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The Gallus and the Lion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. S. F. Gow
A. S. F. Gow
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

A group of epigrams extending in the sixth book of the Anthology from 210 to 226 and seemingly derived from the Garland of Meleager includes four on the subject of a Gallus, or emasculated attendant of Cybele, who is preserved from the unwelcome attentions of a lion. They are ascribed as follows: 217 τοῦ αὐτοῦ (= Simonides), 218 Alcaeus of Mitylene, 219 Antipater, 220 Dioscorides. A fifth epigram at 237, by Antistius, comes from the later Garland of Philip of Thessalonica and is inspired by the earlier poems. The alleged authors of the first three need only a word. The Alcaeus of 218 is evidently the Messenian and not the Lesbian; in a group from Meleager Antipater must be the Sidonian, not the Thessalonican; and whether with Reitzenstein and Geffcken we trace the ascription of 217 to Simonides to deliberate imposture, or with Wilamowitz to a scribe's careless repetition of the heading of the four preceding epigrams (where τοῦ αὐτοῦ meant ∑ιμωνίδον), it is patently ridiculous, for the style is plainly Hellenistic and Γάλλοι do not appear in earlier Greek. Dioscorides seems to have flourished towards the end of the third century B.C., Alcaeus was writing about 200 B.C., and Antipater perhaps halfa century later. ‘Simonides’ is naturally not datable. Reitzenstein said that his epigram was obviously (jeder empfindet) based on Dioscorides, Geffcken that it was Dioscorides's model; and as the epigrams are connected only by their common subject, we are free to believe either or neither. In any case the whole group of these four epigrams cannot be widely separate in date. They belong to the period in which the Phrygian orgiastic cult of Cybele, the repens religio of Liv. xxix 10.4, was spreading abroad. It was in 204 B.C. that Attalus allowed the stone representing her to be removed from Pessinus to Rome, and thirteen years later that her temple on the Palatine was dedicated and the ludi Megalenses were established.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 80 , November 1960 , pp. 88 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1960

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References

1 I write the word Gallus with a capital G but without prejudice, and call his patroness Cybele unless Rhea or Mater Deorum or Magna Mater is prompted by the context. The testimonia for the cult are collected in Hepding, H.'s Attis (Gieszen, 1903).Google Scholar

2 Ep. u. Skol. 167.

3 RE iii A 196.

4 Sapph. u. Sim. 203. It is perhaps as likely that the epigram was transferred from some other context to join the three others on the same theme and brought with it the heading which in the original context had another meaning. I have illustrated the confusion which such transferences may cause in ‘The Gk Anth., Sources and Ascriptions’ (JHS Suppl. Paper no. 9) 35.

5 Wilamowitz, (Hell. Dicht. ii 292)Google Scholar thought Dioscorides's the earliest of the epigrams.

6 Polyb. xxi 6.7 (μὲν Γ. Toup, μεγάλοι codd.). Livy (xxxvii 9.9) says of this incident fanatici Galli cum sollemni habitu.

7 Polyb. xxi 37.5 (see p. 92 n. 30). Livy (xxxvii 18.9) says cum insignibus suis.

8 N.D. 6.

9 Scr. Hist. Aug. 17.7.

10 Ibid. 28.

11 Hdt. iv 76.

12 Stuart-Jones, Catalogue 254Google Scholar, pl. 100.3.

13 For the pomegranate see Arnob. v 6, for the pine Ibid. 7, Ov. Met. x 103, al.

14 Antiquité Expl. i pl. 4, from which my figure is an excerpt. Carcopino, 's suggestion (Mél. d'Arch. et d'Hist. xl 237)Google Scholar that the statue is a forgery seems highly improbable.

15 Amelung, Cat. of Vatican Sculpture ii 614Google Scholar, pl. 58.

16 Calza, Necropoli del Porto di Roma 205Google Scholar, to which Sir John Beazley kindly drew my attention. The differences in the ornaments of these men pre sumably indicate differences of sacerdotal rank, but we know next to nothing of the organisation. On Archigalli see Carcopino, loc. cit.

