Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

RELIGION AND EROTIC

of Hera, whose name expresses the pains of labour ; hence Homer (J/., xi, 270) already imagines several Ilithyiz. There were sanctuaries of her in many places in Greece, the best known being that of the kneeling Ilithyia in Tegea. It was believed that childbirth took place most easily in a kneeling posture.

The great mother of the gods, who bore Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, and thereby created the entire kingdom of the gods, is Rhea, who is generally given the epithet Cybele, pointing to the caves and cavernous sanctuaries of the mountain ranges of Phrygia, Where, as well as in the island of Crete, she was chiefly worshipped. Her cult, corresponding to the nature of that range of wooded hills, shows a wild loftiness ; panthers and lions are her companions, but in other respects she is akin to the Cyprian and Syrian Aphrodite, with whom she is often identified, especially in Lydia. Her priests and worshippers are fanatic enthusiasts who roam over forest and mountain with wild cries, with noisy music of horns and pipes, kettledrums and castanets, by the light of the blazing torches, and carry their orgiastic madness so far that they often wound themselves or one another—like the modern dervishes and fakirs—or even castrate themselves. This religious disorder, which finds its counterpart in the orgies of the flagellants of the Middle Ages, chiefly flourished in the district of the Phrygian city of Persinus on the river Sangarius. There, on the towering height of Dindymon, after which the goddess is often called Dindymene, was a sacred rock named Agdos, and a cave which was regarded as the oldest sanctuary of Rhea Cybele Agdistis. There also was shown the grave of her beloved Attis. Attis also, like Adonis and similar forms in Greek mythology, is a symbol of sweet beauty, but also of the painful shortness and frailty of life with its constant change of birth and death, spring and winter, joy and sorrow. Pausanias (W175, 105

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