Agdistis

Zeus, while asleep, spilled some of his semen on the earth, which in time gave rise to a deity (δαίμων) with both male and female sexual organs called Agdistis.He violently plundered and laid waste; he scattered destruction wherever the ferocity of his disposition had led him ; he regarded not gods or men, nor did he think anything more powerful than himself ; he contemned earth, heaven, and the stars.Jupiter refuses, but does grant that Attis' body will never decay, his hair should continue to grow, and his little fingers should live, and ever move.[9] Agdistis's story comes from the Phrygian city of Pessinus, a cultic center of Cybele the Great Mother of the gods, where, according to Strabo, the two goddesses were identified.[17] While the two goddesses in Arnobius' account share such things as their intimate relationship with Attis, and their ability to inspire μανία ('mania') in the wedding participants, there are however differences.[19] From there her cult presumably spread to other places in Anatolia, as well as to Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, mainland Greece, Crimea, and Egypt.[21] There was also a religious community at Lydian Philadelphia, which enforced a strict moral code, based at a sanctuary of Agdistis (1st century BC).[23] Her name appears on a dedication from the Ancient Greek town of Methymna on the East Aegean island of Lesbos, off the coast of Anatolia, as well as on a marble base (c. 2nd century BC?[25] A relief of Agdistis and Attis, whose identities are secured by inscription, is found on a marble votive stele (late 4th or early 3rd-century), from the Metroon in the Piraeus the port of ancient Athens (Antikensammlung Berlin SK 1612).kept in the Metroon of Athens, we know that she also a had a sanctuary of her own at Rhamnus, an ancient Greek city in Attica situated on the coast, overlooking the Euboean Strait.[30] While some of the occurrences of the name "Agdistis" are found together, and in the same context, with the Great Mother (such as in the altar at Sizma) and thus the two goddesses can be assumed to have been considered distinct, most are not.