{"id":1634,"date":"2025-06-05T17:46:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T17:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2025-12-04T22:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T22:13:19","slug":"the-rituals-of-the-gallae-transgender-priestesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/the-rituals-of-the-gallae-transgender-priestesses\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rituals of the Gallae Transgender Priestesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lost Rituals of Trans Priestesses From 2000 Years Ago | Ancient Transgender History\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pxU9SfFl4OU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7c99bcdffb93c6034548cb7d4af3209c\"><em>Content warning: This video discusses the ritual practices of an ancient religious sect, which involves some practices which may seem disturbing to modern sensibilities &#8211; in particular, those who are sensitive to discussion of self harm, blood, or the ritual sacrifice of animals. Viewer discretion is advised.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4c75b058552c3e5a42d6da2c26e7c6b9\">What would you say if I told you that there\u2019s an order of trans girl priestesses who practiced in the Mediterranean for a thousand years?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9bd5042f8fb48479b0c3c676f02218a7\">And that we\u2019ve got the evidence to prove it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-24c3bcd6dbfebe4d80e9e4f0d87722f1\">And that this time, I\u2019m not talking about the Enarees?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-12a57b180caca2bbfc61bac7d5bfcf84\">Have I got your attention yet?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-611b214a118c8512e9f8af8d507ce2df\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/the-enarei-scythian-transgender-priestesses-remastered\/\">The Enarees: The Scythian Transgender Priestesses REMASTERED<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-596a087bb2fcff9a6a70dd13f96e158b\">Previously on this channel, we talked about the Gallae, an order of transgender priestesses in Rome, who originally came from the near east, just like the Enarees did.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-32e0af9072e8f758a320c07e5902bc28\">Turns out there are a lot of trans feminine priestesses who came from the near east. I haven\u2019t even covered all of them on the channel yet. Maybe there\u2019s a connection between them all! I haven\u2019t found that out yet. But I will, one of these days. At least, that\u2019s what I\u2019m telling myself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f2a5f82df813528a1fc44438a8cb9427\">The Gallae were the devotees of the goddess Kybele, who originated in Phrygia \u2013 central Anatolia, modern day Turkey &#8211; before making their way to the Roman Republic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-de441d96330b83ebc853abbfd395f693\">We\u2019ve done a general overview of them already, which you can find in a previous video. But the more I get into these topics, the more I realize there\u2019s just too much information to cover in a single video.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7b263a24935bc1c421b7775c16bc2b60\">Besides, people frequently have questions about these topics after the fact, and even though I try to be thorough, I can\u2019t possibly think of everything. So we\u2019re jumping into the Gallae again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-02b7f4f3fe4121ffc1d9ca2f966e7cfc\">If you\u2019re new to the channel, welcome. I\u2019m <a href=\"\/\">Sophie Edwards<\/a>, and this is We Have Always Existed. It\u2019s a show where we explore the wealth of <a href=\"\/ancient-transgender-history\/\">transgender history in the ancient Mediterranean<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ac05be8ddbf383dfaac37ad77eccf3f5\">If you\u2019re new to the topic of the Gallae, you may want to watch the previous video first. I\u2019ll do my best to keep this self contained, but you may have some questions at the end, which that previous video will hopefully answer. And if it doesn\u2019t, ask them in the comments below \u2013 maybe the answer will warrant yet another video.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-036bc00ca26e140f953fb9fdc51146ab\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"\/kybele-and-the-gallae\/\">Kybele and the Gallae<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-785bd6a8e119dda4ac6d3d101b7ab2df\">But one thing I didn\u2019t cover in much detail is what we know of the spiritual practices of the Gallae themselves.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9bc143d24a8325fa4c5d152437c85679\">I know the idea of better understanding the rituals of ancient trans priestesses is important to a lot of you. More than a few times, I\u2019ve had various trans pagans show up in my comments wanting to know more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-27d8a623f1e7db77469f3417d6b21cd3\">That was never my goal \u2013 not explicitly, at least. I\u2019m a classicist, first and foremost. My interest is in the history, literature, archaeology, language, and culture of the ancient Mediterranean. But you can\u2019t control how people find inspiration in your work, and that\u2019s part of the beauty of creating.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-87f87702ed8754c3bcdd7760a4a21444\">You also can\u2019t control which work people find inspiring. For example, I thought the videos on Hypsikrates and Pelagius were some of my best work, but the analytics tell a different story. Whaddayagonnado? My trans masc videos just don\u2019t do the numbers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a359872f79f03583f2828792137bc05d\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/hypsikrates-the-transgender-spouse-of-mithradates\/\">Hypsikrates, the Transgender Spouse of Mithradates<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1f51ab4d6ffc65536e2082a46e826193\"><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/pelagius-the-transgender-saint\/\">Pelagius, the Transgender Saint<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-606ca6cfd47a5eeb344433ebb344c1da\">Trans guys, you wanna see more trans masculine history? I\u2019d love to tell it, but you\u2019ve got to do your part too. Share these stories with your bros, I can\u2019t pay the bills when the video\u2019s a dud.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ba6a4a44d9719b54798a29a783fedbd1\">Anyway, what do we know about the worship practices of the Gallae?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-77dda2b8e4e7d89700ba5f773c5375f2\">A lot, and not a lot, at the same time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-802945081f8eadbc903316e7b80e103b\">After the rise of Christianity, many of the rituals and practices of pagans in the Mediterranean were lost. So we don\u2019t have, like, a how-to guide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-44849dc3f4e942b56c4194da717394dd\"><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/gender-transgression-in-early-christianity\/\"><strong>Gender Transgression in Early Christianity<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7ca029e53541c574a687a9742eb9eb9c\">But at the same time, the cult of Kybele, and the worship practices of the Gallae, had been going on in the Mediterranean for a thousand years, perhaps more. That\u2019s not the sort of thing you can permanently erase, no matter how hard you try. So we can still piece together a picture based on the elements that do survive, which is what we\u2019ll be doing today. Much like a puzzle you buy from a thrift store, that picture is going to have a lot of gaps in it, but at least it\u2019s something.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-48a5b4db0075877e790d8b5045781012\">As best we can, we\u2019re going to explore the worship practices of the Gallae, as well as what we know of ancient mystery cults in general. From there, I\u2019m hoping we can piece together something vaguely approaching some actual spiritual practices. We\u2019ll do what we can, but I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be missing some details. But, and I know you\u2019ve heard me say this plenty of times before, at the moment this is the longest script I\u2019ve ever written. So look, I\u2019m not going to be able to cover everything. But that just means there\u2019s more content for you all to badger me to make in future videos.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-71326735240e0765e3a3e910c415a2c2\">Speaking of which, the idea for this video comes from one of the channel\u2019s Patreon backers, Kate Wood. So, thanks Kate. If you\u2019d like to support the channel, there\u2019s a link to the channel\u2019s Patreon in the description. Hundreds of hours of work go into each of these videos, and your support makes a big difference in helping me continue to make it for you.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f8893a0e37565f7e49e80555a707ab6f\">As well, if you like speculative near future sci-fi, you might be interested in my novel, The Bottom Line, which has been called \u201ca surprisingly comforting read for dealing with&#8230; feelings of loneliness, obsolescence, helplessness and directionlessness\u201d &#8211; William&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c8b16a81198122ac6a7d227e0adff187\">As I write this, my novel will soon be unavailable \u2013 my publisher is unfortunately closing up shop. But if you\u2019re watching this in the future, I\u2019ll have republished it myself, so check it out!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-672f8ddb68e11712d769492b9018a205\">I don\u2019t want to pitch it too much, since you\u2019re all here for trans history, but it\u2019s hard to make it as a writer these days, and this is the widest audience I\u2019ve got.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ddaab8a1d0b0a8359fd57ea96c8f986f\">Anyway, if you like the work I do, your support helps me to keep doing it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6b38288aa477c47c936e65acb18d9c6b\">Without further ado&#8230;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<nav class=\"wp-block-stackable-table-of-contents stk-block-table-of-contents stk-block stk-6d44fa7 stk-block-background\" data-block-id=\"6d44fa7\"><style>.stk-6d44fa7 {background-color:var(--theme-palette-color-5, #384b56) !important;}.stk-6d44fa7:before{background-color:var(--theme-palette-color-5, #384b56) !important;}<\/style><p class=\"stk-table-of-contents__title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"stk-table-of-contents__table\"><li><a href=\"#chapter-i-misconceptions-and-definitions\">Chapter I: Misconceptions and Definitions<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-ii-gaze-into-the-eyes-of-our-ancient-sister\">Chapter II: Gaze Into the Eyes of Our Ancient Sister<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-iii-ancient-trans-girl-fashion\">Chapter III: Ancient Trans Girl Fashion<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-iv-ancient-trans-girls-loved-noise-music-too\">Chapter IV: Ancient Trans Girls Loved Noise Music, Too<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-v-trees-fruits-and-nocturnal-emissions\">Chapter V: Trees, Fruits, and Nocturnal Emissions<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-vi-dixi-flagellato-bene-facere\">Chapter VI: Dixi Flagellato! Bene Facere!<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-vii-the-march-festivals-in-honour-of-attis\">Chapter VII: The March Festivals in Honour of Attis<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xv-canna-intrat\">MENSIS MARTIVS XV: CANNA INTRAT<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxii-arbor-intrat\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXII: ARBOR INTRAT<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxiii-this-one-doesnt-have-a-name\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXIII: THIS ONE DOESN\u2019T HAVE A NAME<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxiv-dies-sangvinis\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXIV: DIES SANGVINIS<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxv-hilaria\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXV: HILARIA<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxvi-reqvieto\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXVI: REQVIETO<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxvii-lavatio\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXVII: LAVATIO<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#mensis-martivs-xxviii-initivm-caiani\">MENSIS MARTIVS XXVIII: INITIVM CAIANI<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#chapter-viii-what-can-this-tell-us\">Chapter VIII: What Can This Tell Us?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#ancient-sources\">Ancient Sources:<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#modern-sources\">Modern Sources:<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-i-misconceptions-and-definitions\"><strong>Chapter I: Misconceptions and Definitions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ce23037621ef93dd62aa5c70272cde3b\">Before we dig too far into this, I want to take a moment to talk about definitions. I mentioned the phrase \u201cmystery cult\u201d earlier, and look, I know where your brain is going. You\u2019re probably thinking of weirdo groups that isolate their members from their communities and families, centered around an unhinged authoritarian leader who demands absolute loyalty as well as financial support, who creates an \u201cus vs them\u201d mentality between the cult members and society at large, who\u2019s preoccupied with money, who encourages antisocial behaviours that further isolate members from their previous communities, and who punishes anyone who wants to leave (Langone, 10).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-35f07a033e68a6d9d83a3e60a62ddc31\">Things like MAGA, the Church of Scientology, Freedomain Radio, or the Heaven\u2019s Gate cults. Did you know the Heaven\u2019s Gate website is still online, by the way? It\u2019s such a wonderful little piece of internet history, dark though its origins and results may be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7b20605f91a6cf3ef913b1e22eb52beb\">The word \u201ccult\u201d has a lot of messy connotations in the modern world, but let\u2019s hit the brakes. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re about today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2057ea50ad95b5086abc886d95c94b50\">As it turns out, language evolves, and the ways we use words in the past aren\u2019t the same as how we use them today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8d3776ad0ce71f47dcb0ca2919e1b0b9\">For example, take the word \u201cdictator\u201d \u2013 in the days of the Roman Republic, \u201cdictator\u201d was an official government position. In times of great crisis, a dictator would be appointed, for the duration of the crisis, or for six months, whichever was shorter. He had much broader control over the state, but his job was to resolve the present crisis, and then resign his office (Boatwright, Gargola, and Talbert, 50). In fact, one of the most revered figures from the early Republic was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who was a political and military leader that retired and became a farmer. During a war with the Aequi, Cincinnatus was asked to become dictator to deal with the crisis. He defeated them in sixteen days, then laid down his dictatorial power and went back to being a humble farmer (Hillyard, 19-22). This wasn\u2019t a job you gave to just anybody \u2013 they had to have great moral character. It wasn\u2019t a problem until Julius Caesar declared himself DICTATOR PERPETVO \u2013 perpetual dictator \u2013 which is when he began his new career as a senatorial knife holder.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5387f8393160b7da21345d1345aa1f92\">So, Dictator didn\u2019t have the same meaning in ancient Rome as it does today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ba1bb9d99fd28ec059c63a87c9a6a0f6\">The same is true for the word \u201ccult\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f6be87c8941d2a8c6c9e598ec526266d\">\u201cCult\u201d just refers to ancient practices in worship of a particular god. We\u2019ll get more into that later in the video, but ancient mystery cults weren\u2019t creepy in the way we think of cults today. At least, not to the people of their day (mostly).