THE EKLIPSE OF KYBELE

“... a huge cone of darkness sprang up from the earth and ran stretching into the heights,
bringing a shadow of darkness opposite to setting Eros, Zeus passed along the starry dome of
the sky to Semele’s bridal.”1

This description of a lunar eclipse in which the earth casts a dark cone of shadow on the moon
is linked to a cosmic wedding ceremony. Such a wedding is invoked in the account of Arnobius
that documents the cult of Kybele and the relationship between Agdistis and Attis.

Arnobius was a 4th century AD early Christian writer but drew on the now lost writings of
Timotheus, who was himself drawing on more ancient texts. If this source can be trusted then
this is the most extensive and the most evocative anciently sourced document that still exists of
the cult of Agdistis. The description of the cosmic wedding in the myth expresses the wild frenzy
that was a feature of the initiates of the religion.

“In Timotheus, who was no mean mythologist, and also in others equally well informed, the
birth of the Great Mother of the gods, and the origin of her rites, and thus detailed, being
derived (as he himself writes and suggests) from learned books of antiquities, and from (his
acquaintance with) the most secret mysteries…”2

The account of Timotheus-Arnobius is largely substantiated by Pausanias which lends it

credibility. Timotheus (c. 300 BC) is attested by other sources such as Tacitus. “... he consulted
an Athenian named Timotheus, a member of the Eumolpid clan, whom he had brought over
from Eleusis to act as priest of the religious rites…”3
The Timotheus-Arnobius interpretation of the myth envisages a primordial wasteland devoid of
humans. In this vision, reminiscent of the opening verses of Genesis before the creation of light,
the primal forces dominate. The summit of a great rock is inseminated by the god giving birth to
Agdistis, a primal being that has both male and female sexual organs. In this respect Agdistis has
the same androgynous nature as the moon, a rock that is suspended in space and was defined
as both male and female.

“Within the confines of Phrygia, he (Timotheus) says, there is a rock of unheard-of wildness in
every respect, the name of which is Agdus, so named by the natives of that district. Stones
taken from it, as Themis by her oracle had enjoined, Deucalion and Pyrrha threw upon the
earth, at that time emptied of men; from which the Great Mother, too, as she is called, was
fashioned along with the others, and animated by the deity. Her, given over to rest and sleep on
the very summit of the rock, Jupiter assailed with (the) lewdest desires. But when, after long
strife, he could not accomplish what he had proposed to himself, he, baffled, spent his lust on
the stone. This the rock received, and with many groanings Acdestis is born in the tenth month,
being named from his mother rock.”4

This primal creation myth in which Agdistis (Acdestis) is born from a rock that had been
inseminated by Zeus (Jupiter) describes a world empty of humans. Kybele was associated with
the mountainous region of Pessinus and the description of the birth of Agdistis is consistent
with the wild mountainous character of her myths. The primal quality is reflected in the
dangerous restless nature of Agdistis. “In him (Agdistis) there had been resistless might, and a
fierceness of disposition beyond control, a lust made furious, and (derived) from both sexes.”5

Fearing that they had created an uncontrolled monster the gods conspired to weaken his power.
Liber (a deity associated with wine) laces a spring that Agdistis favours with strong wine. While
Agdistis is in a wine induced comatose state Liber sets a snare that binds the genitals of Agdistis
so that when he wakes and gets up the snare will tighten and sever his genitals. In this way the
gods castrate Agdistis and curb his potency. “When the fumes of the wine passed off, Acdestis
starts up furiously, and his foot dragging the noose, by his own strength he robs himself of his
sex…”6

From the copious amount of blood shed by the castration springs a pomegranate tree. By
placing a pomegranate from this tree in her bosom, Nana (“daughter of the king or river
Sangarius”) becomes pregnant with Attis. In this castration context pomegranates symbolize the
testicles that have been cut off. The blood-red flesh of the fruit contains multiple seeds, a
symbolic representation of a human testicle. This symbolic device was used in the mysteries to
represent the fluid relationship between the fertility of plants and the sexuality of humans.
Growth and maturity of the pomegranate was fuelled by the sun, a cosmic theme that runs
throughout the myth suggesting that Attis symbolizes the sun.

