PESSINUS (llecratvoin, IIecrwoDs), an ancient city of Galatia in Asia Minor, situated on the lowest southern slope of Mt. Dindymus. The ruins, discovered by Texier, lie round the village of Bala-Hissar, 8 or 9 miles S.E. of Sivri-Hissar. Originally a Phrygian city, it became the capital of the Gallic tribe Tolis tobogii and the chief commercial city of the district. It contained the most famous sanctuary of the mother of the gods (Cybele), who here went by the name of Agdistis, and was associated with the god Attis, as elsewhere with Sabazius, etc. Her priests were also princes, who bore rule not only in the city (the coinage of which, beginning about zoo B.C., was for long issued by them) hut also in the country round, deriving a large revenue from the temple estates; but in the time of Strabo (A.D. 19-20) their privileges were much diminished. Some time before the year
T64 B.C. Pessinus fell into the power of the Gauls, and the mem bership of the priestly college was then equally divided between the Gauls and the old priestly families. Like Ancyra and Tavium, Pessinus was Romanized first and Hellenized afterwards. Only about A.D. 165 did Hellenic ways and modes of thought begin to he assumed ; before that we find a deep substratum of Celtic feel ing and ways, on which Roman elements had been superimposed without filtering through a Hellenic medium. Christianity was introduced late ; it cannot be traced before the 4th century. When Galatia was divided into two provinces (A.D. 386-395) Pessinus was made the capital of Galatia Secunda or Salutaris, and it became a metropolitan bishopric. After the i6th century it dis appears from history.