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-be04388d7a591968b8275c2e9d19af78\">It\u2019s been pretty difficult for scholars to piece together the details of these ancient mystery cults, so in many ways they <em>are<\/em> a mystery to us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-375cc0009dc43add6d7e29f0746faf9c\">But that\u2019s not why we call them mystery cults \u2013 that\u2019s just a coincidence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-38e324e81fb287125a1a941aa09e71e9\">The \u201cmystery\u201d part of it is complex. In general, mystery cults <em>were<\/em> secretive, in that their practices were closed off to the general public. In Greek, the word for mystery cult is \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd (mysterion), and once you were initiated, you were a \u03bc\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 (mystes). We don\u2019t know the etymology of these words, but the Greek verb \u03bc\u03c5\u03b7\u03b9\u03bd (myein) means \u201cto close\u201d, so some scholars think that might be related. After all, you weren\u2019t supposed to talk about the goings-on of your mystery cult \u2013 keep your mouth closed about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b8783a1e7404236735314fa9c47006a8\">The first rule of mystery cults blah blah blah.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9e068fbbde4990fd0ae390b473b09eea\">We <em>also<\/em> need to toss out our idea of what a \u201creligion\u201d is. If you\u2019re watching this video, based on my analytics, it\u2019s a good bet you were raised in an Abrahamic religion, or at least in an area where an Abrahamic religion was culturally dominant. So, you\u2019re used to a religion that has a sacred text as the central authority for things. But pre-Christian pagan religions didn\u2019t have that.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d13fe614165d8539b879b29ff7fafd0c\">The closest thing they had to a central text was Homer and Hesiod, but they weren\u2019t exactly holy texts \u2013 other mythographers deviated from their ideas all the time, and nobody showed up at their door with pitchforks and torches.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-da7863c775af0f3e6d97704163d77797\">There were temples to the gods, of course. The most famous is probably the Parthenon, the temple to Athena on the Acropolis at Athens, but there are plenty more of them. But it wasn\u2019t the sort of thing where you\u2019d attend service once a week (Bowden, 14). Rather, you\u2019d spend a lot of time thinking about your relationship to the gods on a daily basis (Bowden, 6-7).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9932ac521e9b67ddfb07d71159dcf51e\">But the god of Abraham is, MOSTLY, don\u2019t @me, considered to be a loving, caring god who wants the best for his followers. The Torah, the Bible, and the Qu\u2019ran are full of moral lessons to help teach you how to be a better person (amid all the messed up junk, I KNOW, don\u2019t @me).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2247e0fb89a36d4f21e8e9714d897909\">With stories about pagan gods, sometimes the moral lesson is the gods are petty assholes and they\u2019re going to ruin your life just because they feel like it. People were still devoted to the gods, to varying degrees, just like they are today. But that might not necessarily save you from an awful fate.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-46e8eac5bf0f977ca5649bc32e0cd541\">For example, are you an ancient Greek with epilepsy? If so, your seizures wouldn\u2019t be considered a result of abnormal brain activity, like we understand them to be today. Instead, it would be because the god Pan seized you and started violently shaking you. That\u2019s why we call it a seizure. It might also be because the moon goddess Selene cursed you and made you crazy, which is where we get the term \u201clunatic\u201d from (Eloge, Ross, &amp; Cooper).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a016e8d070fcc236bcfaa032a90a19ed\">What about a crop failure? Somebody must have done something to upset Demeter, the goddess of the harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-34fc737a503af67797b51de2524e352d\">Was there an earthquake, or a tsunami? That\u2019s because the earthshaker Poseidon was in a kerfuffle about something. Tides go in, tides go out, you can\u2019t explain it. Must have been Poseidon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e239819690346c8c6e2f03f013270c9e\">And if you see someone, or something, struck by lightning? That\u2019s Zeus\u2019 handiwork right there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9f8fe3c10f86bd64090fdab4a3ec75d4\">Maybe lightning strikes the CN Tower so often because Zeus thinks it\u2019s amusing. You don\u2019t know. You can\u2019t explain it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c4e88927372bf34686e5813890d50c5a\">Maybe it\u2019s Thor on top of Mount Olympus!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-223af89d01af8d253aa79a276ad05446\">This guy always bugged me. I don\u2019t know where he comes across being so smarmy about this \u2013 Thor didn\u2019t live on Mount Olympus. It\u2019s a completely separate mythology. Zeus threw lightning bolts from Mount Olympus. Thor lived in Asgard.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cb7a9f19ed0ff387203a5cda0d1ab84d\">I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m taking Bill O\u2019Reilly\u2019s side in an argument&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b964fc0d1f5337b580bc8a68a9dc3b2c\">Anyway, you\u2019d do your best to honour the gods, in the hope that they\u2019d bestow favour upon you. And sometimes they would, but sometimes they did destructive things because they were angry, and sometimes even their most devoted humans would be caught in the middle of it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-370bfe0c28e7448a9114d6915801b575\">So let\u2019s recap \u2013 mystery doesn\u2019t mean mystery, cult doesn\u2019t mean cult, and religion doesn\u2019t mean religion. Forget everything you know about these words. In fact, forget every word you know. Forget English altogether. These aren\u2019t words, they\u2019re just sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-49d5074256f37ef974d5b69bd96827ce\">Mrol mrol mrol <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3b5d990de3a9c1f539403792d4bc7c57\">blibroid florx fnantriew<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9f56309a32bf9ecff7489d61a07620d2\">brekekekex, koax, koax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-ii-gaze-into-the-eyes-of-our-ancient-sister\"><strong>Chapter II: Gaze Into the Eyes of Our Ancient Sister<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-adb7ccc9b3fc7ce6c436f9b6bbf1d457\">When it comes to understanding the cult practices of the Gallae, one of the best examples we have is a funerary portrait of a Galla priestess. I\u2019d actually come across this statue before, but I think I kind of just brushed past the fact that we have an actual sculpture of one of the Gallae, which is pretty incredible. So, let\u2019s take a moment here to look more closely.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e8c5ba0a06cbf3f54f950e6e293fb1a4\">A while back, we explored the grave goods of an Enaree priestess from modern day northern Afghanistan. We had a chance to look through her stuff, and even got to see an illustration of her actual body, lying in the grave. If you saw that video, you know how exciting it was.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-427d8bb46919fe2f9a901c3ac9da5f2c\">But we didn\u2019t get a chance to see what her face might have looked like. With this sculpture, we do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2c26b62cf67362ecfb971509ce653a90\">And, here she is. You and I, all of us, right now, are gazing into the face of one of our trans sisters. It dates to the second century CE.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e55e27f27e1ca646073c7d158f883a65\">If that doesn\u2019t strike you with an enormous sense of awe, may I suggest you check to make sure you still have a pulse. In fact, if you don\u2019t think this is awesome, you\u2019re probably on the wrong channel. Go ahead, unlike, uncomment, unsubscribe, unsign up for Raid: Shadow Legends, unplug your computer, throw it into the ocean, and run off screaming into the forest, never to return.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-80490418e057295f639c8dceb29f23a2\">In fact, I might join you. I could use a digital detox.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-db3ef84f1246cf597a8f11e496ad229c\">This funerary portrait is about 1.2 metres tall and wide (Nongbri), and was supposedly found at a site called Lanuvium, which is about 30 kilometres southeast of Rome (Wardle Vol. I, 375), though it\u2019s possible it may have been found in Rome itself (Della Giovampaola, 505). It was donated to the Capitoline Museum back in 1737 (Nongbri) by a wealthy family that had holdings in Italy all over the place, which makes its providence difficult.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2f08cfe4590a3b488ebb8a5c0f25a18c\">That really sucks, because based on what I can tell, this portrait is one of two things.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-16fba0ac857f4b84f1a64097b6581a19\">It does resemble what we see on the sides of tombs. The Romans buried their dead along the road outside the city\u2019s walls, which was an ancient tradition that spread across the empire (Kraus and Von Matt, 97). Some of the better preserved ones have sculptures that seem similar \u2013 one could easily imagine our Galla portrait on the side of a tomb like one of these two \u2013 the tombs of Caius Calventius Quietus, in the foreground, and Naevoleia Tyche. I\u2019ve seen our Galla referred to as tomb portrait (Beard, North, and Price Vol. 2, 211).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7dc69251beeb6fe1bba7ce948d018aa2\">Here\u2019s a video of a funerary marker, that\u2019s part of the collection at the Royal Ontario Museum, here in Toronto. Its display is mostly text, but one could imagine our Galla portrait in a similar location.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2f8ef5ae160cbb3eedba778068e313ce\">It&#8217;s also been described as \u201cvotive\u201d (Giovampaola, 505), which might imply it was part of an altar to the goddess. And one could also imagine this being part of an altar like this one as well, hm?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fc67ff3c7ab42f81f9800349c4a0f168\">Either way, this leaves us with a lot of questions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cadb8e7e75c31afc6016812091cb5e2c\">Was this a tomb marker for the grave of a Galla priestess? In some ways, it seems unlikely, since the Gallae were often spoken of derisively in literature. But then, that logic makes a carefully, beautifully sculpted piece like this unlikely in the first place. Ancient writers often spoke derisively about the cult practices of the Gallae, but this portrait has all of it displayed proudly. If this was a tomb marker, what other wonders might we have found inside that tomb?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ad6a4a5e6066627dfa7fd754ec9dbd08\">Or, if it\u2019s part of an altar, what else might we have found in that area? What else might we have learned about the Gallae and their rituals?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f981dec9ae11ead84e20d1613512dd35\">Unfortunately, we don\u2019t know.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c752fa9bcdd3b746f14f9f25e194b86a\">This is still an incredible find for trans history in its own right, to be sure. It dates to the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> century CE (Beard, North, and Price Vol. 2, 211) \u2013 the 100\u2019s \u2013 which makes this the oldest portrait of a trans person I\u2019ve found so far \u2013 perhaps the oldest one, period. But it can also tell us a lot about the elements of the rituals our ancient sisters used in the worship of their goddess.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-af4c510a051a1c6cbd009690fc960d71\">As far as we know, the Gallae never wrote down the specifics of their cult worship. But this portrait is the next best thing. Paired with the literary evidence we have, we can build a pretty clear picture of what the religion of the Gallae was like.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-519829259d1816d1c35c943e82ab4144\">Let\u2019s take a closer look at them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-iii-ancient-trans-girl-fashion\"><strong>Chapter III: Ancient Trans Girl Fashion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ff5d40d6e871f36a8e3c4c22c9a8dd17\">Let\u2019s start with her clothes. What\u2019s she wearing?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-690ab9025be2a2102ce56097c2f62054\">It all just seems like a bunch of robes, so you might assume she\u2019s wearing a toga. But the toga wasn\u2019t the only piece of clothing Romans wore. In fact, it was really only men and prostitutes who wore togas. Non-prostitute Roman women would wear a different garment \u2013 a stola (McElduff, 73-78).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-82c02feddd044b5e2d18e118988cf59f\">They look pretty similar \u2013 both of them are just drape-y cloth. But they were worn differently. It\u2019s hard to tell by looking at ancient sculptures, but a toga wouldn\u2019t actually cover your whole body. Instead, you\u2019d wear a tunic underneath, and the toga would only cover part of it. For an example of what I mean, here\u2019s a photo from the Royal Ontario Museum\u2019s \u201cWear a Toga!\u201d activity day. See what I mean? Man\u2019s plaid shirt makes it much more obvious how a toga would have fit. Looking at our Galla portrait, it\u2019s clear that\u2019s not what she\u2019s wearing \u2013 she\u2019s wearing a stola (Beard, North, and Price Vol. 2, 211).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cf4aff491c77a3bef5d63ea44ba2e657\">To get a better look at how that would have been worn, here\u2019s another sculpture of a Galla priest, which again, I kind of just glazed over in the original video. Two of our ancient sisters \u2013 their faces, their styles, their practices. And we get to experience them, two thousand years later. It\u2019s beautiful stuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d821d8072813a00b2688a732e2f10db2\">Maybe trans girls will be watching my videos in the year 4000, who knows. By then, though, we\u2019ll probably have invented some other way to experience media, like data crystal uplinks to the hyperweb via an anti-attenuator frequency harmonic. Don\u2019t look at me like that, it makes perfect sense; this bit is going to slay a couple millennia from now.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-02d0fdad8862940f15362c3040cce8e4\">Unfortunately, I can\u2019t find a better photo of this piece. It&#8217;s supposedly in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, but I looked all through the place and couldn\u2019t find it anywhere. Maybe I missed a spot \u2013 the place is pretty labyrinthine. But it&#8217;s probably more likely that she\u2019s not on display, maybe because of how Italians have always been annoying prudes about anything to do with sex or gender.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7d6138daaf9104db7ae1200090126a53\">But then again, there are statues with dinks, snatches, and boobs fully exposed for all the world to see. Nobody ever said Italians made any sense&#8230;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a2107769853dc6726a4e61c4f1fb26b4\">Anyway, this girl\u2019s outfit is also a stola. Compare it to this sculpture of Livia Drusilla, the wife of Augustus, and with this sculpture of Aulus Metellus, a 1<sup>st<\/sup> century BCE senator. The Galla\u2019s outfit clearly resembles Livia\u2019s outfit more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0e51bba864ebbba7172088b816e0ecd8\">Besides, we\u2019re told they dressed like women.