The new-born baby is abandoned under orders of the king and rescued by Phorbas who brings
it up on goats milk in the wild. Kybele enables the survival of the child in the wilderness due to
his Arcadian beauty. “Him (Attis) the mother of the gods loved exceedingly because he was of
most surpassing beauty.” In a section of text that has an Arcadian dimension Agdistis (defined
by male pronouns despite being born with male and female sexual organs and now being
castrated) is described as having a loving relationship with Attis. “Afterwards, under the
influence of wine, he (Attis) admits that he is both loved by Acdestis, and honoured by him with
the gifts brought from the forest; whence it is unlawful for those polluted by wine to enter his
sanctuary, because it discovered his secret.”7

Midas, king of Pessinus, attempted to end the relationship between Agdistis and Attis by
arranging a marriage between Attis and his own daughter. At the wedding “Acdestis, bursting
with rage because of the boy’s being torn from himself, and brought to seek a wife, fills all the
guests with frenzied madness: the Phrygians shriek aloud, panic-stricken at the appearance of
the gods…”8
The description of the chaos that follows reflects the violent storms that accompany the cosmic
forces exerted on the earth by the sun and the moon. Agdistis is described as “goading them to
frenzy” with Attis being frantically “tossed about.”

“... Attis snatches the pipe borne by him who was goading them to frenzy; and he, too, now
filled with furious passion, raving frantically (and) tossed about, throws himself down at last,
and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, ‘Take these Acdestis, for which you have stirred
up so great and terribly perilous commotions.”9

Attis castrates himself with a “pipe” that he snatches from Agdistis. The pipe is another Arcadian
reference to the wildness that envelops the mysteries of Kybele. It refers to a Pan’s pipe which is
seen in depictions of Attis and thereby is a symbol of the religion. Macrobius links its symbolism
to the winds that are stirred up by the sun reinforcing the concept that Agdistis by blowing on
the pipe was creating havoc. The Pan pipe has a dual symbolism. It creates music that stirs the
passions of humans and by being associated with breath is consistent with storms. When blown
by a god the Pan pipe summons the storms of heaven.

“They outfit the sun, under the name of Attis, with a pipe and a rod: the pipe represents a
sequence of uneven breaths, because the winds, which have nothing even about them, take
their substance from the sun; the rod shows the power of the sun, which regulates all things.” 10
This version of the Attis and Agdistis myth replicates in part archaic Hurrian/Hittite myths
named the ‘Kingship of Heaven’ and the ‘Song of Ullikummi.’ Transmission of these myths
demonstrates that the origins of most archaic myths can be traced back through the ages
towards their oral genesis.

The ancient myth termed the ‘Kingship in Heaven’ describes the castration of Anu, the
archetypal Mesoptamaian deity. In this myth Kumarbi, a male god, swallows the genitals of Anu
and by this act is impregnated, in a male to male procreation, with five gods. These include the
storm god.

In the related myth termed the ‘Song of Ullikummi’ the storm god, the deity which was born
through the castration of Anu, assumes a central role. Kumarbi attempts to create a rival deity
out of rock that will have sufficient strength to vanquish the storm god. To achieve this Kumarbi
inseminates a great rock in an exact parallel with the myths of Agdistis and Attis as related by
Timotheus-Arnobius.

Kumarbi “plots against the Storm-god. He nurses the thought of raising up a rival to the Storm-
god… a great rock lies… His desire was aroused and he slept with the rock. His manhood flowed
into (the rock)... Kumarbi began to say to his soul: ‘What name (shall I give) him?... let him go
and (his) name be Ullikummi! Let him ascend to heaven for kingship! Let him vanquish
Kummiya, the beautiful city! Let him attack the Storm-god and tear (him) to pieces like a
mortal!”11

In both the Agdistis myth of Timotheus-Arnobius and the much more ancient Song of Ullikummi
the deity inseminates a rock from which a powerful deity emerges. This new being has an
association, either directly in the Agdistis myth or indirectly in that Ullikummi’s father castrated
Anu. Another similarity is that the new being created from rock has an immense threatening
strength that the other gods attempt to control. In the Ullikummi myth the rock keeps growing
until it reaches the gods in heaven.
“His (Kumarbi’s) desire was aroused and he slept with the rock. His manhood flowed into (the
rock)... The diorite (igneous or solidified molten rock) grows, the strong (waters) make him
grow. In one day he increases one cubit, in one month he increases one acre… Like a tower the
stone is raised up and reaches up to the temples and the dwelling of the gods in heaven.” 12

The translation of this myth identifies the rock as diorite which is formed when molten rock
solidifies. Likewise pumice stone is formed from solidified lava. The pockmarked surface of
these stones and rocks occurs when bubbling molten lava cools and solidifies.

