The Mother Goddess Kybele and her Gender Expansive Priests

The continuning saga of Kybele, now with her self-castrating gender expansive priests, the Galli. Were they transgender? Who were they, really, and who was she, their goddess? We track their journey from Phrygia all the way to the end of pagan Rome.

In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele by Dr. Lynn E. Roller, 1999.

Kybele - Mother of the Gods: The Goddess Project Podcast by Dr. Carla Ionescu  (additional information obtained from a paid course from Dr Ionescu's website, The Artemis Centre)

The Goddess Cybele: Dr. James Rietveld Salon Lecture Series

Article Concerning Acoustics in a Kybele Temple

The Works of Pausanias

The Works of the Emperor Julian: Hymn to the Mother of the Gods

An Archaic Ivory Figurine from a Tumulus Near Elmali: Cultural Hybridization and a New Anatolian Style by Tuna Şare

Episode image found at https://arkeonews.net/getting-to-know-matar-kubilea/

Thanks to the contributors at Freesound for the use of sound clips:

Cymbal Swell 106 by FiatLuxx

Cymbal Swell 015 by FiatLuxx

Willow Flute by Hedmarking

Middle East Two by Crapsghetti

Olympos, Gregorian and Pluto Wind Chimes by Philip Goddard

irish Whistle by Nigelnix

Kubaba, Matar, Matar kubileya, Agdistis, Meter, Meter Kybele, Kybele, Cybele, Magna Matar, Magna Mater deorum Idaea