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1ba685b4c2f0e2b7693fabd3497eb197\">Marcus Tarentius Varro described a scene of the Gallae doing their thing, and says they were, quote, \u201cdecked out in charming stolas\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a746949a0317eac4acaad753a7f70ff7\">So, this ancient fashionista would have been seen as wearing women\u2019s clothing. But what about what\u2019s on her head?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-93cf86b1b7d404bfc61e5345ef910b7b\">It\u2019s a sort of turban\/tiara combination thing. I guess some of them had ear flaps they tied under their chin (Vermaseren, 97), but I don\u2019t see that on our portrait. There are some little plaques with portraits in the tiara, and I know it\u2019s hard to see, but those are portraits of Jupiter, and of Attis, an important figure in the mythology of Kybele.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e5132da3dce0b2a9a1b6a4f48c612efb\">Attis is also on her little chest plaque, and it\u2019s hard to tell if that\u2019s a necklace or if it\u2019s pinned to her stola.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7c94e35c57971660f321eeb7ad02a0ca\">And her hair? That\u2019s a bunch of ribbons tied into her long, curling locks, a distinctly feminine style (Beard, North, and Price Vol. 2, 211). In general, Roman women had longer hair than men did, just like today. But also, no self respecting Roman man would spend his time weaving ribbons into his hair like a woman. In fact, the Roman historian Suetonius even pointed this out when criticizing Nero, quote:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0047e7c4ce5c3a0e4f7e0a28947f3b04\">He was so very shameless in his concern for dress and the care of his person that he would always have his curls arranged in a pile on his head and, on his trip to Greece, even had them flowing down behind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-71d49650611509df446bebe433d11c70\">&#8211; Suetonius, Life of Nero, 51<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0fad02417c64a08d8b283a72515e6455\">It was notable and weird for Nero to have long hair, or to spend any time making it look nice. That was a passive, feminine activity, not befitting of a proper Roman man (Barman, 3-5).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e22e020d09f01aef383f25fce72fed9a\">But clearly, our two gals here had no interest in performing masculinity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-042f319505e2c23929c1f8c6b7569477\">So let\u2019s recap \u2013 ancient trans girls wore women\u2019s clothing and hairstyles and jewellery. We\u2019re told they wore makeup as well, but that doesn\u2019t really come through in the portrait we have.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e67f3a95f74b9f152e17b4a5d14f3820\">Where\u2019d they get their drip?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-be81b2990c206f543d86ea293c53abed\">They went door to door, asking for clothes and donations, in exchange for telling fortunes (Vermaseren, 97). So, trans girls have always been into thrifting, I guess.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d0ae237696baca35584150247a6138f6\">Embracing their femininity was part of their ritual, clearly. Otherwise, why do it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-24951277637f52668bc523efc717bbde\">Well, you and I know why, of course&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-iv-ancient-trans-girls-loved-noise-music-too\"><strong>Chapter IV: Ancient Trans Girls Loved Noise Music, Too<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9db94e3df2b0d6f98035c2e59a7254a2\">There are some musical instruments depicted on our sculpture, including some percussion instruments, and as a drummer myself I\u2019m particularly excited to check them out.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1b510ac659cf07977365a0975ef5f0f0\">Now, as we mentioned back in the original video on the Gallae, the goddess we\u2019ll be referring to as Kybele goes by many names.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5d3fe5adc333fca0d98a78110dc276c8\">The earliest inscription we have of her comes from Phrygia, where she\u2019s referred to as <em>Matar Kubileya<\/em>, which means \u201cmother of the mountains\u201d in the Phrygian language. That\u2019s clearly where Kybele comes from. But she\u2019s also referred to as <em>Meter Thea,<\/em> the mother goddess, and as <em>Meter Theos<\/em>, the mother OF the gods, <em>Mater Magna<\/em>, the great mother, and more (Roller, 2-3). Further, her myth was conflated with the other mother gods as well, like Rhea and Demeter (Roller, 119). We\u2019re going to stick with Kybele though, to keep things simple.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d77f6d11d09dd5dd719235cd3629e8a6\">Kybele has her origins in Phrygia, so it\u2019s not surprising we see evidence of her worship in the parts of the Greek world closest to there. There are depictions of her in places like Smyrna and Miletos, on the west coast of Asia Minor, dating back to the 6<sup>th<\/sup> century BCE. From there it spread, and by the 4<sup>th<\/sup> century BCE we find devotions to her in pretty much every Greek city (Roller, 119-120).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a1e903bbebc7583f526e256f21f2ea7d\">Her first significant appearance in literature, though, comes from the Homeric Hymns. The Homeric Hymns are a collection of poems written in epic style, which were traditionally attributed to Homer. But we\u2019re pretty sure it wasn\u2019t Homer who wrote them, yadda yadda that old song and dance. We\u2019ve been down this road before. For some reason we don\u2019t call the writer Pseudo-Homer though. They all have different dates, but the general consensus is that most of them were written roughly around the time of Homer, which was the 600\u2019s or 500\u2019s BCE (Richardson, XII).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6dfc02d03662b07cb47e7ca2aa18b625\">Now, the Galla portrait we looked at is from the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> century CE, which is several hundred years later (Beard, North, &amp; Price, 211). We really don\u2019t know much about the specific rituals the Gallae had when they started in Phrygia, or when they moved to Greece. Even the sources we have in the Roman Republic era are pretty sparse. It\u2019s only during the Imperial period that we get more detailed stories about them. But even though this is several hundred years before the portrait we looked at, as you\u2019ll see, there are still some parallels.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-be1839ff96c5ec7e0c391ed88f0229f1\">The Homeric Hymn to the Mother of the Gods is pretty short. It reads, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-16c43a5721ef8bd4226dcf5af0e68533\">I prithee, clear-voiced Muse, daughter of mighty Zeus, sing of the mother of all gods and men. She is well-pleased with the sound of rattles and of timbrels, with the voice of flutes and the outcry of wolves and bright-eyed lions, with echoing hills and wooded coombes. And so hail to you in my song and to all goddesses as well!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-681478db561a652c7e27429d0a584a9b\">&#8211; Homeric Hymn XIV<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f7e202836b2866a0da27a1e361e38564\">What does this tell us about Kybele?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5faad2c50c8a65325e783f30e87f9533\">Well, she likes noise.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1471e67a330ff500d2e5704f618eb161\">It talks about a number of different musical instruments. Three of them are depicted on the portrait we looked at a moment ago, but do we know what these instruments were actually like?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e6f4fc4461ab8eb14b19202fc25ed172\">Actually, yeah, we do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a25c97cde23c9e8c995f3d180d4f516d\">Let\u2019s take a look.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5fa32b8d0b55121b0d85d083c2a6a4af\">The flute referred to is something called an aulos (\u03b1\u1f50\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2), which is a sort of double flute. You can see the woman in the background playing it here, on this mosaic from Pompeii\u2019s \u201cHouse of Cicero\u201d (Wardle Vol. I, 334). The Romans called them tibiae, and if you know your anatomy, you might recognize that as the name of the larger bone in your lower leg, your shin bone. I\u2019ll keep calling it an aulos though, to keep it simple.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c3bcfdef1ba27186af1f3baa0c9b18ed\">These were more popular in ancient Greece than Rome, but the Romans did have them as well (Wardle Vol. I, 20). Besides, the Gallae came from the east anyway. The Romans did have other types of flutes, including panpipes and even bagpipes (Wardle Vol. I, 136, 164), but the Homeric Hymn specifically uses the term \u03b1\u1f50\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6839f02bf061ce9edd50a5f70ac55598\">Now, sometimes people played two auloi of the same size, but sometimes it was two different sizes. You\u2019d have a bass flute, which you played with your right hand, and a treble flute, which you played with your left. If we look at the Galla portrait, it\u2019s clear she has two different auloi.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5b8a560d652f47931cf81c170b7ff089\">There\u2019s a lot about these we don\u2019t know. Since most of them would have been made of wood or reeds, only a few metal ones have survived. And of those, we don\u2019t have any mouthpieces, so we don\u2019t really know how they would have been played (Wardle Vol. I, 20). Modern reconstructions of them have to take some creative license, but they end up sounding like a mix between a harmonica, a clarinet, an accordion, and an air raid siren.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5f6cd3731101d9d4aa274f7a9cc3a88c\">According to the poet Pindar\u2019s twelfth Pythian Ode, Athena invented the aulos because she wanted something that would mimic the wails of the gorgons Euryale and Stheno after their sister, Medusa, was beheaded by Perseus. And yeah, I hear it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cd36201b4437f1e0679656d305c64004\">So it\u2019s not the bright chipper sound you might think of as a flute today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f587cd7828d9e66b6aa843a18857f4ba\">This translation refers to rattles and timbrels, but that really doesn\u2019t do these things justice. I\u2019ve seen \u201ctimbrel\u201d translated as tambourine and drum, and rattles as castanets, clappers, and cymbals. But that doesn\u2019t give us much of a picture of these things.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-891b869b18224f287b5b3df1a7ba85bb\">So, let\u2019s take a look at some of the different percussion instruments the Romans had, and compare them with some modern instruments. C\u2019mon, let\u2019s head over to my drumkit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a3dd68819f43ca6ffde06cab54545593\">We\u2019ll start with their cymbals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ea633cd7210dc3d446aa5d540454db4a\">You can see the pair of them in our Galla portrait, connected with a rope, or a strip of leather.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a1b1ca4eb658eb5b671ad98b0be23e86\">In some ways, they look pretty similar to what you might think of as a cymbal today, like this \u2013 this is my crash cymbal. And just like my crash cymbal, the ancient ones are round, and have a small hole in the centre, from which you\u2019d suspend it (Wardle Vol. I, 330). They also have a bell in the middle, with a bow surrounding it. And just like my crash cymbal, the ancient ones are made of bronze. But they weren\u2019t played the way most cymbals are played today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bbfc8392198861fee846fba9025dd778\">When you think of a cymbal, you probably think of it in terms of its place on a drum kit. I know I do. But what we think of as the modern drum kit didn\u2019t begin to coalesce until the mid-1800\u2019s (Sharkey). Before then, cymbals were played by a cymbal player, who most often would strike two of them together. That\u2019s how the Romans played them, too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6277f043a56bf3f71cf1a9ac433e624a\">But they were also a lot smaller. For example, here\u2019s my ride cymbal. It\u2019s the largest cymbal on my kit \u2013 51 centimetres in diameter. And here\u2019s my splash, which is my smallest cymbal \u2013 25 centimetres. About half the size.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-068591821766d67cec2c0ef649826c8b\">If you live in a backward country that uses a far sillier measurement system, by the way, one foot is just over 30 centimetres.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-299b88e7dec151b7182754d6a8b411e3\">The Galla portrait we have isn\u2019t necessarily to scale, so let\u2019s take a look at another picture. Here are some Roman cymbals, which are 11 centimetres in diameter, so, less than half the size of my splash. I know it\u2019s kind of hard to get an idea from a photo, so here\u2019s the lid of my hand cream, which is 10cm in diameter. These cymbals would be slightly bigger than that. They\u2019re in the Cairo Museum (Hickmann, 456).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cb5e017cb724750d741b27247093f7eb\">Here&#8217;s another pair \u2013 these are the largest ones I\u2019ve been able to find. They\u2019re just over 20 centimetres in diameter, so still a bit smaller than my splash. They\u2019re in the Met, in New York (Hickmann, 457).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f4d21308108024d7a1647065ac7bb716\">Let\u2019s take another look at that mosaic we looked at earlier. This gives us an example of how these cymbals would have been played.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-93e478f9fb145f821a9f62c1d12733bd\">But here\u2019s another example \u2013 this is a sculpture of a satyr playing cymbals, with baby Dionysus on his shoulder. You can tell it\u2019s Dionysus because of the grapes, and I know you can\u2019t see it here but the statue has a small tail above his butt, so yeah it\u2019s a satyr, just a more handsome satyr than what we usually see. This one is in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Napoli, Italy. It looks like he\u2019s playing the cymbals Turkish style, which is where your arms move in the opposite direction when you strike them together (Wardle Vol. I, 330). That changes the sound \u2013 if you watch cymbal players in an orchestra, they\u2019ll often play them that way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e679a2107feeb8dafb9f19a4628a2d76\">They also used cymbals in other instruments. Here\u2019s one called a scabellum, which was called a kroupalon or kroupezion in Greek. Here\u2019s a sculpture of a satyr playing one, along with an aulos. It\u2019s essentially two blocks of wood, with metal inside them. You\u2019d have a sandal that attached it to your foot, then tap it to keep the beat. In between the two wood blocks, you\u2019d have tiny cymbals that would tap together to make the sound (Marcuse, 300, 461, Zanker &amp; Ewald, 119).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a5e0d62cf4503d2d63f5f4456ccffcbe\">Here&#8217;s another cymbal-related instrument they used, a crotalum, or krotalon in Greek. I know that sounds similar to the kroupalon we just talked about, but it\u2019s not quite the same thing. These were essentially clappers, with two cymbals attached to sticks. They were played mostly by women, and usually as part of a dance (Wardle Vol I, 337). These particular clappers are in the British Museum.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8c0e1d660641be3b01234241a502ca7b\">Alright, what about drums?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cb470af0007f371fb430b9361adf1b98\">Drums are usually made of more perishable material \u2013 wood and leather. So of course, it\u2019s hard for something like that to last very long. The best depiction we have of them is from that awesome mosaic from Pompeii we looked at a moment ago, so let\u2019s bring that one up again. Nice.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f7164a377120a063702d784f1264bc27\">So based on this, we can see the drum is pretty wide and shallow, and you play it with your hand.