ATTIS or ATYS, a deity worshipped in Phrygia, and later throughout the Roman empire, in conjunction with the Great Mother of the Gods. Their worship included the celebration of mysteries annually on the return of the spring season. Attis was confused with Pan, Sabazios (q.v.) , Men and Adonis, and there were resemblances between the orgiastic features of his worship and that of Dionysus. His resemblance to Adonis has led to the theory that the names of the two are identical, and that Attis is only the Semitic companion of Syrian Aphrodite grafted on to the Phrygian Great Mother worship. It is likely, however, that Attis, like the Great Mother, was indigenous to Asia Minor, adopted by the invading Phrygians, and blended by them with a deity of their own.
Legends.—According to Pausanias (vii. 17), Attis was a beauti ful youth born of the daughter of the river Sangarius, who was descended from the hermaphroditic Agdistis, a monster sprung from the earth by the seed of Zeus. Having become enamoured of Attis, Agdistis struck him with frenzy as he was about to wed the king's daughter, with the result that he deprived himself of manhood and died. Agdistis in repentance prevailed upon Zeus to grant that the body of the youth should never decay or waste. In Arnobius (v. 5-8) Attis emasculates himself under a pine tree, at the foot of which violets sprang from his blood, like the flower called after him from that of Hyacinthus (q.v.) . The Great Mother and Agdistis carry the pine-tree to her cave, where they wildly lament the death of the youth. Zeus grants the petition as in the version of Pausanias, but permits the hair of Attis to grow, and his little finger (which has been interpreted as the phallus) to move. In Diodorus (iii. 58-59) the Mother is the carnal lover of Attis, and when her father the king discovers her fault and kills her lover, roams the earth in wild grief. In Ovid, (Fasti, iv. 223 et seq.) she is inspired with chaste love for him, which he pledges himself to reciprocate. On his proving unfaithful, the Great Mother slays the nymph with whom he has sinned, whereupon in madness he mutilates himself as a penalty. Another form of the legend (Paus. vii. 17) , showing the influence of the Aphrodite-Adonis myth, relates that Attis, the impotent son of the Phrygian Callus, went into Lydia to institute the wor ship of the Great Mother, and was there slain by a boar sent by Zeus.
Attis was originally a god of vegetation, or tree-spirit, as is indicated by his association with the pine-tree, into which he was said to have been afterwards changed. In his self-mutilation, death and resurrection he represents the fruits of the earth, which die in winter only to rise again in spring.
(G. S.)