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→In the provinces: corrected the Latin: burial was of a singular person, so "gallus" is more appropriate Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
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Dionysius of Halicarnassus claimed that Roman citizens did not participate in the rituals of the cult of Magna Mater. Literary sources call the galli "half-men," leading scholars to conclude that Roman men looked down upon the galli. But Roman disapproval of the foreign cult may be more the invention of modern scholars than a social reality in Rome, as archaeologists have found votive statues of Attis on the Palatine hill, meaning Roman citizens participated on some level in the reverence of Magna Mater and her consort.<ref name=":0" />
The archigallus was a [[Roman citizenship|Roman citizen]] who was also employed by the [[State of Rome|Roman State]] and therefore walked a narrow line: preserving cult traditions while not violating Roman religious prohibitions. Some argue that the archigallus was never a eunuch, as all citizens of Rome were forbidden from ''eviratio'' ([[castration]]).<ref>''The cults of the Roman Empire'', The Great Mother and her Eunuchs, by Robert Turcan, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996 {{ISBN|0-631-20047-9}} p. 49</ref> (This prohibition suggests that the original galli were either Asian or slaves.) [[Claudius]], however, lifted the ban on castration; [[Domitian]] subsequently reaffirmed it.<ref>Maarten J. Vermaseren, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=DkrXZwEACAAJ Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult]{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}'', translated by A. M. H. Lemmers, London: Thames and Hudson, 1977, p.96: "Furthermore Cybele was to be served by only oriental priests; Roman citizens were not allowed to serve until the times of Claudius."</ref> Whether or not Roman citizens could participate in the cult of Magna Mater, or whether its members were exclusively foreign-born, is therefore the subject of scholarly debate.
=== In the provinces ===
The remains of a Roman gallus from the 4th century CE were found in 2002 in what is now [[Catterick, North Yorkshire|Catterick]], England, dressed in women's clothes, in jewelry of jet, shale, and bronze, with two stones in
A fourth-century cemetery was excavated at [[Hungate (York)|Hungate]] in York, where one of the burials has been identified as potentially that of a member of the Galli. This is based on the evidence that although the bones were identified as male, the person was buried with jet bracelets, a material that is strongly associated with women. These aspects are also similar to that of the
[[File:Relief of Archigallus.jpg|thumb|250px|Funerary relief of an Archigallus from [[Lavinium]], mid-2nd century AD, [[Capitoline Museums]], Rome]]
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The galli may also have occupied a "third gender" in Roman society. Jacob Latham has connected the foreign nature of Magna Mater and her priests' nonconforming gender presentation. They may have existed outside Roman constructions of masculinity and femininity altogether, which can explain the adverse reactions of Roman male citizens against the galli's transgression of gender norms.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Latham|first=Jacob|date=2012|title="Fabulous Clap-Trap": Roman Masculinity, the Cult of Magna Mater, and Literary Constructions of the galli at Rome from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/662205|journal=The Journal of Religion|volume=92|issue=1|pages=84–122|doi=10.1086/662205|jstor=10.1086/662205|s2cid=170360753|issn=0022-4189}}</ref>
Some scholars have linked the episode of the self-castration of [[Attis]] to the ritual castration of the galli.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Denova| first=Rebecca I.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1243160502|title=Greek and Roman religions|year=2018| publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-78785-765-0|oclc=1243160502}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bremmer|first=Jan N.|date=2004|title=Attis: A Greek God in Anatolian Pessinous and Catullan Rome|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4433594|journal=Mnemosyne|volume=57|issue=5|pages=534–573|doi=10.1163/1568525043057892|jstor=4433594|issn=0026-7074}}</ref> At [[Pessinus]], the centre of the Cybele cult, there were two high priests during the Hellenistic period, one with the title of "Attis" and the other with the name of "Battakes". Both were eunuchs.<ref>A. D. Nock, ''Eunuchs in Ancient Religion'', ''ARW'', XXIII (1925), 25–33 = ''Essays on Religion and the Ancient World'', I (Oxford, 1972), 7–15.</ref> The high priests had considerable political influence during this period, and letters exist from a high priest of Attis to the kings of Pergamon, Eumenes II and Attalus II, inscribed on stone. Later, during the Flavian period, there was a college of ten priests, not castrated, and now Roman citizens, but still using the title "Attis".<ref>Maarten J. Vermaseren, ''Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult'', translated by A. M. H. Lemmers, London: Thames and Hudson, 1977, p. 98.</ref>
==See also==
*[[Sacerdos Matris Deum Magnae Idaeae]]
*[[Elagabalus (deity)]]
*[[Gala (priests)]] of Inanna
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