. Nana, fille du dieu-fleuve Sangarios, cueille un fruit de l'arbre et le tient contre elle: elle tombe enceinte. Elle donne naissance à un garçon, qui est exposé. Élevé par des chèvres sauvages, Attis devient un jeune homme d'une beauté telle que Cybèle-Agditis s'en éprend. Cependant, il est destiné à la fille du roi de Pessinos — ou, selon la version, il perd sa virginité dans les bras d'une naïade, Sagaritis. Furieuse, Cybèle frappe de folie Attis, qui s'enfuit sur le mont Didyme, où il s'émascule. Du sang d'Attis naît le pin, toujours vert.

Dans la version lydienne, Attis est un eunuque de la Grande Mère, fils du roi phrygien Kalaos, qui importe en Lydie le culte de Cybèle. Zeus, jaloux, envoie un sanglier qui tue Attis. Hérodote livre une version historicisée du mythe dans son Enquête (I,34-35): Atys (sic) est le fils du roi Crésus, tué par accident par Adraste, hôte de son père, pendant une chasse au sanglier. (I,34,2: ἦσαν δὲ τῷ Κροίσῳ δύο παῖδες, τῶν οὕτερος μὲν διέφθαρτο, ἦν γὰρ δὴ κωφός, ὁ δὲ ἕτερος τῶν ἡλίκων μακρῷ τὰ πάντα πρῶτος· οὔνομα δέ οἱ ἦν Ἄτυς.)

Culte

Le culte d'Attis a existé en Asie mineure, en Grèce du nord (à partir du III siècle av. J.-C.), particulièrement en Macédoine, ainsi qu'à Rome. Il est principalement connu dans sa version romaine: le culte de Cybèle et de son parèdre est importé à Rome en 204 av. J.-C., sur la base d'une prophétie des Livres Sibyllins.

Sous le règne de Claude, les principales festivités sont célébrées au début du printemps en représentant la légende. Un cortège de cannophores (« porte-roseau ») y préludait. À l'équinoxe, un pin était abattu et transporté sur le Palatin au sanctuaire de Cybèle par la confrérie des dendrophores (« porte-arbre »): enveloppé comme un cadavre, il figurait Attis mort. Le lendemain, jour de tristesse et d'abstinence, les fidèles jeûnaient et se lamentaient. Les prêtres ou galles se flagellaient et se tailladaient, et les néophytes, s'émasculaient à leur tour rituellement avec une pierre tranchante. Après une nuit, où ils étaient censés s'unir à la déesse, comme Attis, la jubilation éclatait, se manifestait en mascarades et banquets.

Iconographie

Les monuments représentent Attis en berger phrygien, avec le bonnet, le bâton du pâtre, la syrinx et le tympanon, son costume collant laissant le ventre à découvert. Il porte un pantalon typiquement perse (anaxyrides), fendu tout du long sur le devant de chaque jambe, attaché seulement par intervalles, de manière à laisser son sexe découvert.

Un de ses emblèmes est le coq (galles), car Attis fut le premier des galles. On le voit aussi avec Cybèle, dans le même char traîné par des lions.

Atys

Atys, puer Cybeli adamatus, sacrisque suis praefectus eâ lege, ut perpetuo castitatem servaret.

Sed cum postea voti sui parum memor, Sangaritidem nympham compressisset, ab irata Dea in furorem actus, testes sibi exsecuit; cumque etiam sibi manus afferre conaretur, miseratione Cybeles in pinum arborem mutatus est. Ovid. Met. l. 10. v. 104.

---- Cybeleius Atys
Exuit hac hominem, truncôque induruit illô.

Vide Catullum, Carmine 64. cuius initum:

Super alta vectus Atys celeri rate maria.

Ubititulus, in scripto Scaligeri, De Attine furore percito. Et sane ita legitur apud Macrob. qui hanc fabulam ad Terram et Solem applicar Saturn. l. 1. c. 21. et in veteri quadam inscriptione Hispana. Graecis Ἀττῖν, Ἀττῖνος, & Ἄττυς Ἄττυος, ut Φόρκυν & Φόρκυς. Nero enim dixit,

---- Berecynthius Attin,

apud Pers. Sat. 1. v. 93. Dio de Nerone, Ἐκιθαρώδησιν Ἄττιν τινὰ ἢ Βάκχας, lege Ἀττῖνα. Nic. Lloydius. Male hinc Salmasio pro Attis. Atys enim nomen Lydum est, quô aliquot Lydiae Reges vocati sunt; Pater nempe Lydi, a quo Lydia denominata est: Item Pater Manetis, eiusdem Lydiae Regis: fil. Croesi etc. ut vidimus. Attis vero nomen Phrygii ephebi, quem dilexit Mater Deûm. Attidem namque, et Attinem et Attin in declinationibus tam Graeci, quam Latini, dixêre. Latinam Inscriptionem vidimus supra. Alii,

Qui colitis Cybelen et qui Phryga plangitis Attin.

Persius, loc. cit.

Claudere sic didicit versum, Berecynthius Attin.

Macrob. Solem vero, sub nomine Attinis ornant fistulâ et virgâ etc. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 21. quem locum vide supra.

Graeca Inscr.

Ἄττει δ’'ὑψίστῳ καὶ σὺνίστι τὸ πᾶν.

Dio, Ἐκιθαρώδησεν Ἀττῖνα, ἢ Βακχας: Citharâ cantavit Attinem et Bacchas. Ἄττης Nicandro, pro Ἀττίς: nam dixit in patrio casu Ἄττεω:

---- καὶ ὀργαστήριον Ἄττεω.

Hesych. ita Lacones eum appellare notavit: Ἄττιν, τὸν Ἄτλιν λέγουσιν οἱ Λάκωνες, etc. De nominis etymo Arnob. l. 5. Repertum nescio quis sumit Phorbas, lacte alit hirquinô: et quoniam Lydia scitulos sic vocat, vel quia hircos Phryges suis Attagos eloquutionibus nuncupant; inde Attis nomen ut sortiretur, effluxit. Quod Auctori suo relinquimus; interim Ἀδεγοὺς hircos Ionibus significare, ex Eustathio notat Salmasius, quem vide ad Solin. p. 50. et 51. ut et supra in voce Attis.

Johann Jacob Hofmann (1635-1706)
Lexicon Universale - 1698