Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/46

 3O HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. white covering of snow, which the wind took up, tumbled about and cast from the heights, it being arrested by fretted rocks on whose surface the dust of summer still adheres. The moisture, helped by the sun, quickens even the bare stone, and covers it with soft green and a profusion of flowers which expand in the air their sweet perfume. This is not the place for attempting to unravel the confused mass of the mythic cycle of Phrygia, which we only know in the garbled account of the Greeks, whom it moved to laughter, or the still more distorted version of Clement of Alexandria and Arno- bius. 1 Yet all was not puerile, fanciful, and obscene in these myths as held by the fathers, for, despite multiplicity of names and whimsical variants applied to the same personage, we can go back to the time when the religion of these inland tribes was centred in a divine couple a solar or god of heaven whom they worshipped as Papas, 2 father, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus, and a goddess, Ma, Amma, mother (Rhea, with the Romans), the personi- fication of the earth. 3 Great reverence was paid to the female deity, in her character of goddess-mother, and the first place was assigned to her in all public festivities, contrary to the custom which prevails with people of different race. This was no other than Cybele, whose altar, accompanied by an inscription now 1 In our account of the Phrygian religion we have followed M. A. MAURY, Hist, des religions de la Grhe antique t torn. iii. pp. 79-100 ; as well as DUNCKER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. pp. 338-390 ; ED. MAYER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. p. 253 ; and FRANCOIS LENORMANT, Sabazius (Revue Arch'e., N.S., torn, xxviii. pp. 300-389 ; torn. xxix. pp. 43-5 1 )- 2 Arrian tells us that the Bithynians, who are nearly related to the Phrygians, call Zeus Papas : dviovrcs cts TO. oxpa T>V opwv fttOvvol exaAovv IlaTrav TOV Alia (Bithyn., EUSTACHIUS, p. 565, 4). See also Diodorus Siculus, III. Iviii. 4, who states that Atys was addressed as Papas in after times by the Phrygians. Two names, supposed to have belonged to ancient towns whose site is unknown, are compounded with the form Manes; Manegordion, Manesion. Inscriptions and statues in honour of Men are plentiful during the Macedonian and Roman period throughout the peninsula. With regard to this god, his cult, and many appellations, consult GUIGNIAUT, Religions de Fantiquite, torn. ii. p. 962, and more especially WADDINGTON, Voyage Arche. Le Bas, v. Nos. 667, 668. 8 Etimologium magnum, s.v. Amma; Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. Mastaura, name of a Lydian town. 'ExaXeiTO Se KCU rj 'Pea Ma /cai raupos avrfj fOvero Trapa AvSois. Ma was likewise understood in the sense of mother by the Greeks. MS ya, Ma ya (p.yrr)p yr?) is found in AESCHYLUS, SuppL^ 890-899. M^rtyp opeia, fJUJTrjp t'Sata (Strabo), Phrygia mater (Virgil), were exact transliterations from the various names borne by Cybele in her Phrygian home.