Rocks and stones formed from solidified lava have the same appearance as the craters of the
moon when viewed from the earth with the naked eye. The ‘Song of Ullikummi’ states that this
diorite rock grew up from the earth to the heavens. A metaphorical sense of the moon as a
diorite rock is created that is consistent with the visual appearance of the moon. “Like a tower
the stone is raised up and reaches up to the temples and the dwelling of the gods in heaven.” 13

In all these myths the human desire was to control the power of the gods usually by advocating
that other gods act to control one of their overly powerful members. Castration was a device
that was used to curb the excessive power that a god wields. The conflicted sexual nature of
Agdistis, a deity that contained both male and female genitals, was potentially a catalyst that
drove his wild frenzied nature.

The moon had a disputed sexuality in antiquity, either being considered to consist of both sexes
or to be solely female. In Plato’s ‘Symposium’ the sun was seen as symbolizing the male
principle since its fiery heat was emblematic of generative energy. The earth was seen as female
and characterized by life-nourishing moisture, the opposite of the sun’s fire. The sun and earth
therefore represented a polarity. In contrast the moon contained both male and female
characteristics.
“The number and features of these three sexes were owing to the fact that the male was
originally the offspring of the sun, and the female of the earth; while that which partook of both
sexes was born of the moon, for the moon also partakes of both.”14

By reflecting the light of the sun the moon was made pregnant by the light leading through the
lunar phases to a full moon representing the culmination of the pregnancy. The moon also
exerted a pull on the earth, as was evident in tidal movements. Its role in reflecting the light of
the sun onto the earth meant that the moon had both a receptive nature in absorbing the light
and a penetrative nature in redirecting the light onto the earth. Plutarch states that the ancient
Egyptians considered the moon to be formed of male and female sexual characteristics.

“Thus they make the power of Osiris to be fixed in the moon, and say that Isis, since she is
generation, is associated with him. For this reason they also call her the mother of the world,
and they think that she has a nature both male and female, as she is receptive and made
pregnant by the sun, but she herself in turn emits and disseminates into the air generative
principles.”15

Worship of the moon was accompanied by cross-dressing in order to celebrate its dual sexuality.
Aphroditus was a male entity that was formed within the body of Aphrodite and represented
the moon. Just as the moon could have male and female characteristics so could a goddess that
was associated with the moon. According to Macrobius there was a statue of Venus (Aphrodite)
on Cyprus that was dressed as a woman but was bearded and had male genitalia.

“There is also a statue of Venus on Cyprus, that’s bearded, shaped and dressed like a woman,
with a sceptre and male genitals, and they conceive her as both male and female. Aristophanes
calls her Aphroditus… In his Atthis Philochrus, too, states that she is also the moon and that men
sacrifice to her in women’s dress, women in men’s, because she is held to be both male and
female.”16
The concept that there can be a male entity within the cult of a goddess potentially explains the
reference by Strabo to the goddess that was called Agdistis. He states that at the temple of
Kybele in Pessinus, the centre of the cult and the location of the wedding in the Timotheus-
Arnobius myth, the goddess was called Agdistis. It also suggests that, like Aphroditus, the
worship of Agdistis was connected to the moon in that he had both male and female genitalia.

“Pessinus is the greatest of the emporiums in that part of the world, containing a temple of the
Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods) which is an object of great veneration. They call her
Agdistis.”17
The location of the wedding in the account of Timotheus-Arnobius was in Pessinus, the cult
centre of Kybele. This location also has an association with two famous ancient solar eclipses.
An example of the chaotic panic that could ensue from an eclipse is the record of the Assyrian
Eclipse that occurred in 763 BC. The path of totality passed south of Pessinus, tracking across
northern Assyria. The Assyrian records reported a “revolt in the city of Assur. In the month (of)
Simanu an eclipse of the sun took place.” The record shows that a revolt took place directly as a
consequence of the eclipse, an event that has parallels to the state of chaos in the Timotheus
account of the wedding in Pessinus.

By the time Timotheus was writing of the myth of Agdistis and Attis, drawing on more ancient
accounts, the solar eclipse 585 BC had been widely documented. Now known as the ‘Eclipse of
Thales’ it is arguably the most famous eclipse in history in that it was the first to have been
predicted, though this is still disputed. What cannot be disputed is the fame of this eclipse.

Herodotus refers to the eclipse and its role in ending the war between the Lydians and the
Medes. The so-called ‘Battle of the Eclipse’ took place in the area now occupied by Turkey and
under the path of totality.