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Vulture, welcome to For the Rest of Us podcast. Ismisha, Julian, your host. Sing to me, clear-toned muse, and daughter of the great Zeus, of the mother of all gods and of all human beings. She takes pleasure in the resounding of castanets and tympana and the roar of flutes, the cry of wolves and bright eyed lions, the echoing mountains and the wooded glens. And hail to you too, and all the goddesses who join in song the fourteenth Homeric hymn to the mother of the gods. Imagine this it's night. And though the light of the torches that the Coribantes carry illuminates your path forward, beyond that is inky, thick darkness. There's a woman before you carrying a basket, and inside of that are the holy implements. They remain covered so that no one may see them who has not been initiated. While moving with the group, colorfully attired in brilliant robes, you feel the need to dance. They are already dancing, swaying and twirling in time to the pulsing tympanum or drum as the cymbals clash. The stomps of their feet add to the tumult, stirring a sympathetic tugging in your chest. The beats of the drum seem to be in time with your heart, which is racing. The emotion seizes you suddenly, and you find tears streaming from your eyes as your body moves, spinning, your arms flung out to steady yourself. You had a dream of her once, the mother of the mountain, who came to you as you slept and told you to come here, and you want nothing more than to see her again, to connect with her. So you walk, dance, this path with Hermes, who conducts you to her. The cave is ahead, and so is she. Meet her Kibeli, the mother of all gods and all beings, who came from the mountain, who is the mountain, and into whose sacred space you have entered. Her image sits in a niche ahead inside the cave, where you hear the rushing of water from somewhere. The image, a mature woman seated on her throne, her drum in her hand and her lions around her radiates power. She's in control of everything, and she will protect you just as she protects this valley from her mountain cave. From the mists of prehistory, when she protected the grain in Chatelhuyuk, through to the mountains and valleys of the Phrygians, on to the Greeks, whose mystery cults initiated adherence with music and emotion, and finally to the eternal city of Rome. She, mother, martyr, has kept a watchful eye on her people. In the midst of what she became, she always remained a protector. It is her enduring gift. Accompanying her in each and every iteration were her gender expansive galli, her priests who made the life altering decision to self castrate in her service, or was it in their own service? No matter the disdain from some literary Greeks and patriarchal Romans, the galley remained in that service. Many, today and yesterday, have sought to explain them or to explain them away. Were they transgender? Was their castration an extreme vow of chastity or fealty? Who were they? And who was she? She, whose influence stretched from the lonely, desolate mountain shrines in western Anatolia, to the Agora and Athens, and propulsed with Rome's success, to the Palatine and onward, beyond into mainland Europe, and even reaching Britain's distant shores. She had many names and many epithets to accompany them Mater, Meter, Kibele, Cubaba, Agistus, Magna Mater. She was called mother, but rarely shown with children. More often, she was shown with felines, leopards or lions, and her dominating them. They, along with her status as a protector, were one of the few symbols to remain with her to the Christian era. If she was a mother, she was a great and terrible one, whose mercy and whose love were intertwined with power and authority. And for many, she was a refuge. She was a goddess of the people, all of the people, citizen, non citizen, men, women, and those falling somewhere between or moving fluidly across. Let's continue to meet her. I've already spoken about her presence in Neolithic Anatolia in 7000 BCE, the earliest era in which we have, so far, found her likeness. Onward we journey then to the Neohittites, who came after the Bronze Age collapse that ended the Hittites. There, they worshipped a goddess named Kubaba. Kubaba, unlike Mater in Phrygia, located in what is now Western Turkey, was one goddess among a pantheon of deities. She was the patron of the city Karchamish in northern Syria, and rose in prominence as her city rose, her influence then spreading to other Neohittite and non-Noohittite areas, such as Castabala in southern Turkey and Sardis of the Lydians in the west. She is both like and unlike the Phrygian martyr who would follow her. Both are clad in a long gown which is belted at the waist, topped off with an elaborate headdress, from which a veil descends down their backs and sides. Matar is always standing, but Kubaba can be standing or sitting. Long associated with birds of prey and predators in general, the Neolithic female figure finds herself in both of these expressions of the goddess. Matar is often shown holding or restraining such a bird. Well Kubaba is not. The symbol for bird is in the hieroglyphs that make up her very name. Kubaba may not be associated with birds of prey in her imagery, but she is associated with lions through her consort, who is often shown with them. Matur herself never has a consort at this time. Kubaba's consort is a weather god. The Phrygian Martyr's focus is not femininity nor fertility, where