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b8793eddfb207cf5bb9798a092e54121\">Compare that with my floor tom here, which is 38 centimetres deep, has legs, and is played with a stick. My snare is a little closer, but even it\u2019s much deeper than the one we see in that mosaic. It really doesn\u2019t seem like a tympanum and a kit drum have much in common.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-028aaf412fd2fb562b6fdd22bcac5d94\">In fact, it seems to have more in common with a tambourine, if you removed the jingles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e7ce8b802a13ac5fcdc0048fcef9800f\">Was there a skin on both sides of a tympanum, or just one? We don\u2019t know. There are plenty of different types of drums that have both \u2013 for example, the drums on my kit have both, but a djembe only has a skin on one side. And we don\u2019t have any, like, schematic drawings that would help (Wardle Vol. I, 369).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d5f8050e5d06c2e69b38371cbe1d1de6\">Now, here\u2019s where it gets a little weird. See, we do have parts of a drum that survived from the Roman era, and as far as I know it\u2019s the only one. It was dug up in 1968, in eastern France near Strasbourg. The resident of the grave was around 20 years old, and probably died in the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> century CE (Hatt &amp; Thevenin, 34). This is a photo of it (Hatt &amp; Thevenin, 38), but yeah it\u2019s a crummy black and white photocopied photo from the 60\u2019s, so it\u2019s really hard to see what the hell we\u2019re looking at.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-35c1f0b3ba1a74a1584d2ca0e792bc21\">Fortunately, we have an illustration of what it might have looked like (Hatt &amp; Thevenin, 37). And, yeah, that looks even more like a tambourine, doesn\u2019t it? Weirdly enough, I couldn\u2019t find anything even close to this depicted in art. All the drums I\u2019ve found look more like the one we saw on the Galla funerary portrait. Maybe this was a makeshift drum.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e87665bc3bdec69f25b484e8c7e84325\">That, plus the fact that Kybele herself is sometimes holding them \u2013 here she is seated in a chariot pulled by lions \u2013 makes me think the Gallae would more likely have used round drums, more like my snare here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e382bf548c395cf99400043f9c2d84d2\">Alright, we\u2019re done with the drums now, let\u2019s head back to my study.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-663cc1b56722920b9b3751c496254cf6\">So, she likes drums, cymbals, and bassy flutes. This tracks with what we know about the worship practices of the Gallae. The poet Ovid describes a scene during the <em>Megalensia<\/em>, a festival devoted to Kybele, which took place on April 4<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b71b08c8bff935ba315a09a6a0ba7528\">Let the heaven\u2019s eternal axis turn three times, and Titan thrice hitch, thrice free his horses, then the Berecyntian flute\u2019s curved horn will blow, and the Idaean Mother\u2019s feast begin. The eunuchs will parade and pound the hollow drums, and their clashing bronze cymbals will ring. She will ride on the soft necks of her acolytes, howled along the city\u2019s major streets. The stage roars, the shows call\u2026I have much to ask, but the strident cymbal\u2019s clash and the claw-pipe\u2019s chilling noise scare me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u2013 Ovid, Fasti IV, 183-186, 189-190<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-51e7c0c12099a9ea46dd593be0918da8\">\u201cBerecyntian\u201d is an epithet for Kybele, which refers to Berecyntus, a mountain in Phrygia (Lewis and Short). Same with \u201cIdaean\u201d, that refers to Mount Ida, southeast of the ruins of Troy. That jives with the Homeric Hymn as well \u2013 it talks about how Kybele likes hills and valleys.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d6cbb9040e80d656eaa6e2eb9018616f\">And of course, \u201cthe eunuchs\u201d refers to the Gallae.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5895565d0870bd481f3ef420fd7cc07d\">I couldn\u2019t figure out what a \u201cclaw-pipe\u201d is, but the original Latin refers to harsh sound in general. Maybe the translator is referring to an aulos.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b6343fa6aa8afb24ccd064a57e1b4ddd\">Now, the Romans really didn\u2019t like any of this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-41a744c65fb90f0b530ca1399b07ca4c\">The poet Horace, a contemporary of Vergil and Ovid &#8211; he&#8217;s the &#8220;carpe diem&#8221; guy, you know, seize the fish or whatever, describes the sound of the tambourine as &#8220;<em>saeva<\/em>&#8220;, or cruel (Carm. 1.18.13-14), and Ovid tells us they&#8217;re &#8220;<em>inanis<\/em>&#8220;, or worthless (Fast. 4.183). On the other hand, cymbals, to Ovid, &#8220;<em>terret<\/em>&#8220;, or are frightening (Fast. 4.190), and the poet Propertius says they&#8217;re &#8220;<em>rauca<\/em>&#8220;, or harsh (Prop. 3.17.36). Seneca describes the sound of the horns in a similar way (Ag. 689), while Lucretius says they feel threatening because of their &#8220;<em>raucisono<\/em> <em>cantu<\/em>&#8220;, or harsh sound (Bremmer, 563).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-921b8447a3adccde9f088e89cef7bd94\">So, music was an important part of the rituals of the Gallae. They played wind instruments and percussion, and apparently, they also shrieked and screamed, in imitation of the wolves and lions that Kybele liked, and in mourning for the dead Attis \u2013 but more on that later.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ba7fc8ed688a7b2a78faadb19ad0d51d\">There\u2019s another bit I want to pull from that Ovid quote, though \u2013 \u201cShe will ride on the soft necks of her acolytes, howled along the city\u2019s major streets.\u201d There are multiple references to their \u201csoft necks\u201d, which I guess was a sort of Roman shorthand for effeminacy, sort of like \u201climp wrist\u201d might be today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-629f58e9f9afb4c25218ebfad4713648\">But we actually have a depiction of this. It\u2019s on an altar the Gallae used, which, again, is such an awesome thing to discover. This object is currently in the Fitzwilliam Museum, part of the University of Cambridge.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-231cf89b1c3ff1b6c331efd75a0b802c\">This side of it shows Kybele in the middle, flanked by two Gallae, who are wearing Phrygian caps, like Attis. The way they&#8217;re standing, it looks like they&#8217;re mourning Attis, which was an important part of their practices \u2013 I said we\u2019d get to that later, alright? Geez, so impatient. Kybele herself is holding a branch in one hand, and a bowl of fruit in the other, much like the Galla portrait we looked at earlier, neato (Tillyard, 284).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-351ebc07c63b60b1a97f65bad55f625d\">Another side shows that procession Ovid talked about. We can see four Gallae carrying some cult symbols of Kybele on a bier, which I today learned is the thing a coffin rests on when you carry it in a funeral procession. They, too, are wearing Phrygian caps. In the middle of the bier, there&#8217;s a big throne with a footstool &#8211; Kybele is shown sitting on a throne pretty regularly in Roman art. On top of the throne is a basket, which we figure is full of Kybele-related cult objects. There are two smaller Gallae on it too, which are probably sculptures and not actual Gallae (Tillyard, 285-7).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b302dacb0847488162874d861a57bfa4\">Unfortunately it doesn\u2019t show them actually playing their instruments, but on a third side, there&#8217;s a tree &#8211; the different Attis stories usually have a tree in them &#8211; with a drum, aulos, and cymbals hanging from it. So, this altar would certainly have been a place where the Gallae offered up their worship to the Great Mother Goddess.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5779fc42b73843b6abe9ae7483565e37\">So, 2200 years ago, trans girls were marching through the streets of Rome making harsh noise music and weirding out everyone around them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5b532e630a66a9cafdeec394ae08ba1e\">Dolls who don\u2019t learn their history are doomed to repeat it, I guess.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-v-trees-fruits-and-nocturnal-emissions\"><strong>Chapter V: Trees, Fruits, and Nocturnal Emissions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c1dd45581e8325de27e903664eb0c754\">What else do we see on this portrait?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f4fac6618b50c8f01ca277dfbe22ac55\">In her left hand, she\u2019s holding a bowl of fruit and nuts, just like Kybele is on the altar we looked at a moment ago. It\u2019s easy to just accept that as a symbol of fertility, which makes sense for a mother goddess. And, yeah, that\u2019s part of it, but also, there are some almonds there, and that\u2019s an important bit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6a535b6b977f9f35e05db388f657f98a\">According to the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> century CE Greek writer Pausanias, a monster named Agdistis was born after Zeus fell asleep and had a wet dream.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-abcb3ddfac186de8c06fded2f375f32e\">Seriously, take this quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cebbdb2d19a368949433ab23d834f3e4\">Zeus, it is said, let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3d5c9420f3360bf835dd046a06cef097\">&#8211; Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece, 7.17.10<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4364769c2fd9675bcdf31a75839d2d82\">What else could that be? Incredible stuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f4e628ea105e2d3ff1f1199c4db12ee1\">Anyway, it dripped down on the Earth \u2013 I\u2019d hate to be standing in the way of that one \u2013 and Agdistis popped out, the intersex icon with two sets of genitals. They were just a little too chaotic for everyone to deal with though, sounds like some trans girls I know, so Dionysus tied her foot to her dick while she was sleeping. I\u2019m not sure what he was planning to accomplish here, but when she woke up she started thrashing around, and tore off her, yeah.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-907e5de91a7f6f42273ab606eccb57db\">It fell on the ground, and an almond tree sprouted from it, because that\u2019s how things go in mythology.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9abefb737dad5b9339092bc9776b37ae\">The almond tree grew, and a young girl picked some almonds from it and put them down her shirt. They absorbed into her chest and impregnated her, and&#8230; what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f117cb34b667bff4cf5bb3cbb858ea8f\">ANYWAY, she gave birth to Attis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-812a49a6f365d303a5bad83cb4b47d37\">So, almonds were an important symbol \u2013 not a cymbal, we talked about those already \u2013 a symbol for the cult of Kybele. Any ritual practices they had would almost certainly have involved almonds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-265b0de2a41d811dc44297e9c0d8765e\">What about her other hand? That\u2019s three myrtle branches. Myrtle had A LOT of different uses in Greco-Roman ritual, and I\u2019m not going to get into all of it here. But it was associated with Venus, since she was holding myrtle when she was born. It was also used when making a victory crown from a non-violent victory, like if you won at the Olympic games. They were also worn to sacrifices or banquets. And in Rome, the Romans and Sabines were said to have purified themselves using myrtle when they joined forces and became one people (Blakely). But also, E. M. W. Tillyard describes the branch on the Kybele altar we looked at earlier as a pomegranate branch, which is associated with Hades and Persephone, and with fertility in general. I\u2019m not enough of a horticultural archaeologist to know which of these it is.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-916393d1fddc3edddd1d8e94037b0943\">Mary Beard says the mystery branch would have been used as a sort of sprinkler (211), though she doesn\u2019t elaborate, and I haven\u2019t been able to find any details beyond that. We do know the Gallae would sprinkle their blood on the statues and altars of the temple of Kybele though, so maybe that\u2019s what it was used for.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-vi-dixi-flagellato-bene-facere\"><strong>Chapter VI: Dixi Flagellato! Bene Facere!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0c4d0b6ac299dce1f9a99a59164a2f70\">We also see what looks almost like train tracks, draped near her left shoulder. What\u2019s that?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-99c9fe9ff97d1db1156d6829c652f66b\">It\u2019s a whip, probably leather, with knucklebones tied into it. The Gallae would use that for self flagellation. And the stick with a bearded head on either end of it is the handle \u2013 it\u2019s draped over her shoulder (Vermaseren, 99-100). The other Galla statue we looked at \u2013 the full body one \u2013 also has a whip draped around her neck, which you can see if you look closely (Vermaseren, 115).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-087ec7e7f64d071dccf297a48a71ce1b\">When the Gallae prepared for their ritual castration, they would whip themselves until they bled using one of these things.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-46181b98b22e873544de002201512baa\">Why?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fdc4404bc78ef5e1c9e1610ac41a855d\">It\u2019s easy to just assume this was an expression of self-hatred, which is what our ancient sources tell us. The Gallae would re-enact the death of Attis, and part of that included lamentation at the act of self castration. And like, alright, that\u2019s one possible explanation. But we don\u2019t have any written sources by the Gallae themselves, only from observers and onlookers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f2413c26988ed9c5769677a6485862b7\">Catullus, for example, in poem 63, talks about the Gallae in detail. The poem\u2019s final lines read, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c213fe2b9f4df2b2fac12f04fcad3415\">Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Goddess Dame of Dindymus, far from my home may all your anger be, 0 mistress: urge others to such actions, to madness others hound.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-88272b1d36658fd4dabbf48a4371d34c\">&#8211; Catullus, Carmina LXIII<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9a6350a267d4f54a0c3e80f3765bfa9e\">In case that isn\u2019t clear based on the context, he\u2019s begging Kybele not to make him a Galla. And this is one of the kinder treatments they receive in Roman literature (though maybe, least unkind might be a more accurate description).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-665a455a6dc6975f71ff1ccfec0267f1\">That poem is mostly focused on Attis, as he castrates himself \u2014 err, sorry \u2013 it documents his journey through his gender confirmation surgery \u2013 and yeah, it does talk about how much he regrets it, quote:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bda41b595351ee90e602f9548867fc10\">I was the gymnasium\u2019s flower, I was the pride of the oiled wrestlers: my gates, my friendly threshold, were crowded, my home was decked with floral garlands, when I used to leave my couch at sunrise. Now will I live a ministrant of gods and slave to Cybele? I a Maenad, I a part of me, I a sterile trunk&#8230;Now, now, I grieve the deed I\u2019ve done; now, now, do I repent!