“Another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was
growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales,
the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually
took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were
alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on.”18

The zone of totality of the Thales eclipse on 28 May 585 BC appears to have passed directly over
the region around Pessinus towards the end of the day. It would therefore have been a signal of
cosmic turmoil and the ominous sense transmitted is relayed by Herodotus when he stated,
factually or not, that the battle was ended in fear of the gods.

The fame of this eclipse is evidenced by the number of ancient accounts that documented it.
Pliny refers to it as does Cicero, Diogenes Laertius as well as other ancient writers. “Among the
Greeks, Thales the Milesian first investigated the subject, in the fourth year of the forty-eighth
olympiad, predicting the eclipse of the sun which took place in the reign of Alyattes, in the
170th year of the city.”19

In the Timotheus-Arnobius account of the wedding of Attis there is a mention of an individual

called Gallus. Either this is a high priest of the Galli or the name, in a number of possible
wordplays, could be indicative of the ecliptic nature of the myth. As Agdistis appeared panic
ensued and the daughter of Gallus cut off her breasts. “... a daughter of adulterous Gallus cuts
off her breasts…” There is a significant reference in Pliny’s text about the Thales eclipse to a
consul named Gallus who was among the first to explain the phenomenon of eclipses to the
Romans. According to these accounts Gallus achieved fame by predicting a lunar eclipse when
he was a tribune in the army. This is dated to c. 168 BC, after Timotheus but before Arnobius.

“The first among the Romans, who explained to the people at large the cause of the two kinds
of eclipses, was Sulpicius Gallus, who was consul along with Marcellus, and when he was only a
military tribune he relieved the army from great anxiety the day before king Perseus was
conquered by Paulus; for he was brought by the general into a public assembly, in order to
predict the eclipse, of which he afterwards gave an account in a separate in a separate
treatise.”20

The account of Pliny is confirmed by Livius establishing that Gallus achieved widespread fame in
the Roman Empire. An ability to predict eclipses had already been apparently achieved with the
Thales solar eclipse that had been witnessed in Pessinus. There is a remarkable coincidence in
the name of a gallus, a eunuch priest of Kybele, and Gallus who had achieved fame through the
prediction of a lunar eclipse.

“When the camp had been thoroughly fortified, Caius Sulpicious Gallus, a military tribune of the
second legion, who had been praetor the year before, with the consul’s permission collected
the soldiers in assembly, and gave them notice, lest they should any of them consider the
matter as a prodigy, that, ‘on the following night, the moon would be eclipsed, from the second
hour to the fourth.’ He mentioned that, ‘as this happened in the course of nature, at stated
times, it could be known, and foretold’... When on the night preceding the day before the nones
of September, at the hour mentioned, the eclipse took place, the Roman soldiers thought the
wisdom of Gallus almost divine…”21

In contrast the opposing army witnessed the eclipse without the prediction or explanation and
saw it as an omen delivered by the gods and foretelling the ruin of their nation. The frenzied
chaos in their camp parallels the chaotic scenes described by Timotheus-Arnobius at the
wedding in Pessinus. The description reveals the fear and panic caused by a lunar eclipse, with
lunar eclipses witnessed over vastly greater areas than their solar equivalents.

“... but the Macedonians were shocked, as at a dismal prodigy, foreboding the fall of their
kingdom and the ruin of their nation; nor did their soothsayers explain it otherwise. There was
shouting and yelling in the camp of the Macedonians, until the moon emerged forth into its full
light.”22

The symbolism of the wedding in Pessinus is that it represents the conjunction of the sun, moon
and earth in solar or lunar eclipses. Both lunar and solar eclipses were explained as a form of
castration in which the power of heavenly bodies was controlled. The shadow of the earth
castrated the moon in a lunar eclipse as the moon itself castrated the sun during a solar eclipse.
These events mirrored primordial myths in which gods sought to control the power of a
supreme deity through the device of castration.

Hesiod gives an account of the castration of the supreme deity Ouranos by his son Chronos, or
Saturn, with a giant curved scythe. The heavenly castration was a device to explain the severing
of the earth from the sky with Ouranos representing the vault of the sky. The curved blade of
the scythe was visually represented in the sky in both lunar and solar eclipses as the dark disc
moved across the moon or sun.
“... and vast Earth rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in ambush, and put in his hands
a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot. And Heaven came, bringing on night and
longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his
ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged
teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members and cast them away to fall behind
him.”23

On the Day of Blood during the rites of Attis, the Galli castrated themselves in a frenzy of
ecstasy. Lucian gives a vivid account of the wild frenzied chaos that overcame the crowd that
can be compared to the scene at the wedding in Pessinus as the eclipse unfolded.