Kubaba's seems to be, as one of the objects she holds is a mirror, and the other a pomegranate. Matar is more concerned with death and is associated with funeral rites. Although perhaps if the Greek story of Persephone has its roots in these ancient times, the pomegranate Kubaba holds could be related to death and renewal as well. But I suppose Kubaba doesn't sound much like Moter, does it? It does sound like Kibeli. The problem being Mater wasn't called Kibeli. In Phrygia, her name was Agistus, and she was most often called Moter, which means mother. I rather think this name Kubaba could still be associated with her, and most scholars agree, because one of her epithets was Kubelea or Kubilea, referring to a mountain, and that does sound very much like Kubaba. There aren't many inscriptions to draw from in Phrygian findings. At the publication of Rawler's extensive book In Search of God the Mother in nineteen ninety nine, there were two instances of that epithet found. Don't take that to mean she wasn't important. She was the only deity attested in the inscriptions, and was the central goddess of the Phrygians. There were simply no longer larger texts found, only a handful of these inscriptions, describing dedications made to the goddess. The only figures found with her were smaller than she, indicating they were her attendants, not her equals. There were also figurines of her castrated priest priestesses, the Gali. These figurines were made of expensive materials, silver and ivory, indicating the high regard with which those who served in that role were held. They, like her, are draped in long robes belted at the waist, a tall headdress crowning them. They, like her, will make their way into the Greek world. She was known to the Greeks long before Alexander the Great's conquests of Anatolia, spreading to the mainland through the typical ways, contact shared through trade, military, and everyday interactions between peoples. Her inclusion changed their pantheon, but they also changed her, even in her homeland. Her name changed from the epithet Kubalea to Kubale, and sometimes Mantor Kibele. Her image evolved to fit Greek standards of divinity. She is shown seated, a pose which projected power and awe to the Greeks, fitting of her great ability. It is on a throne she sits, still in her headdress and long veil. In her left hand is a symbol of her worship, a tympanum, a small, handheld drum, used in the music of her mystery cult, a new facet of her worship. This new symbol, the drum, would become one of her most persistent attributes, following her all the way to Rome. Where her music had been sweet in Phrygia, it became a loud, pulsing conduit to personal communication with the divine in Greek worship, meant to induce a trance like state. This music would have been part of a ritual within her mystery cult, an ecstatic experience, much like other Greek mystery cults to Dionysus. Although she did have a shrine in the Agora of Athens, her worship at this time was very much a personal matter, not a function of the state. As she had been in Phrygia, she was a goddess of the people, who approached her in her shrines, or in her mysteries, or in their dreams, and petitioned for her assistance or advice. Although she was not a major goddess, she was a popular one. Popular, but not without issue. As a foreigner, she was considered an outsider. Not only that, but the Gali were not always looked upon favorably, certainly not within much of the literature of the time. They were portrayed as eccentric, effeminate, and outside of the bounds of proper, normal Greek behavior. This tension would follow the goddess and her priests as surely as the tympanum, creating a schism between the reality of her power and widespread popularity, and the opinions of the literary and some powerful men. How could the holy people of a goddess considered the mother of all the Greek gods be treated so? Indeed, over time Kibele was syncretized with a number of goddesses in the Greek world, the most persistent and powerful of which was Rhea, mother of Zeus. The severe protector became the mother of all beings, divine and human, where her motherhood before had little to do with actual birth or creation. Her Greek identity influenced her image in her homelands, though not changing it entirely, and it was from here, possibly in the city of Ilion, the site of Homer's Troy, but said by many sources to have been Pessinus, that she was taken into the Roman world in a most direct manner. In two hundred five BCE, frequent and unexplained stone showers rained down upon Roman territory, battering the land alongside Hannibal, Carthaginian general and invader. Powers of the time consulted the sibling books for solutions to Rome's very imminent problems. Thus were they instructed, per their interpretation of the texts, find Martyr and bring her to Rome. The search was on. In Pessinus they found a small, dark stone which had fallen from the sky, now living in the shrine. This, they believed, was herself, Martyr. They brought her aboard their ship and headed back to Rome via its port city, Ostia, to be received by the best man and best woman of Rome. The best woman is sometimes the matrons of Rome, and sometimes Claudia Quinta, whose presence developed into legend over time, certainly to the benefit of the political careers of her gens, the Claudia, including the Julio Claudian dynasty that produced emperors Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. This is that