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-92291e9575186320aa9e5dd78d927ab0\">&#8211; Catullus, Carmina LXIII<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ab77155245c4b39536304760205909cb\">So the self flagellation may have been an emulation of Attis\u2019 regret, or a way to channel their own regret into their rituals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6780d33647c641e45ef6859742c630c2\">But look, not to brag or anything, but I\u2019ve met a lot of trans girls. And I don\u2019t know anybody who regrets transitioning. Girls who regret certain aspects of it? Sure. Girls who wish they\u2019d done it a little differently? Absolutely. Girls who wish the people in their lives were better to them through the process? Of course. Girls who wish the world wasn\u2019t so bloody hostile to us? Uh huh. But girls who regret the whole thing? No.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3891c075e26cb20b45f27af03dc8c113\">I\u2019m not saying detransitioning is not a thing. People do detransition. But look \u2013 the regret rates among trans people are really, really low. If you\u2019re trans, you know this already. But if you\u2019re not, you might have heard a lot of nonsense about how so many of us regret transitioning, and that just doesn\u2019t reflect reality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f39c09bd27500fd94e03656dc68251a9\">There\u2019s one paper in particular I want to talk about here. It\u2019s a meta-analysis, which is a type of study where researchers review a bunch of other papers on a topic, to try and combine data points that match with each other. This can help you get a clearer picture on a topic, since larger sample sizes are in general a good thing for scientific research. Anyway, this paper, by Bustos Et Al, seems to be the largest on transition regret. It reviewed 27 different papers, with a combined 7,928 different trans people who\u2019d gotten some form of gender affirming surgery \u2013 a third were transmasculine, the rest were transfeminine \u2013 and looked at the rate of regret for these surgeries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0d7584dcdf0ad7a06a843e4721e875d8\">They found 77 regretted getting their procedure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-20cdfd39d2f88a38e955c7b31a5d77bb\">That\u2019s 77, out of 7,928. The study said that\u2019s less than 1%, but that\u2019s like saying Julius Caesar died more than 10 years ago. In fact, it\u2019s 0.0097%. Less than one one hundredth of one percent. And of that tiny number, more than a third expressed only \u201cminor\u201d regret.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6e391baa79d370e7cc104f75c3211ce2\">For comparison, another study, led by Kerry D. Solomon, found LASIK eye surgery has a regret rate of about 4.6%. As a result, they said, \u201cLASIK surgery should be considered among the most successful elective procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0b6054168fa53050b0fc644b0523b7f6\">So look, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s impossible the Gallae regretted their transitions. But I don\u2019t trust non-Gallae to tell us about them in a way that\u2019s fair to their experience. Margaret Dierdre O\u2019Hartigan wrote a piece on the Gallae in a trans feminist zine called TransSisters, which is truly awesome, but she put the way I feel about this really succinctly, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5639b65d685ed08e9fab7c8dcd340a5d\">If there is one thing that having been both male and then female has taught me, it is that no one who has not gone through a similar transformation can be trusted to explain or to speak for us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d6845d4866fe96e67ee93bbf1d8cbea8\">&#8211; Margaret Dierdre O\u2019Hartigan, TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism #4, 18<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5057bb99a1042a96dedd02673866f6ca\">So, I\u2019m reluctant to trust what men have to say about the Gallae. Of course they\u2019d be weirded out by it. They\u2019re men. Men don\u2019t like the idea of being women, just as women don\u2019t like the idea of being men.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-00ab08266e27aa523ef4bddd28e237fb\">[freezeframe] if you\u2019re a man who takes umbrage to that last statement, check in with yourself \u2013 you might not be as much of a man as you think.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-09b419c53a636ff43ed8f9e0d7e370e2\">So, what\u2019s the reason for the flogging?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-78fc052a494ee6d036e93a16b5c5052e\">I\u2019d like to present a possibility.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d2e60df34e69ed1689b0799f66cd685d\">The <em>Dies Sanguinis<\/em> \u2013 the Day of Blood \u2013 was celebrated on March 24<sup>th<\/sup> of each year. This was part of a long celebration of the Great Mother, which began on March 15<sup>th<\/sup>. During the Dies Sanguinis, they would ritually castrate themselves, but they would also whip themselves until they bled. Then, they would sprinkle the altars and icons in the temple of Kybele with their blood.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8ef15ec7fedd67dc997af7734de0ffb5\">Now look, when it comes to giving yourself the snip, even if you want to do it, it\u2019s going to hurt. A lot. What might you be able to do to relieve that pain?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8e73d13124a167413d64874c459727a2\">The Romans <em>did<\/em> have opium, which is what we use to derive a number of different pain relieving medications today. We\u2019ve found capsules with opium residue inside of them throughout the Levant and Egypt. They\u2019re fairly consistent in design as well, which suggests there was actually a standardized system of production and distribution of the stuff. The Greek writer Dioscorides even tells us about the technique he used to harvest it, which is pretty fun. But they mostly either added a bit to their wine to use as a sleep aid, or took a lot of it to end their own lives, which wasn\u2019t considered a sin in the pre-Christian era (Matyszak).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-11528b47164a305a7c67512a93f9e4be\">It might have been used for pain relief, but there isn&#8217;t much in ancient literature about it. Even Paul of Aegina, a Byzantine doctor we talked about in the original video on eunuchs, doesn\u2019t mention it in his section about relieving pain (Section 40).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8e7a71f3b7e8a8aa1ce6a5656782325d\">And even if the Romans did use it for pain relief \u2013 and to be clear, they may have, there\u2019s just very little in terms of literary references to it \u2013 it may not have been easy to come by, especially for the Gallae who, by and large, were confined to the temple of Kybele except for during the festival.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-de8a13c520154e41fcffbde726bebb1f\">Also, they might have used it \u2013 again, there are very few references to opiates in the literature, and nothing at all from the Gallae themselves. We don\u2019t know.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-38dff5eb5f32be356c2e136650b574e4\">But that aside, what else might they have done to work themselves up to doing the deed?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-00ad24a7b25e61a68c15fe30579a33ac\">For this, let\u2019s take a look at a concept called conditioned pain modulation. I\u2019m super not a scientist, I\u2019m a historian. This is my very basic understanding and interpretation of science, but if you know more about this stuff than I do and I\u2019m off base here, please let me know.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4b42e1bb503683cce97d905eb7968997\">But basically, conditioned pain modulation is part of your body\u2019s pain control mechanism. When you experience two different types of pain, your brain perceives one of them as less painful (Ruhr-University Bochum). This might make sense to you intuitively \u2013 for example, my girlfriend told me when she gets dental work done, she sometimes digs her fingernails into her palm to distract from the feeling. I do the same during laser hair removal sessions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5c8018a8ef07c9b01e61315c2ae6234c\">Could the Gallae have used a similar technique to control the pain during the <em>Dies Sanguinis<\/em>?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-780210789e03bbe70005328213bfa486\">Maybe. I don\u2019t have any sources I could use as evidence for this, but then again, we don\u2019t have any sources from the Gallae themselves at all.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e0d6b431c64b2496d9616800519da7de\">So unfortunately, that\u2019s gotta go in the maybe box. But still, it\u2019s important to note that self loathing isn\u2019t the only possible explanation for the self flagellation of the Gallae.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3592304a4a6591a370290884847befc6\">There are also a whole lot of religious traditions that include self flagellation, plenty of which are still around today. Some of those are based around Christianity, and are practiced as a form of repentance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8e3192117442c0fe905bff5df5814932\">That\u2019s not self-hatred though \u2013 Christians don\u2019t hate themselves by definition. It\u2019s a recognition of the sin inherent in all people, and an attempt to purify their souls for Christ \u2013 but look, this video isn\u2019t about Christianity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-51ecbe4234cba2b108e5dfbf2e3a083d\">Some pagan traditions will include self flagellation in their worship practices as well. This is really not something I&#8217;m familiar with, so I apologize if I get something wrong here. I&#8217;m not a wiccan. So instead, I&#8217;m going to rely on the words of Thista Minai, a queer writer about witchcraft. In her book, \u201cCasting A Queer Circle: Non-Binary Witchcraft\u201d, she talks about the use of a scourge, or a whip, in ritual circles, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e74257545ead70f23148a55372498996\">The scourge is a cross-quarter tool representing discipline and endurance. Ritual flagellation can be seen as a sort of counterpoint to the sacred meal. Both are concerned with the sacred potential of physical experience, but while ritual food and drink brings us nourishment and pleasure, scourging brings us insight gained through suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c695d1ceacfb7efc48fa905f1b6f7cca\">Pain applied skillfully, intentionally, consensually, and non-injuriously can be a powerful tool for personal revelation and transformation. Physiological responses to pain can help us break out of old mental habits, and inducing that state in a carefully crafted ritual atmosphere can let us replace self-destructive patterns with constructive thinking and new potential.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0e436fa896f67ba7099eaf441440d588\">&#8211; Thista Minai, \u201cCasting A Queer Circle: Non-Binary Witchcraft\u201d, Pg. 41<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a56e42dbb7bc17c2565671fae3cbd1c5\">It\u2019s interesting that Minai contrasts the use of pain with the pleasure of a feast. And we do know the Gallae took part in a feast shortly after they self flagellated, and shortly after they were inducted into the order \u2013 we\u2019ll take a closer look at that later.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-697288fc184cb1ca1d089bf59abc10f5\">So, did the Gallae use self flagellation in this way? Again, we don\u2019t know. I wish we had their thoughts on this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2328e3bd15661857b98e3c45da2aac49\">But the point is, the Gallae didn\u2019t necessarily practice self flagellation because they hated themselves. I\u2019ve provided two other possibilities, neither of which are even mutually exclusive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-vii-the-march-festivals-in-honour-of-attis\"><strong>Chapter VII: The March Festivals in Honour of Attis<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1446709e0ca024ab85260d5d1b58021c\">Alright, so we have a bunch of elements of the worship of the Gallae. We even talked about one of the festivals \u2013 the Megalensia, oh April 4<sup>th<\/sup> (Vermaseren, 124). But that\u2019s not the only festival we know of when it comes to their worship.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f61864c40c3c2643600f53724c4e804b\">Part of what we know comes from the Roman scribe Furius Dionysus Philocalus, who created a calendar for the year 354 CE, which outlined a whole bunch of different important dates in the Roman world. It\u2019s a pretty interesting little text, In particular, he tells us about some dates in March, which were part of a festival to Attis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b92f00b29a4d0d3625af45e64ff2206f\">This March festival, interestingly, seems to have replaced the April Megalensia we talked about earlier. Remember, the source we used for the Megalensia is Ovid&#8217;s Fasti, which was written in the early 1st century CE, and Furius Dionysus Philocalus&#8217; work is from 354. For comparison, imagine a festival in your country from the 1700\u2019s, if your country is even old enough to do this. If it\u2019s still being celebrated today, chances are, it\u2019s changed at least a bit since then. It\u2019s thought that the March festival as we\u2019re about to explore it properly coalesced during the reign of Antoninus Pius, who reigned from 138 to 161 CE, though it had probably been celebrated for centuries before then (Fishwick, 194).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-007b154fff5e34fa0c710e23b3ed3ceb\">Now, these festival dates follow the myth of Attis, so to properly understand them I think it\u2019s a good idea to tell the tale of Attis. We talked about that in the previous video on the Gallae, and touched on it a bit earlier, but whatever, here it is again. A few different sources talk about it, but we have two key sources.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6f5fc4298807d87b1a2570014d1b46d6\">One of them is Pausanias, a 2<sup>nd<\/sup> century CE Greek who wrote a sort of travel guide to Greece of his day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3d7f4cffdc9c520b761bb0cd72a96e6a\">The other is Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses, because of course it is.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0289bf267d15e2e34614e28f06690686\">Anyway, they contradict each other in some ways, but here are the basic beats of Attis\u2019 life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-87c39048c61cb4d25851dbafaa6cbb5c\">Zeus had a wet dream, it dripped on the ground, and Agdistis \u2013 who, remember, was associated with Kybele &#8211; was born. Dionysus tied her dick to her foot and it tore off, from which an almond tree grew. A young maiden picked some almonds from the tree and put them down her shirt, which absorbed into her chest and impregnated her.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-71932c74c6136f449da10a911e5ad598\">She gave birth to Attis, and abandoned him by a river. He was nursed by a goat, before being found and raised by a shepherd family.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fba3c77cec42569d01750da8ab0b2c12\">He grew up to be hot, and Kybele\/Agdistis fell in love with him \u2013 remember, she\u2019s basically his grandma. It\u2019s really weird I know, but Greek mythology is full of this sort of thing. Anyway, Attis was into another girl, so Kybele was separated from her hot boy, which made her sad. So she did what any lovesick lady would do \u2013 she made him go mad and castrate himself. Then he collapsed under a pine tree and died. But she felt bad about it after, so Zeus made Attis immortal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5cbc815348439249f6195f545f2957a3\">So, the festival days commemorated Attis\u2019 life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-32be556a758a7f8506726b8096d79b3c\">Let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xv-canna-intrat\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XV: CANNA INTRAT<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7ab6c7fb3179b30b68841e5a4637a5d1\">The first day of the festival was Canna Intrat, which fell on the 15<sup>th<\/sup> of March. You might recognize that day as the Ides of March, and you might think of it as the day a certain salad was skewered by several surly senators. The Ides of March sounds sinister to us because of Shakespeare\u2019s line \u201cbeware the ides of March\u201d in his play Julius Caesar, but it was just a day. Every month had an ides. It&#8217;s just how the Romans counted their days. The ides of a month is in the middle of it &#8211; either the 13th or the 15th, depending on the month, corresponding with the full moon. The nones corresponds with a quarter moon, and shows up on the fifth or the seventh. And the Kalends is always on the first of the month, which is where we get the English word Calendar (Ostberg).