Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/121

 Rh to the Mater Deorum; indeed, Strabo made no difference between the Mater Deorum and Cybele.

The cult of all these divinities is concentrated in the south of Asia Minor. The Mater Deorum was a goddess of Phrygian origin. Besides the Artemis of Perga, on the south coast of Asia Minor, several other like-named deities, reminding us in varying degrees of Ephesian Artemis, were worshipped in this district, where also many material remains of Cybele and Anaitis cults have been found.

The close connection of these goddesses will be still more evident if we consider the manner in which the festivals in their honour were celebrated. At the festival of Artemis of Ephesos "representations of the goddess were borne in triumphal procession, and hymns in her praise were sung. Some of the people who took part in the procession were dressed in fantastic costumes .... they indulged in ludicrous and indecent pantomime, much as is the case later in similar processions of the Middle Ages. This description recalls the processions in honour of the Mater Deorum. The Thracian festivals in honour of Dionysos and the festival of Roses {dies Rosarum, Rosaria, Rosalia) had the same bacchic character with orgiastic processions and dances. Flowers played a great part in all these festivals—wreaths and garlands, paths strewn with roses, representations of goddesses decked with flowers. Roses were essentially a Phrygian ornament; the famous Rosae centifoliae, reputed to be Thracian, were correlated with the myth of Midas, in other words, with Phrygia. The geographical situation of Phrygia and Lycia favoured