Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/165

 The Sanctuary. Iasili-Kaia. 147 plastic art of Asia ; the Greeks however, with unerring taste, discarded an arrangement that savoured of barbarism, and the griffins, vultures, eagles, and wild beasts generally that served as supports to Asianic deities, were put to draw the chariots of Aphrodite, Dionysius, Cybele, etc. Like all the foreign elements introduced into Hellas, the costume, attitude, and physiognomy of Ma, or Cybele, were modified to suit her new surroundings. But, for all that, she retained enough of her former features to render her recognizable wherever she wandered. These are very apparent in the first figure of the female procession — conceived here in her oldest and primitive simplicity ; but in whom we are fain to see the great mother Ma, that which for the Phrygians, and subsequently for all the Greeks, at home and abroad, personified the earth and its everlasting fecundity. According to this hypothesis, the god heading the male proces- sion is Atys, of whom Phrygian myths told that he was the son and then the husband of Cybele, whose priest he became after his voluntary mutilation.^ It Is certainly a curious fact, that in the main chamber he should be represented bearded and of virile aspect, whilst In the passage, where he Is repeated twice, his face is smooth and effeminate. In the same category may be classed the unbearded priests In long garments of the left row (letters D and K In plan). They are the forerunners of those Grsecl-Galli, or eunuch-priests of the great Phrygian goddess, whose mysteries they celebrated to the last day of paganism. At first sight, the presence of the second figure In the female row Is somewhat bewildering. Although beardless and differently arrayed, this personage has the air of being a repetition of the corresponding one In the opposite group. The anomaly is more apparent than real ; for If we come to look at it mor% narrowly, the Idea that the dual principle, male and female, in Its concrete expression should have been juxtaposed, will approve Itself to our judgment. Such reduplication was calculated more vividly to impress upon the mind of the worshippers the eternal idea of the Intimate and Inseparable unity of the divine couple; wherein the abstract concept of life and supreme force, one and manifold at the same time were incorporated.^ Mordtmann's paper, entitled, "Gordium, Pessinus, and Sivri-Hissar" {Sitzungsberichte der Akademie, etc., July 7, i860, p. 184).
 * The official title of the high priest of Cybele at Pesshius was Atys. See
 * De Vogue, in his exhaustive survey of Syrian cultus, states that the Eastern