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A further step was taken by
the Emperor Claudius when he incorporated the Phrygian worship of
the sacred tree, and with it probably the orgiastic rites of Attis,
in the established religion of Rome. The great spring festival of
Cybele and Attis is best known to us in the form in which it was
celebrated at Rome; but as we are informed that the Roman ceremonies
were also Phrygian, we may assume that they differed hardly, if at
all, from their Asiatic original. The order of the festival seems to
have been as follows.
On the twenty-second day of March, a pine-tree was cut in the woods
and brought into the sanctuary of Cybele, where it was treated as a
great divinity. The duty of carrying the sacred tree was entrusted
to a guild of Tree-bearers. The trunk was swathed like a corpse with
woollen bands and decked with wreaths of violets, for violets were
said to have sprung from the blood of Attis, as roses and anemones
from the blood of Adonis; and the effigy of a young man, doubtless
Attis himself, was tied to the middle of the stem.


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