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d66d457efb4a95df9587f1e1e7b8e0a3\">Anyway, Canna Intrat is Latin, which means \u201cthe reed enters\u201d. As in, reeds you find on the shore of a river, y\u2019know? This might commemorate the first day of Attis\u2019 life, where he was abandoned by the river, but it might also symbolize his unfaithfulness to Kybele. Another group of followers of Kybele, the <em>cannophori<\/em> (reed-bearers), harvested some reeds, and carried them through the city to the temple of Mater Magna. They also led a bull along in the procession, to be sacrificed to the goddess, as a fertility ritual. This seems to have been a much more solemn procession &#8211; no screaming or clanging here. (Vermaseren, 114, Fishwick, 195, Turcan, 44). Either way, we think this ritual was established by the emperor Claudius (Nock, 156), who ruled from 41 to 54 CE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-53f269887277155b5bc00d462b8e8e74\">Were the <em>cannophori <\/em>Gallae? I can\u2019t find much information on them one way or another, but they seem to have admitted non-Gallae into their ranks as well (Vermaseren, 115) so at least some of them were not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-38b296033933466be571e125dbd4733b\">After the Canna Intrat, there was a nine day period of fasting and abstinence. They wouldn\u2019t eat bread, certain meats and fruits, or drink wine. Some of the most devoted&#8230; devotees&#8230; of Kybele and Attis would avoid these things altogether, but they were particularly important during the fast. This is supposed to represent the time where Kybele was denied the companionship of Attis (Vermaseren, 115).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fae0db451b11b7455433c558d630cf26\">No mention is made of the Gallae at this point that I\u2019ve seen, but they must have been part of it. I mean it\u2019s not like they have anything better to do, you know? They\u2019re the primary devotees of the Kybele and Attis cult, they must have done something here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bbe154d4dfe20e288cf3528e2518af00\">Imagine a convent of nuns not doing anything on Christmas, y\u2019know?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxii-arbor-intrat\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXII: ARBOR INTRAT<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-52ae3da4338ac41d8e049a77749c2f5c\">So, we know Canna Intrat means \u201cthe reed enters\u201d. Can you guess what Arbor Intrat means?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c605cf249a7b704f305b9dc932b49fc4\">It\u2019s not a trick question \u2013 the tree enters. Y\u2019know, like with Arbour Day, the tree day? No? Did nobody do anything for Arbour Day when they were kids? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-06d221f4cc52f179506a464374d7cfb4\">Anyway, this is the day where the tree enters. Not the almond tree though, the pine tree. You know, the one he died under after his GRS funding wasn\u2019t approved so he chose a DIY approach?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-47c11926ebb38aa3367e14f4c7cf950d\">This one is led by another group, the <em>dendrophori, <\/em>or tree-bearers. They used the Greek \u03b4\u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd though, instead of the Latin ARBOR. Whatev. The <em>dendrophori<\/em> were mostly made up of people who worked in the Roman lumber industry \u2013 professional wood cutters and timber sellers. Early in the morning, before sunrise, they cut down a pine tree. They also sacrificed a ram, and let its blood flow through the roots of the tree. Then, we\u2019re told they attached an effigy of Attis to the tree with purple ribbons, and carried it in a procession to the temple (Vermaseren, 115, Turcan, 44).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5bfa2056478aa214bc86fac63906b6ee\">But take a look at that altar we looked at earlier \u2013 the tree has a bunch of stuff hanging from it \u2013 drums, cymbals, auloi. And this is clearly a pine tree too, look at how many pinecones there are in there. They decorated this thing like a Christmas tree.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2e81bb67dc3cf5604fe19e793800a58c\">Oh geez, y\u2019all are going to start hanging Attis figures from your Christmas trees now, aren\u2019t you? I can\u2019t be held responsible for trans girls who start hanging Attises from their Christmas trees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-38b48810f2a39e02fa94e6d2856a2103\">Anyway, after they laid the tree down in the temple in like, a funeral style, as though it were Attis. Then they began banging on drums and cymbals, and shrieking and wailing, in mourning over Attis\u2019 death \u2013 the primary sources I read don\u2019t say it specifically, but that\u2019s gotta be the Gallae. The dendrophori were probably not Gallae, so it\u2019s most likely the Gallae were part of the ritual, but not the only ones.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c545f9e53940bd8907924499445513fa\">Anyway, they did this all day long, and into the next day, which would have set them back quite a bit in their voice feminization training but I guess a priestess\u2019s gotta do what a priestess\u2019s gotta do, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxiii-this-one-doesnt-have-a-name\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXIII: THIS ONE DOESN\u2019T HAVE A NAME<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9f4b04b9e24c2d0658739320a73ead2e\">March 23<sup>rd<\/sup> was a day of mourning for Attis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e857a522823aac3ea963c8c7ac2611a1\">There was a performance by the SALII, who were an order of priests devoted to Mars. They\u2019re referred to as jumping priests, so I guess it\u2019s some sort of acrobatics?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b74568719c4c36650e652049d57c0f87\">CIRQUE DU MARS<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-55cfefe428ab4a3fad676c7a9e4bd8a3\">March is named after the god Mars, after all. Makes sense he\u2019d be involved somewhere.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6843761cfd3ce8215ec313b27934cafd\">They\u2019d also blare their trumpets and beat their shields while they marched around the temple of Kybele, while the Gallae mourned from within (Vermaseren, 115, Turcan, 45). Maybe they even joined in on the jam session. I can\u2019t imagine the noise.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7f8850af8d714578e2d4c5c314630da8\">Maybe it\u2019s like the air show. I always make a point to be out of town when Toronto\u2019s air show is on. If you lived near the temple of Kybele, maybe you\u2019d take the opportunity to visit your relatives in the country on March 23<sup>rd<\/sup>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxiv-dies-sangvinis\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXIV: DIES SANGVINIS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-aa9c93d99943e637ced4a11d9a2f281d\">Here we are. Skip this part if you\u2019re squeamish.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7ccb153179ac93fb6563ba36b941c7ac\">During the Dies Sanguinis \u2013 the day of blood &#8211; the Gallae would whip themselves until they bled. They might also beat themselves with pinecones, and cut their shoulders, chests, or arms with knives. This, combined with not having eaten for nine days, would have put them in a very intense state.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-87e449c5c76556781c1714c69496c926\">Then, they all partook in gender affirming excision together, and sprinkled their blood on the different sacred objects in the temple. That would include the altars, and the effigy of Attis, and assumingly the tree as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-edd837f38047d7a9ee4a1df9d0bdd808\">Then, they\u2019d have their lower stomach tattooed, probably with some images of Kybele and Attis. This inducted the new Gallae into the order.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7a6b1146d63fd7302acb0a873bf9e422\">That night, they carried the tree \u2013 remember, it\u2019s supposed to represent Attis \u2013 on a bier, and carried it to a grave, where they buried it. They kept mourning and shrieking as they did so \u2013 I imagine their throats are pretty raw at this point. When the mourning finishes, a priest anoints their throats, and says to them, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0ebdf952b0870d6812b11d28e0f44389\">\u0398\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03cd \u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03c9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03ac\u03c1 \u03ae\u03bc\u03af\u03bd \u03ad\u03ba \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2ebf7675b8885d6261ea2ef7af0c8110\">Be of good heart, you novices, because the god is saved. Deliverance from distress will come for us, as well (Vermaseren, 116).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxv-hilaria\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXV: HILARIA<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d946a1a936f96faef0c034d04c330110\">Rejoice, for he is risen! No, not Christ. That\u2019s on a different day, though amusingly I happen to be writing this on Easter Sunday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-141734aeaadc91bd6a9e412fd37de67b\">Hilaria is a noun that means like, merriment, rejoicing, joyous celebration, that sort of thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-104a65876f5510228b9a2904755bd323\">March 25<sup>th<\/sup> commemorates the resurrection of Attis, which took place the day after the spring equinox \u2013 the first day where the day is longer than the night. I know the spring equinox is usually on the 20th, but remember, they hadn\u2019t invented the Gregorian calendar yet. The Roman calendar doesn\u2019t exactly match up with ours.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-063e8729dc4900fd0210efb0fc00c714\">During this period, they\u2019d have a triumph, which was a type of Roman parade usually reserved for generals who\u2019d won an important military victory. The emperor would be at the head of the triumph, along with an idol representing Kybele, and a bunch of expensive art and other stuff loaned by the local rich guys. Following Kybele and the emperor were people of different social classes, including the upper class equites and senators, citizens, and freedmen. They\u2019d be wearing all sorts of different masks and disguises, which is maybe why it was open to everyone \u2013 you might not know who was behind the mask. Behind them, the Gallae would be playing their drums, cymbals, and auloi, and&nbsp; when they got to where they were going \u2013 which isn\u2019t clear, from what I read \u2013 there was a big feast (Turcan, 46).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9af90b0eca789917b3df66d9ae84b0da\">The quote from the DIES SANGUINIS earlier might have happened on this day. It makes more sense based on context, anyway. We\u2019re not sure (Vermaseren, 116).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-440fb2cd8734ce20b492f4ddb446c8d8\">But there\u2019s another ceremony which may have taken place on this date, or on the DIES SANGUINIS. I\u2019m talking about it here just to try and space things out.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bfe73078d90fcb681f9ab5da0ca45aa3\">Anyway, we don\u2019t know much about the specifics of the rite itself, but we know it was sort of like a secret passage to enter. This was a common thing among ancient mystery cults \u2013 the Eleusinian Mysteries had a similar entrance ritual.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2bdffeba24e759084235bba7ac9abec3\">Anyway, there are a couple of different versions of it, but they say more or less the same thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-735a8a36666a98ce934df17d95f4ead9\">Clement of Alexandria gives us the most complete version, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-eadd687d43ef295e7321488edd0fc9ca\">\u03ad\u03ba \u03c4\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ad\u03ba \u03ba\u03c5\u03bc\u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ad\u03ba\u03b9\u03c1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1, \u03cd\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03cd\u03c0\u03ad\u03b4\u03c5\u03bd<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-88daeec48d9ac2aaf028718df016fe20\">From the drum I have eaten, from the cymbal I have drunk, I have carried the knowledge, the room I have entered. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cefce0dc7cf616aa2ea079dfd81837b3\">Clement of Alexandria &#8211; Exhortations, 2.35<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-29bbecce1d112acc63eb1540458e0913\">Firmicus Maternus tells us this was the phrase they used in order to be given entrance to the temple. He also adds \u201cI have become an initiate of Attis\u201d to the end of his.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-619da5e7188be35d52fda16c2ec54862\">And like, I think about this sort of thing sometimes, y\u2019know?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d6fb9f2393a1eaea7de7bab5ef337c19\">Like, are you ever out somewhere, and you see a chick who looks cool and you\u2019re pretty sure she\u2019s trans, but you don\u2019t want to say anything because \u201chey I noticed you\u2019re trans\u201d is not a good icebreaker if she is trans, and REALLY not a good icebreaker if you\u2019re mistaken and she\u2019s not, but also you don\u2019t know what else to say so you just sort of gently smile at each other knowingly, sort of, but also not, because again you\u2019re not sure?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cc1210ed53eac5f515a91194727ccbe9\">We do have the flag, but that\u2019s becoming more recognized and the world is becoming more, ehhhhhhh.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-98f056d4bcda5d73bef2bcca106985bd\">But our ancestors have given us a gift \u2013 initiate of Attis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-69bae283f98a44a4bb75a0e75fd66684\">Sort of like the handkerchief code gay boys used to use, or calling each other a \u201cfriend of Dorothy\u201d, maybe \u201cinitiate of Attis\u201d can be a similar code word for us.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxvi-reqvieto\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXVI: REQVIETO<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e77a1bebdd46353cd9416cc4b968ebe9\">On this day, everyone rested, because oh my goodness would they have needed it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-425db708251a9bfc14a7457dd6b18650\">There isn\u2019t much to say about this one, so instead, I\u2019m going to take this opportunity to have a rest, because I\u2019ve been writing for like 3 hours straight at this point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d7691a83c9a78c09dbc20082bab4db73\">Catch ya later, I\u2019m going for a bike ride.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxvii-lavatio\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXVII: LAVATIO<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-859f40fbcecdcc6a22e69ec74fb4781f\">Ah, that\u2019s better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0cd465ce74050bbd15b56a58c040a59f\">Lavatio means bath \u2013 an appropriate activity after a sweaty bike ride. This was another very solemn, serious ritual. It involved another procession \u2013 the cult of Kybele loved its processions \u2013 where the archigallus would carry the Kybele stone in a chariot from the temple to the Almo, a small tributary of the Tiber River that flows through Rome. From there, he would dip the stone in the river and coat it with ash. He&#8217;d do the same with the other tools and religious items, as well as with the chariot itself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-15d9ddc3e00830da9bea58ee30bdf9d9\">Then, he\u2019d ask the Mater Magna if she wanted to return to Rome. I guess she always did, because after that, they\u2019d return her to the temple, but this time it was a much more festive procession. They\u2019d dance along the way, while being showered with flower pedals (Vermaseren, 123-124, Turcan, 46-47).