legend. The ship carrying the sacred mother became stuck in the Tiber and, no matter what was done, could not be dislodged. So close to Rome, and the mother lingered on the ship. Now, Claudia Quinta was rumored to have been involved in some improper behavior, and had, in her efforts to free herself of these insinuations, appealed to Matar for help. She fixed her belt to the tow rope of the ship and pulled, and miraculously, it moved. She towed the ship herself all the way to Rome, thus revealing her to be the chaste hand that the prophetic books had foretold. Another version of the story involves many hands, not just one. In this it was said that all matrons of Rome came to receive Mater, passing her stone from hand to hand from Ostia to her new home, never letting it touch the ground. Either way, it seems to have worked. Hannibal's campaign ended in two hundred three BC. She had a place of honor and importance in Rome thereafter, with her temple in its heart on the Palatine. She was on some of the coins, and several Roman politicians and noble families aligned themselves with her as she became a powerful goddess of the state. This high esteem is at odds with the poor opinion many educated, elite Roman men held of her gauli priests and their expression of her. To the Roman mind, everything good about Mater was Roman, and everything bad was due to foreigners. Although she herself had come from Anatolia, Roman lore linked her with Aeneas, a hero of the Trojan War and ancestor of the Roman state. In this way, her entrance in Rome was seen as a homecoming, not an invasion. The same couldn't be said for her galley, whose colorful attire, noisy, ecstatic rites, and castration set them apart. The galley, her devoted priests, a presence in her worship since perhaps the earliest times, and attested since her Phrygian mode. They were not her only priests. Cis women and cis men served her too. Castration was not a requirement of her service at any point in her worship. However, castration was a facet of it, a known and ancient concept in her area of origin. Inanna, Mesopotamian goddess of war, sex, and love, who was said to have been able to change men to women and women to men, had in her service castrated priests who carried ritual knives and were depicted as having relations with men, as women. Evidence from Phrygia comes from two finds in the Bayandir Tomos in southwest Turkey. One ivory figure, Antalya B, is of questionable gender. The figure, in a long robe, belted at the waist, wearing a headdress and grasping a long necklace, has no indication of gender, appearing beardless and also breastless. The figure, and particularly the face, is sadly damaged. The second figure, the silver Antalya A, is undamaged. Like the ivory, this statuette wears a long gown belted at the waist and a high tiered headdress, a costume that's similar to Matar's own. Two is this statue standing and beardless. Antalia A has long hair which curls around the face and is shaved in the back, the hands clasped in prayer. This figurette is a priest, and it depicts, specifically, a gala. The material that made these figures is costly and, as Roller says, depict a mature figure of dignity, implying that, for the Phrygians, the priesthood carried considerable respect. That respect did not continue in Greek literature, which often described them in exaggerated ways, reflecting the author's own agendas and biases. It is from these texts that we get the following description. They were effeminate in appearance, with long, loose hair, wearing women's clothing. They were sometimes perfumed, and said to have adopted feminine personal characteristics. Their behavior in rituals was described unfavorably, saying they shrieked, waved their hair wildly, and banged on various noisy instruments. Conversely, an interesting tale of power emerged about them, namely of power over lions, an aspect of matur with which we are well familiar. Here, Agala encountered an attacking lion in some distant deserted location. In terror, the Gala fled to a cave for refuge, begging their tympanum to scare the feline away. It worked, and the Gala then made a dedication to the goddess as thanks for the rescue. In spite of the Gali's detractors, the cult of Matur was very popular, and its priesthood still influential and prestigious. Within her mystery cults people found community and meaning, and without her mystery cults people encountered her in dream and petitioned her for help. She was an important part of the personal lives of her followers, including the Gali. It's in Greek culture that the story of Attis emerges, perhaps in order to fit the Gali into Greek understanding. We will be going into that in more detail in the next part, but his basic story is that of a mortal entangled with the desires of Mater or her alternate ego, Egdistus, who, mainly through his own doing, castrates himself and dies in the process. It's not a positive story. It's one of grief, regret, and suffering. This narrative is that of the Greek imagination, not of the galley themselves, nor the Phrygians. In a lecture concerning Matur, Dr. Carla Ionescu stresses the importance of the decision to self castrate to those who did it. Remember, it was not a requirement for worship or For priesthood. The decision to self castrate was not the result of a frenzied ritual, but a deliberate choice made after much consideration. Priests were ready for this change, which was a celebration, and perhaps embodiment of the