“During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls
on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators are afterwards found to have
committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this
action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks
up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for
this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his
hands what he has cut off.”24

These rites were in commemoration of the original act of castration by Attis, an act that forms a
central part of the myth related by Timotheus-Arnobius. As the eclipse passes over the wedding
the ensuing frenzy results in the king castrating himself and the daughter of Gallus cutting off
her breasts. Attis positions himself under a pine tree and castrates himself thus binding himself
to the giant conical shape that towers above him.

“... Attis snatches the pipe borne by him who was goading them to frenzy; and he, too, now
filled with furious passion, raving frantically (and) tossed about, throws himself down at last,
and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, ‘Take these Acdestis, for which you have stirred
up so great and terribly perilous commotions.”25

The conical form of the pine tree is symbolically associated with the castration of Attis, with the
cone towering above him as he commits the act. An association is established between the act
of castration and the form of a cone. Nonnus states that the characteristic feature of eclipses is
the cone of darkness cast by the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse, or by the moon on
the earth as the totality of a solar eclipse tracks across the earth. “... a pointed cone of darkness
creeping from the earth into the air opposite to the sun hid the whole moon.” 26

Therefore the symbolism of a wedding represents the conjunction of the sun, moon, and earth
in a lunar or solar eclipse. Both lunar and solar eclipses were explained as a form of castration of
the cosmic bodies. If Agdistis represents the moon it follows that the Great Mother represents
the earth, as was standard in creation myths. That Attis symbolizes the sun is confirmed by his
primary festival being held at the vernal equinox in the spring when the sun was strengthening
and returning to potency. Hence Attis is born from a pomegranate, in the Timotheus-Arnobius
myth, representing plants that flourish in the spring. Attis rises from the underworld
symbolizing plants that are resurrected by the sun at the vernal equinox in March.

“They outfit the sun, under the name of Attis, with a pipe and a rod… That these rites are chiefly
to be interpreted as concerned with the sun can be gathered also from the fact that when
(according to their custom) his descent to the underworld has been completed and they have
acted out a period of mourning, the time of rejoicing begins on the eighth day before the
Kalends of April (25 March), which they call the Hilaria, the first occasion when the sun makes
the day longer than the night.”27

Agdistis, symbolizing the moon, was created with both male and female sexual organs, just as
the moon was believed to have male and female characteristics. He does not conform to
rational modern norms and falls outside the categories imposed by contemporary culture. It is
the androgynous element of his character, consistent with a moon deity, that infuses the sense
of uncontrolled frenzy in the rites of Kybele. This was a liminal deity with a contradictory
sexuality that the ancients could perceive in the opposing nature of cosmic upheavals that
culminated in an eclipse.

The eclipse tears apart the fabric of the universe re-ordering the procession of the
constellations and the seasons. In this cosmic turmoil humans are rendered helpless observers
unable to control their own fate. Seneca refers to the cosmic chaos caused by the totality of a
solar eclipse.

“Why, oh Phoebus (the sun), dost thou avert thy face?... Not as yet has the third trumpet
sounded the signal of day verging onwards towards night… fate will overwhelm us all - the very
hinges of the universe being broken (the seasons being scattered). We have arrived at our last
stage of time… whether we have lost the sun without our own faults, or whether we have
driven away the sun by our own crimes.”28

1. Nonnus - Dionysiaca
2. Arnobius - Adversus Gentes 5.5-7
3. Tacitus - The Histories 4.83
4. Arnobius - Adversus Gentes 5.5-7
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Macrobius - Saturnalia 1.21.9
11. Song of Ullikummi
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Plato - Symposium 190
15. Plutarch - Isis and Osiris 43
16. Macrobius - Saturnalia 3.8.2
17. Strabo - Geography 12.5.3
18. Herodotus - Histories 1.73-74
19. Pliny - Natural History 2.9
20. Ibid.
21. Livius (Livy) - History of Rome 44.37.5-8
22. Ibid. 44.37.8-9
23. Hesiod - Theogony 173-182
24. Lucian of Samosata - De Dea Syria
25. Arnobius - Adversus Gentes 5.5-7
26. Nonnus - Dionysiaca 6.90
27. Macrobius - Saturnalia 1.21.9-10
28. Seneca - Thyestes 4