17 I note in passing that on the armlets the figures in the naïskoi have their heads towards the man's wrist, their feet towards his elbow, as though they were intended for his contemplation rather than aspectator's. Also that in the third century B.C. the ornaments worn by Cybele's attendants would seem sometimes at any rate to have been of gold; for in AP vii 709 Alexander Aetol. makes Alcman say that if he had remained in his native Lydia The priest from Pessinus who appeared before the Senate in 102 B.C. was wearing (Diod. xxxvi 6).

18 Θηλυχίτων says Antipater of his hero.

19 Eur. I.A. 1073.

20 Eur. Ion 224, fillets round the omphalos; and Troad. 257, worn by Cassandra, no doubt, as Beazley points out, on the neck (cf. Aesch. Ag. 1265).

21 Peristeph. x 1066; Schol. Luc. p. 60 (Rabe) says they were dedicated to Attis.

22 Arnob. v 14 might imply that they were buried, as also a mysterious gloss in Hesychius,

23 E.g. Od. v 432.

24 Eur. Ion 394. The word is there plural and shows that Nicander's θαλάμαι need not be more than one sanctuary.

25 Ael. Dion. fr. 199, Phot. and Ammon. s.v. In that sense the word is said to be oxytone. According to Ammonius this information comes from Tryphon; it is therefore of respectable antiquity.

26 In 173 (Rhianus) a female votary on retirement deposits her hair at the shrine; cf. 165. In view of the three epigrams mentioned above Wilamowitz ought not to have said (Hell. Dicht. ii 293) that castration sentenced a man to the service for life. In 234 the retiring Gallus seems to be a mere novice (νεήτομος).

27 13, with the imitations (11, 15 f., 179–87).

28 118, 152, 183, 305.

29 Hdt. i 7, 34, 94; vii 27, 74; Strab. v 219, 221. According to Strabo one of them was father of Tyrrhenus who led the Lydian settlers to Etruria. Hence perhaps the plainly fictitious Atys king of Alba (Liv. i 3.8), cf. Virg. Aen. v 568.

30 Polyb. xxi 37.5 (see p. 90). For Βατάκης, another priestly title in that passage, see Diod. xxxvi 6; Plut. Mar. 17.

31 Ditt. O.G.I.S. 315. The title occurs elsewhere in inscriptions both Greek and Latin.

32 See on this point Kroll, Catullus 130Google Scholar; Hepding, Attis 140Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, Hell. Dicht. ii 292.Google Scholar

33 In this poem, which no doubt reflects a Hellenistic original guessed by Wilamowitz to be by Callimachus (see Pfeiffer on Call. fr. 761), Attis lands in Phrygia from foreign parts, is seized with enthusiasm, and, unmanning himself, puts himself at the head of a band of devotees, who reach the house of Cybele and fall asleep exhausted. Attis wakes disillusioned, and making his way to the coast mourns for the life of a Greek youth which he has lost, until a lion, detached from her carriage for the purpose by Cybele, chivvies him back to his duties. In Dioscorides too die lion does not appear until enthusiasm has cooled Whether this is more than a coincidence I will not guess. It is hard to see why Dioscorides introduces this point, and, if his meaning is that the lion is reminding Atys of a task which he was about to shirk, it is far from clear.

34 Cf. Rohde, Psyche 7 ii 14, 26.Google Scholar

35 Fr. 8 ap. Paus. vii 17.9.

36 So also more briefly the scholium on Nic. Al. 8 without reference to Hermesianax or Lydia. Attes is there a shepherd with whom Rhea falls in love.

37 Har. resp. 28.

38 Theopomp. Com. fr. 27 and Dem. xviii 260 are obscure and tell us nothing.

39 The known connexions of Dioscorides are all with Egypt, where also the cult of the Μήτηρ Θεῶν was established; see Visser, Götter u. Kulte im Ptol. Alexandr. 43.Google Scholar

40 In late Latin Atys and gen. Atteos occur (see Thes.L.L. ii 1147). Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀττάλυδα spells the Lydian name Ἄττυς. Neither fact however seems to me important.

41 RE ii 2262.

42 Attis 101.