goddess and a demonstration of their commitment. Dr. Yonescu says the Gali would take on the sacred feminine and become effeminate in their clothing, hair, and behavior, an age old tradition. Dr. Lynn Roller says the castration could have been the ultimate vow of chastity. However, I wonder at the accuracy of this simply because of the written works citing sexual activity of the galley with both men and women. In Rome, a particular accusation was that they would tempt women who were quite fond of them. In Rome, the attitudes toward the galley were overwhelmingly negative, with a few exceptions. They are interestingly enough involved in divination in one instance. On the other side of a similar force, they persuade the Roman army outside of Cestos to leave the city in peace, which they do. A third story stresses their power and the power of their goddess, even as it seeks to denigrate them. In this, a gala described as colorful approaches the Senate to speak and is protested by one plebeian tribune. That tribune dies shortly after, suddenly of fever. It was seen as an omen from Mater and bolstered public conviction about her power. But again, overall attitudes about the galley in Rome in any era were contemptuous, and they were considered damningly unroman. The Romans used feminine pronouns to describe the galley. Their voices were said to be high pitched, their hair long and wild, and their costume colorful, garish to Roman sensibilities. They curled their hair with a hot iron then slicked it with myrrh, a scented resin. It wasn't the castration per se that troubled them, as some slaves were castrated in that time and place, but rather the power of the priests who were castrated that did. The Gali, who held the power of the Idean great mother, savior and protector of Rome, were seen as feminine in the center of a highly hierarchical and patriarchal society. That wasn't how the world worked, according to the Romans. Gali had little recourse in legal matters. They could not be Roman citizens until the reign of Claudius. Enslaved Gauli were denied inheritances on the ground that they were neither men nor women, and could be exiled. They were increasingly kept to the temple grounds and were unable to find meaningful work, though were said to have been good nurses and favored by women. Like the Greeks before them, the Romans expanded the story of Attis, making him a more obvious fixture within their pantheon, perhaps as a way to fit these galli or their powerful matron into their own worldview. Attis Attis From the title of a priest to a god in his own right, his journey may have been as long as the great mother's, or it may not have been. His story always is tied into hers. There is no Attis without Kubele. Indeed, his story begins with a version of hers. The first she was the daughter of mortals but herself divine, a fact that was discovered many years after her parents had exposed her, a practice of abandoning an infant to the wilderness, presumably, but not explicitly to die. She didn't, and was raised by wild animals. At some point she falls in love with young Attis, a local shepherd, and becomes pregnant by him. Her parents find her again, and then become enraged to learn she's pregnant. They cause Attis' death, and in her grief Kubalay goes mad. She wanders, lost in her mind, until she's recognized as a divine being, eventually being worshipped alongside her lost love. The second Jupiter attempts to rape her, or alternatively has a wet dream, and spills his seed on the ground, impregnating it. The result of this exchange is Egdistus, a wild intersects being with uncontrollable urges. The gods castrate Egdistus, fully removing the penis and balls which fall to the ground. Again, as Egdistus was conceived, so is another being born of the divine on the earth. An almond tree grows there, which itself impregnates a local woman who eats its fruit. Of this mortal is Attis born, Attis, for whom Eggdistus develops an intense passion. There are multiple iterations from this point, all of them unhappy. Attis, by his own will or not, is unfaithful to the goddess and castrates himself as punishment. He dies in the process, and she mourns him, and her galley are said to self castrate in his image and memory. Quite a different mindset than the Phrygians, who held the galley in high esteem, isn't it? All stories involving Attis are tragic and violent. They are painted with regret. They are, in these ways, reminiscent of the transgender tragedy porn narrative sought and consumed by the general public today. I rather doubt the Gali would agree with them, or that they chose self castration as a punishment. Keep in mind they themselves wrote none of this. Written attestations about them are often by those who seek to denigrate them, whether that be Roman patricians or post pagan Christian authors. In Phrygia, the name Attes appears in many transcriptions, which makes sense, as Attis was a common Phrygian name, not as a focus of worship, but as the name of the dedicator or recipient of a prayer. In Phrygia he was neither consort nor god, as neither existed in that spirituality. Attis was the title of the priesthood of Martyr in Phrygia, and as Matar had its gallee, perhaps the two were conflated. As a divine being he manifested in the fourth century BCE in Greece, found on a stele in Piraeus, identified by his costume, which included his shepherd's crook and the floppy hat often used to signify eastern foreigners. His appearances increase