Such tales of virgin mothers are relics of an age of
childish ignorance when men had not yet recognized the intercourse
of the sexes as the true cause of offspring. Two different accounts
of the death of Attis were current. According to the one he was
killed by a boar, like Adonis. According to the other he unmanned
himself under a pine-tree, and bled to death on the spot. The latter
is said to have been the local story told by the people of Pessinus,
a great seat of the worship of Cybele, and the whole legend of which
the story forms a part is stamped with a character of rudeness and
savagery that speaks strongly for its antiquity. Both tales might
claim the support of custom, or rather both were probably invented
to explain certain customs observed by the worshippers. The story of
the self-mutilation of Attis is clearly an attempt to account for
the self-mutilation of his priests, who regularly castrated
themselves on entering the service of the goddess. The story of his
death by the boar may have been told to explain why his worshippers,
especially the people of Pessinus, abstained from eating swine.
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