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6c446cf70433b0913df5272bcf676a67\">Scholar Maarten J. Vermaseren says the return was \u201ca gay affair\u201d (124), which means this is evidence of the very first gay pride parade, wow!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"mensis-martivs-xxviii-initivm-caiani\"><strong>MENSIS MARTIVS XXVIII: INITIVM CAIANI<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-895486e969372a3d8e78bd989bd77d94\">We know the least about this day. In fact, this one might not even be a part of the festival of Kybele.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-45cbdec9b6deca55a95d9d8a89d26d67\">There\u2019s just so little we know about this one that I\u2019m not going to get into it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\" id=\"chapter-viii-what-can-this-tell-us\"><strong>Chapter VIII: What Can This Tell Us?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c082460096b4b88b25b18e40fec45972\">This festival was likely celebrated across the empire. There are a few different ways we know this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-45316b88ee6f203e5dfc7bce7fb87047\">First off, there are plenty of cult icons and altars to Kybele we\u2019ve found across former Roman territory. This includes modern day Turkey, which is not at all surprising since the Gallae came from there originally (Vermaseren, pl. 12, 13, 15, 16).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9d2a85d68ed92e1e48b30e52f0cdc7b4\">There are also a bunch from Athens, mostly discovered in Piraeus, which was Athens\u2019 port (Vermaseren, pl. 21, 23, 24).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2e9cdde4dab839a2b811d264703bdb2a\">This one was found along the Via Appia, a road going from Rome through the south of Italy (Vermaseren, pl. 42). Take a look at the tree, and what\u2019s hanging from it \u2013 that\u2019s an Attis tree.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0f3a5472733572e0965925645f41ddf9\">Here\u2019s the entrance to a shrine dedicated to Attis in Ostia, a port town near Rome (Vermaseren, pl. 43), and a statue of Attis reclining from within the same shrine (Vermaseren, pl. 44).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c876db15c6c1458ace9a8487ec077697\">Here\u2019s a fresco of a procession in honour of Attis, from Pompeii (Vermaseren, pl. 46). Could some of the people in the audience here be Gallae?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8081a539a7b94b3907598b6ff48103d5\">Here\u2019s a silver dish, from near Mediolanum \u2013 modern day Milan (Vermaseren, pl. 53). There\u2019s Kybele, and beautiful Attis by her side, in a chariot being pulled by lions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-33eab75904e7a8ab933044c801f76d89\">Here\u2019s a marble relief showing the death of Attis, which was found in Glanum, a bit south of Avignon, in France (Vermaseren, pl. 63).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2c824fabaa3b3f81d3a35205e28146d7\">Here\u2019s a sarcophagus depicting an archigallus \u2013 the high priest of the Gallae, who, remember, was not an actual Galla (Vermaseren, pl. 66). This one was found near Porto, in Portugal. This one\u2019s from Porto as well \u2013 it\u2019s an archigallus honouring Attis (Vermaseren, pl. 68).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c33d84a902f11dbf93ad15046d37d19e\">This one has Kybele along with Hermes and Hecate \u2013 it\u2019s from Egypt (Vermaseren, pl. 72).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f06809d43ba8348b238acfff553df441\">This one\u2019s from near Dusseldorf (Vermaseren, pl. 75), and this one\u2019s from Trier (Vermaseren, pl. 76).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-78f449cce28d3f82e1d890dcd6a34b0f\">Here\u2019s an Attis from Andetrium, modern day Croatia (Vermaseren, pl. 78).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4cb1453d3ac0c7fa94a2b6007a3d34df\">And here\u2019s one from Tomis \u2013 modern day Constanta, in Romania (Vermaseren, pl. 77). It\u2019s where Ovid lived out his final years after being exiled from the empire \u2013 the Kybele cult made its way out there, too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-98ea0ecbedf1e44af464b0188f361651\">You get the point. We\u2019ve found evidence of the cult of Kybele and Attis all over the place. But that isn\u2019t necessarily evidence the Gallae were there. After all, there were non-Gallae Romans who paid tribute to the Mater Magna as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f0b8a575033dee6fcdaa9d13ba1d8bb6\">But that\u2019s not all we have.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cc98f8362fd81b675786d42b1fa89628\">We\u2019ve also discovered a grave in Britain, with clear evidence it belongs to a Galla priestess. We won\u2019t go in depth into that here \u2013 that deserves its own video, and this one is already long enough. But it\u2019s pretty wonderful that such a thing exists. So that tells us the Gallae did have a presence outside of Rome (Pinto &amp; Pinto).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-23a10095fbde4c363cf8ce1fbfa0700a\">The literary evidence can help us too. In fact, it\u2019s none other than Saint Augustine who tells us about them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-79b6abb8923ed56f5b71b0b93bc506de\">Saint Augustine was an early Christian figure whose philosophical writings ended up greatly influencing the theological underpinnings of the church. If you were to make a list of the most influential Christians of all time, Saint Augustine would be on there. Born in the year 354 CE, he eventually became the bishop of Hippo, a city in Roman North Africa, in modern day Algeria, before dying in 430 CE.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bb2c5fe66b0655b735408e6a77f6e2e8\">He wrote a number of texts, but his most famous one is De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos \u2013 On the City of God Against the Pagans, or just City of God. He sets aside an entire chapter of Book VII to rail against the Gallae and the cult of the Great Mother, which opens with, quote:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-169a0e2d9380221ece8ab1d699993f96\">A lot to pick through there, and perhaps I\u2019ll do so more if I ever do a video addressing ancient transphobia. But for our purposes today, it\u2019s noteworthy that Saint Augustine saw the Gallae in Carthage, parading through the streets and asking for donations \u2013 just like we know they did in Rome as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f381b05cbc09fd8a67ad795d51d1366a\">So, we have clear evidence the Gallae had a wide ranging presence across the ancient Mediterranean. The cult of Kybele and Attis was practiced broadly, including the festivals devoted to them. e,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c30e4734db6d878aec6a52b06cc446b1\">But when you look at that Saint Augustine quote, it\u2019s pretty clear how much disdain he has for the Gallae. And he\u2019s not alone there. In fact, one of the great ironies I found while researching and writing this video was how many of the sources we have about the Gallae are openly hostile to them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bc2d773da543ca8d39ea3c2eff2adcf5\">Firmicus Maternus, for example, gives us the closest thing we have to a direct quote from the Gallae. But before he does so, he says, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ab278eff08e26db64bc8b723fbb1ec58\">They have a particular sign and a particular response, in which instruction of the devil is transmitted to them in the meetings of these very sacrileges.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-25be6a3989ea6737a094c67fdf1be68b\">Firmicus Maternus \u2013 De Errore Profanarum Religionem, Chapter 18<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1bcfae089671205fdfcc2bf172e5e973\">Now, the Gallae were practicing a religion, it\u2019s true, and modern trans girls, by and large, aren\u2019t. He also lived during the reign of Constantine I, when Christianity was absolutely still an underdog, and had been persecuted for centuries. Constantine put an end to that persecution, but that wouldn\u2019t have put an end to anti Christian attitudes any more than the 13th Amendment in the United States abolished racism. So in one respect, it\u2019s understandable that he wouldn\u2019t think terribly highly about pagans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c9443d1671100c4f33acb60ccc9ac123\">That said, if you know anything about moral panics, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll recognize the ingredients here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ca9e156a73415e3b76f59bc5d78fef07\">His work is called \u201cDe Errore Profanarum Religionem\u201d \u2013 On the Error of the Profane Religions. And the word profane had similar connotations in Latin as it does in English today \u2013 unclean, offensive, wicked. Just like Saint Augustine\u2019s work \u2013 On the City of God Against the Pagans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-cddb77701a713372be5c6d445f16aafe\">Clement of Alexandria, too, gives us some important details on their worship, and he\u2019s perhaps even harsher.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f0d0e94d2832193676287eddf6d37c77\">Just before he tells us the secret password of the Gallae, he says, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c75793ca4cce3b3ce7271191dd4708fc\">If I go on further to quote the symbols of initiation into this mystery they will, I know, move you to laughter, even though you are in no laughing humour when your rites are being exposed. Are not these symbols an outrage? Are not the mysteries a mockery?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-df882cb5ce5903f233a14ebbc75c7dc7\">&#8211; Clement of Alexandria, Protrepicus, Chapter 2 Verse 14<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0b8a04fd00c80ed0ad677c736c8fc69c\">Harsh, yes?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-469f7d3c7a856bd33f2833a836d37eeb\">But here\u2019s the thing \u2013 if it weren\u2019t for these guys and their desire to condemn the Gallae and their rituals, we wouldn\u2019t know many of the details we do know about them today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d61fa85301c9117ee994ebb30b6f5400\">They wanted to crush the Gallae, and now we\u2019re talking about them today, because of their words. So, there\u2019s that.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-139b5fd807921dee30f3b569a96d0fc2\">Maybe along with the rest of this video, that can bring you some comfort. Yes, qui oderunt \u2013 those who hate \u2013 refuse to shut up about us. They rant about us nonstop, constantly spreading awful lies about us to rile up their base. If the multimillionaire pundits can get the unwashed masses to spend their energy hating a stranger, that helps distract from the thousands of ways their billionaire masters are screwing everybody, every single day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-20cc3d86979f63549fb364f8ac886538\">But our trans siblings looking back on this time, thousands of years in the future, might see the likes of Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, or Donald Trump, and learn about us in that way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0663d26a047db0c0427b20a1e27ff96a\">And as sickening as that might seem, the fact that they can\u2019t shut up about us ensures that we\u2019ll be remembered.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3624be6cb34d00bb640d89531eb7f474\">Similarly, we don\u2019t know much about the Tectosages, because nobody wrote much about them. I mentioned them in the video on the Enaree grave, and someone in the comments became very cross because I deliberately pronounced their name wrong, so here you go \u2013 I\u2019m saying it right this time. May the Tectosages forgive me for my grave indiscretion \u2013 heh, get it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d3b942cea9b2c604152d07556ff6848d\">Anyway, trans people today, of course, have plenty of writings, and YouTube-ings, so our future siblings will have more than just the opinions of \u2018phobes to lean on.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b84c260ec5f47bf6ce17089f26953252\">But to borrow the words of trans feminist Margaret Dierdre O\u2019Hartigan once more, quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-3-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f7bf8733ad7842226692142a0817d0e8\">When I look upon the image of a Galla carved in stone for the Appian Way, I have no doubt that I gaze upon the image of a woman in whose features I recognize my own and whose life more closely resembles mine than do either of ours to the majority of our respective contemporaries. In that instant I sense that, although 1900 years may separate us, she is my sister and I am hers, and in this sense we are both priestesses of the Great Mother; we have both been male and become female.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6cff7e2b80570b124f6b01473b93fbb5\">&#8211; Margaret Dierdre O&#8217;Hartigan, TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism #4, 18, 31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-de425de74314088baebfe3873b03ea23\">The power brokers of the world may work to isolate us from each other, from ourselves, from our history.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0e4a4fa17c85763ee69d6b9ef6709e44\">But they were wrong in antiquity, and they\u2019re wrong today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2759d5a23debbbd956e632fbfdc0f777\">Today, we dug a lot more in depth into the worship practices of a sect of trans feminine priestesses \u2013 the Gallae. I hope this helps connect you to those who came before us. But when it comes to their rituals, there\u2019s a lot we don\u2019t know. So if you were considering a ritual approach to honouring our transcestors, you might find some gaps, and feel tempted to add your own details in.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7275da42c57565a855e0d27e0e997ffd\">That is, in fact, keeping with the traditions of the Gallae in the first place. We know their rituals changed over time, with new festival days and new worship practices. The emperors Claudius, Domitian, and Antoninus Pius, at least, are all known to have played a role in shaping the cult of Attis and Kybele (Vermaseren, 97-98), and the emperor Julian the Apostate wrote about the March festivals as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f3ee1fb25e54a0075f96aa0485347e68\">Each of these emperors would have left their mark on the festival, and assumingly the Gallae themselves would have found different ways to pay tribute to their patron deities as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1b3db4d562c71ebac8fcb15fef0755ff\">So if, in your own life, you\u2019re feeling isolated and alienated from your ancestors, perhaps these rituals can bring you some comfort.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f722c3ffe7c9b971bc44bfc57ccdf4d5\">As you gaze into the eyes of the sculptures of our ancient sisters, may you realize the truth \u2013 the truth that can\u2019t be buried, no matter how hard they try.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5df7d5167a707de8dbb12994aa5503a5\">The truth is, we have always existed. And so long as humanity continues to endure, so too shall we.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support The Channel On Patreon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ancient-sources\">Ancient Sources:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4d145f5d2e15edab0122e7b10925ff63\">\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/45304\/45304-h\/45304-h.