as the years pass. He's present in the mystery cults of Kubalae, where he had rites of his own, the Atidea, that took place twice a year and could have involved spreading a funeral couch for him. In Rome he had his own festival, from late to mid-March, called the Hilaria. Hilaria means season of rejoicing, and was a word used to describe any such celebratory day. This multi-day event chronicled the story of his death and resurrection. Details of the events were written by a Christian author several centuries afterwards. Attis was a large part of Roman worship of her, far greater than what was seen in Greece, and was inducted into the Roman Pantheon under Claudius. The influence of Rome changed how he was viewed in his homeland. In Anatolia, which, remember, had not originally had this figure at all. He appeared on reliefs, often lying underneath a pine, dying from his castration. Pine became one of her symbols because of these stories of Attis' death, represented often by the pine cone. This symbol was expanded as much regarding Attis was during her Roman period, both in Asia Minor under Roman influence, and in Rome itself. The pine was sacred because of that death, but it also becomes entwined with Aeneas' story of flight from the defeated Troy. Ovid linked the ship built to carry Mater to Rome with that of Aeneas's own, both made of the pines of Mount Ida. In this sense, pine becomes a symbol of her protection. Protection was one of her enduring roles, and her ultimate purpose in Phrygia. Her presence in city walls, borderlands, and overlooking important roads signified her watchfulness and concern for her people, presuming she would act where she'd witness dangers. In Pergamon, during the Hellenistic or Greek period, her presence in a sanctuary near the city wall recalls this ancient function. It is here she's shown wearing a headdress in the shape of a city tower, a design which continued to roam. The meaning of that tower in Rome is clear. She was the protector of the state, living in its capital. Her association with the urban realm in Rome was quite different than her abode in Phrygia, where her shrines were found mainly in remote areas. Her wildness there was manifested not only in the locations of her shrines, but the presence of wild animals in her depictions. Many of these animals had also been present in her Neolithic representations. This wildness was a feature of hers in Greece, not only that of the countryside, but the wildness which came from ecstatic expression of religious emotion which could be experienced in her mystery cults. She was, in Anatolia, a reflection of the wild world around the people who lived there, mountains, springs, and caves. She was the land itself, and could also assist in controlling the land, or at least protecting humans from it. In Phrygia she was heavily associated with mountains, in a very physical and literal way. Many of her shrines were cut into the living rock. In Greece this association remained, but became a figurative one. In Rome, aside from Mount Ida, and that only as a way to tie her into Aeneas, the association was only abstract. Phelines, of course, were another persistent indicator of her wildness and her control over wildness. From Chatelhuuk to Rome, she appeared with felines, beginning with leopards and ending with full maned lions. Her control over wilderness benefited human beings. Her linkage to both worlds was signified by the architectural designs found on her reliefs in Phrygia, where she is shown in doorways, a style begun before Phrygia, and continuing beyond it into Greece. As we saw in the Neolithic figure discovered in 2005 that was referenced in the last episode, she had domain over both life and death. In Phrygia she was displayed in funerary contexts. Later, her consort would die eternally. Fertility is an attribute often given to all goddesses, regardless of their history. It is, however, not an aspect of the Phrygian mater. A figure from the aforementioned Baindir Tumulus in Lycia does show her with two children, but they may be a depiction of her syncretization with the goddess Leto, making these children Apollo and Artemis. In Greece, one of her cult statues was found within a sanctuary of the goddess of childbirth. She was also syncretized with Gaia, Mother Earth, and, of course, Rhea, the mother of gods. This fertility association ramped up in Rome, where she was said to have improved the crops the year after her arrival. Interestingly, in Asia Minor she was a witness to oaths and contracts, guiding her followers in fulfillment of their vows, or perhaps assuring them with her awful power. She had an appreciation for music. In Phrygia, that music was described as sweet and lovely, created by flutes and lyres, and without percussive instruments, quite a different sort than the music which would overtake her worship, first in mystery cults and then in public processions, that music, pulsing and raucous, began in Greece. It was later a cause of tension within Rome, which treasured order and control above all. The trouble with that music was in the changing nature of its purpose. In Greece its function was to induce a trance like state for communication with the divine. In Rome, where her purpose was no longer personal but public, this was confused and confusing. Indeed, prior to Roman times, her worship was exclusively personal, and her shrines and rites facilitated that communication. She had no temples in Phrygia and one in Greece and Athens. What she had more often were shrines, either open air or in homes. Figurines found in these shrines were plentiful and indicated her popularity with and importance to everyday people. In Anatolia she could be contacted through the rock itself, which was thought to be her very body. Niches were carved into the mountain, reached by stone stairs, from whence the goddess was believed to speak. This practice had a long history in the area. Her popularity among all of her people continued in Greece, where inscriptions show she was called upon by the range of society there. It was there her mystery cults began and continued to the end of the pagan era. Because of the prohibition against sharing details of the cult, that's what makes them a mystery, we don't know much about what actually went on during the rites. What we do know is this they took place at night, lit by torches, and accompanied by loud, pulsing music, including both the dulcet tones of the flute, as well as the clashing of cymbals and the beating of drums, and circled dancing or frenzied, spasmatic movements erupted during these rituals. The Homeric hymn that opened this piece describes the sound of rattles and timbrels, flutes, and the outcry of wolves and bright eyed lions that would have been heard. This meaningful private contact between her and her people would continue here, even as it was not practiced in Rome. In Anatolia in Greece, anyway, she answered the prayers of the people. For some of her gauli in Rome, though, I imagine her presence in the city and theirs in her temple answered a prayer of another sort. The Lodi Megalens, or games of her festival, were played in the plaza outside of her temple in Rome from her arrival, but grew in length and importance over time, stretching from one day, April fourth, to last from the fourth to the tenth. She developed an association with the theater. Since many dramatic performances took place here, later a formal parade through the city streets became her principal ritual, a loud, chaotic procession, filled with the sounds of clashing bronze, thumping drums, and the howling of the galley as they carried Mater in her lion chariot. Blood would have been a part of these rites, some say. Dr. Rawler says the Tarabullium, a bloody bull sacrifice and bath, which delights popular imagination, and which one can see in HBO's Rome, did not occur. In her lecture, doctor Yonescu says it did, and describes it as a purification ritual or an initiation rite. During this she says the devotee would stand in a pit beneath the floor which had been fitted with a wooden grate. This would allow the hot blood of the freshly sacrificed bull to shower over the person below. Sounds brutal, doesn't it? Sacrifice in the ancient world is not what we imagine it to be. Dr. Ionescu continues to explain that, in general, Romans did not like a violent, messy, stressful sacrifice. The animal had to be willing to be sacrificed, or at least had to appear to be. It may be adorned with flowers or painted. A brutal sacrifice was not enjoyable to the gods. Her path runs alongside the paths of the other gods of Rome, and of the pagan world, eventually replaced and denigrated, besmirched and criticized, named uncivilized and old fashioned, and now revived. The last pagan emperor of Rome, raised Christian and returned to the gods and goddesses of his predecessors, Julian, or Flavius Claudius Julianus, wrote extensively about her matur. She was, even at the end, and even as the empire centered itself in Constantinople, an integral part of the Roman experience to the emperor, he died in battle, and we know the course of history of the gods from that point. Before the death of that possibility, Julian prayed to her, writing this in his works. O mother of gods and men, thou that art the assessor of Zeus, and sharest his throne, O source of the intellectual gods, that pursuest thy course with the stainless substance of the intelligible gods, that dost receive from them all the common cause of things, and dost thyself bestow it on the intellectual gods, O life giving goddess that art the counsel and the providence and the creator of our souls. O thou that lovest great Dionysus, and didst save Attis when exposed at birth, and didst lead him back when he had descended into the cave of the nymph, O thou that givest all good things to the intellectual gods, and fillest with all things this sensible world, and with all the rest givest us all things good. Do thou grant to all men happiness, and that highest happiness of all the knowledge of the gods, and grant to the Roman people in general, that they may cleanse themselves of this stain of impiety, grant them a blessed lot, and help them to guide their empire for many thousands of years, and for myself, grant me as fruit of my worship of thee, that I may have true knowledge in the doctrines about the gods, make me perfect in theurgy, and in all that I undertake, in the affairs of the state and the army, grant me virtue and good fortune, and that the close of my life be painless and glorious, in the good hope that it is to you, the gods, that I journey. That's it, friends. Thank you for spending some time with me today learning about Kibalay. I know this episode was longer than most, and hopefully it kept your attention enough. We'll be back next time. I don't know what I'll be talking about. I haven't decided yet. Um, but as it is June, I would like to take this opportunity to say Happy Pride! See ya!