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Saint Augustine. &#8220;De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos&#8221;. Translated by Rev. Marcus Dods. New York, T. &amp; T. Clark, 1871<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0006%3Apoem%3D63\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Catullus, Gaius Valerius. \u201cCarmina\u201d. Translated by Leonard C. Smithers. London, 1894<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/clementofalexand00clem\/page\/n7\/mode\/2up?q=cybele&amp;view=theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Clement of Alexandria. \u201cProtrepicus\u201d. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/penelope.uchicago.edu\/Thayer\/E\/Roman\/Texts\/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus\/1A*.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dionysius of Halicarnassus. &#8220;Roman Antiquities. Translated by Earnest Cary. Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1937<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tertullian.org\/fathers\/index.htm#Chronography_of_354\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Furius Dionysus Philocalus. \u201cChronography of 354\u201d. 354<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Text\/HomericHymns1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cThe Homeric Hymns.\u201d Translated by H.G. Evelyn-White. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/70531\/pg70531-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Paulus Aegineta. &#8220;The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta&#8221;. Translated by Francis Adams. London, Sydenham Society, 1844<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pausanias. \u201cDescription of Greece.\u201d Translated by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A. Cambridge, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DP.%3Apoem%3D12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pindar. \u201cOdes\u201d. Translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien, 1990<\/a>.<br>\u25baSuetonius. \u201cLives of the Caesars\u201d. Translated by Catharine Edwards. Toronto, Oxford University Press, 2000.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.asymptotejournal.com\/poetry\/marcus-terentius-varro-menippean-satires\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Varro, Marcus Tarentius. \u201cMenippean Satires\u201d. Translated by Joseph McAlhany. Asymptote Journal, accessed 1 April 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"modern-sources\">Modern Sources:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-palette-color-8-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-dfd284840d7749b86586e3a51f8d93e0\">\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rom.on.ca\/learn\/resource-hub\/activity-wear-toga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cActivity: Wear a Toga!\u201d. The Royal Ontario Museum. Accessed 31 March, 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aI7YwJ1jBhY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cAulos from ancient Greek and Roman times music by Max Brumberg\u201d. YouTube, uploaded by Max Brumberg Flutes, 20 December, 2019. Accessed 15 March, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/507324\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bartman, Elizabeth. \u201cHair and the Artifice of Roman Female Adornment.\u201d <em>American Journal of Archaeology<\/em>, vol. 105, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1\u201325. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baBeard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price. \u201cReligions of Ancient Rome, Volume 2\u201d. Cambridge University Press, 1998.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.library.si.edu\/blog\/2018\/06\/28\/myrtle-the-provenance-and-meaning-of-a-plant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Blakely, Julia. &#8220;Myrtle: The Provenance and Meaning of a Plant&#8221;. Unbound: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives Blog. 2018. Accessed April 9, 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baBoatwright, Mary T, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J.A. Talbert. \u201cThe Romans: From Village to Empire\u201d. Toronto, Oxford University Press, 2004.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4433594\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bremmer, Jan N. \u201cAttis: A Greek God in Anatolian Pessinous and Catullan Rome.\u201d <em>Mnemosyne<\/em>, vol. 57, no. 5, 2004, pp. 534\u201373. Accessed 12 Apr. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baBurkert, Walter. \u201cAncient Mystery Cults\u201d. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1987.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC8099405\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bustos, Valeria P, et al. \u201cRegret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence.\u201d <em>Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open<\/em> vol. 9,3 e3477. 19 Mar. 2021. Accessed April 12, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC7815043\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Eloge, Joshua C, David A. Ross, &amp; Joseph J. Cooper. \u201cAfflicted by the Gods: The Shared History and Neurobiology of Psychosis and Epilepsy.\u201d <em>Biological psychiatry<\/em> vol. 87,12 (2020): e35-e36. Accessed 13 March 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25baFarnell, Lewis Richard. \u201cCults of the Greek States, Volume III\u201d. Toronto, Clarendon Press, 1907.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/2936006\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fishwick, Duncan. \u201cThe Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater.\u201d <em>Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association<\/em>, vol. 97, 1966, pp. 193\u2013202. Accessed 15 Apr. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/124243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ginsberg-Klar, Maria E. \u201cThe Archaeology of Musical Instruments in Germany during the Roman Period.\u201d <em>World Archaeology<\/em>, vol. 12, no. 3, 1981, pp. 313\u201320. Accessed 18 Mar. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baDella Giovampaola, Irma. &#8220;La Provenienza de Rilievo di Gallus ai Musei Capitolini e le Testimonianze del Culto della Magna Mater Nell&#8217;ager Lanuvinus&#8221;. Horti Hesperidium vol. 2 (2012) 503-531.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/gallica.bnf.fr\/ark:\/12148\/bpt6k9757066t\/f44.item\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hatt, Jean-Jacques, and Andr\u00e9 Thevenin. &#8220;Trouvailles de tombes gallo-romaines \u00e0 Koenigshoffen&#8221;. Cahiers alsaciens d&#8217;arch\u00e9ologie, d&#8217;art et d&#8217;histoire, 12 (1968) 31-38<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/ASAE-49-1949\/page\/n277\/mode\/2up?view=theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hickmann, Hans. \u201cCymbales et Crotales Dans L&#8217;Egypte Ancienne\u201d. Annales du Service des Antiquit\u00e9s de l&#8217;Egypte vol. 49 (1949) 451-545<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25baHillyard, Michael J. &#8220;Cincinnatus and the Citizen-Servant Ideal: The Roman Legend&#8217;s Life, Times, and Legacy&#8221;. Xlibris Corporation, 2001.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/toah\/hd\/myst\/hd_myst.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Karoglou, Kiki. \u201cMystery Cults in the Greek and Roman World.\u201d In <em>Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History<\/em>. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. Accessed 12 March 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25baKraus, Theodor, and Leonard von Matt. &#8220;Pompeii and Herculaneum: The Living Cities of the Dead&#8221;. Translated by Robert Erich Wolf. New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1977.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/articles1.icsahome.com\/articles\/characteristics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Langone, Michael D. &#8220;Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups &#8211; Revised&#8221;. ICSA Today, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2015. Accessed 12 March, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=Berecyntus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lewis, Charlton T, and Charles Short. \u201cA Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews&#8217; edition of Freund&#8217;s Latin dictionary. revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten\u201d. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1879<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/musicalinstrumen00marcus\/page\/300\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marcuse, Sibyl. \u201cMusical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary\u201d. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1964<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/period\/ancient-history\/ancient-drug-use-history-how-what-for-opium-hemp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Matyszak, Philip. &#8220;Happy plants and laughing weeds: how people of the ancient world used \u2013 and abused \u2013 drugs&#8221;. BBC History Magazine Blog, 2019. Accessed 13 April 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/unromantest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">McElduff, Siobh\u00e1n. &#8220;UnRoman Romans&#8221;. University of British Columbia, Pressbooks, 2021. Accessed March 28, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25baMinai, Thista. &#8220;Casting A Queer Circle: Non-Binary Witchcraft&#8221;. Hubbardston, MA, Asphodel Press, 2017.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/298187\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nock, Arthur Darby. <em>The Journal of Roman Studies<\/em>, vol. 38, 1948, pp. 156\u201358. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/brentnongbri.com\/2018\/07\/05\/a-marble-relief-of-a-priest-of-cybele\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nongbri, Brent. &#8220;A Marble Relief of a Priest of Cybele&#8221;. 5 July, 2018, accessed 23 March, 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baO&#8217;Hartigan, Margaret Dierdre. &#8220;A woman now, I have been man, youth and boy&#8221;. TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism #4 (1994): 16-19.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Ides-of-March\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ostberg, Ren\u00e9. &#8220;Ides of March&#8221;. <em>Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em>, 23 Oct. 2024. Accessed 13 April 2025<\/a>. (the Ides of April, hah!)<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/320359751_Transgendered_Archaeology_The_Galli_and_the_Catterick_Transvestite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pinto, Renato, and Luciano C. G. Pinto. &#8220;Transgendered Archaeology: The Galli and the Catterick Transvestite&#8221;. TRAC 2012: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Theoretical<\/a><br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/320359751_Transgendered_Archaeology_The_Galli_and_the_Catterick_Transvestite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Roman Archaeology Conference, Frankfurt 2012. Oxford: Oxbow Books<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/the-homeric-hymns-cashford\/mode\/2up?view=theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Richardson, Nicholas. &#8220;The Homeric Hymns, Introduction&#8221;. Toronto, Penguin Classics, 2003<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25baRoller, Lynn. \u201cIn Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele\u201d. Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1999.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2020\/12\/201221121736.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ruhr-University Bochum. &#8220;How one pain suppresses the other.&#8221; ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 December 2020<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0004%3Aentry%3Dattica\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Runnels, Curtis. \u201cAttica\u201d. Perseus Encyclopedia. Accessed 15 March, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/us.kef.com\/blogs\/news\/the-history-of-the-drum-kit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sharkey, Jack. &#8220;The History of the Drum Kit&#8221;. KEF Blog, 28 April 2023. Accessed March 21, 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3286709\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Showerman, Grant. \u201cCanna Intrat and the Cannophori.\u201d <em>The Classical Journal<\/em>, vol. 2, no. 1, 1906, pp. 28\u201331. <em>JSTOR<\/em>. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/19344821\/\">Solomon, Kerry D et al. \u201cLASIK world literature review: quality of life and patient satisfaction.\u201d <em>Ophthalmology<\/em> vol. 116,4 (2009): 691-701<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.classics.upenn.edu\/myth\/php\/tools\/dictionary.php?method=did&amp;regexp=1067\">Struck, Peter. \u201cFlute\u201d. University of Pennsylvania, ClST 100 Course Notes, 2020<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/295591\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tillyard, E. M. W. \u201cA Cybele Altar in London.\u201d <em>The Journal of Roman Studies<\/em>, vol. 7, 1917, pp. 284\u201388. Accessed 14 Apr. 2025<\/a>.<br>\u25baTurcan, Robert. \u201cThe Cults of the Roman Empire\u201d. Translated by Antonia Nevill. Cambridge, Blackwell Publishers, Inc, 1996.<br>\u25baVermaseren, Maartin J. \u201cCybele and Attis: the Myth and the Cult\u201d. Translated by A. M. H. Lemmers. London, Thames and Hudson, Ltd, 1977.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/discovery.ucl.ac.uk\/id\/eprint\/1317908\/1\/299235_Vol1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wardle, Mary Angela. \u201cMusical Instruments in the Roman World, Volume I\u201d. PhD thesis, University of London Institute of Archaeology, 1981<\/a>.<br>\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/discovery.ucl.ac.uk\/id\/eprint\/1317908\/2\/299235_Vol2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wardle, Mary Angela. \u201cMusical Instruments in the Roman World, Volume II\u201d. PhD thesis, University of London Institute of Archaeology, 1981<\/a>.<br>\u25baZanker, Paul, and Bjon Ewald. \u201cLiving with Myths: The Imagery of Roman Sarcophagi\u201d. Translated by Julia Slater. Oxford University Press, 2012.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Content warning: This video discusses the ritual practices of an ancient religious sect, which involves some practices which may seem disturbing to modern sensibilities &#8211; in particular, those who are sensitive to discussion of self harm, blood, or the ritual sacrifice of animals. Viewer discretion is advised.&nbsp; What would you say if I told you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,207,186,189,187,183,4],"tags":[162,144,121,161,165,158,166,160,169,168,170,172,138,164,136,112,149,113],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gallae","category-trans-women-in-history","category-transgender-archaeology","category-transgender-historical-individuals","category-transgender-history","category-transgender-mythology","category-we-have-always-existed","tag-ancient-greece","tag-ancient-history","tag-ancient-rome","tag-classical-antiquity","tag-classical-athens","tag-classical-greece","tag-hellenistic-greece","tag-history-of-the-roman-empire","tag-history-of-transgender","tag-history-of-transgender-people","tag-history-of-transgenderism","tag-lgbt-history-documentary","tag-roman-empire","tag-roman-greece","tag-trans-history","tag-transgender","tag-transgender-ancient-history","tag-transgender-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Rituals of the Gallae Transgender Priestesses - Sophie Edwards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sbedwards.co\/staging\/9372\/the-rituals-of-the-gallae-transgender-priestesses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rituals of the Gallae Transgender Priestesses - Sophie Edwards\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Content warning: This video discusses the ritual practices of an ancient religious sect, which involves some practices which may seem disturbing to modern sensibilities &#8211; in particular, those who are sensitive to discussion of self harm, blood, or the ritual sacrifice of animals. 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