Agdistis

Ancient recensions vary. In Pausanias' account the god Zeus' spilled semen on the earth produced a daimon with both male and female sexual organs called Agdistis; Pausanias links the figure to a mountain near Pessinus called 'Mount Agdistis'. In Arnobius' retelling of Timotheus a related Phrygian tradition identifies a nourishing rock called Agdus as the place-name source for Agdistis and narrates that Liber/Dionysus intoxicated and bound Agdistis, producing the loss of the male organ. Both strands function as aetiologies for later cult practices surrounding Cybele and Attis, and multiple recensions link the severing of Agdistis's male organ to the origin of trees/fruit and to the emergence of Attis in the myth cycle.

Ancient descriptions focus on Agdistis' ambisexual physicality: born with both male and female reproductive organs. Accounts do not provide a standardized pictorial iconography; Arnobius (quoting Timotheus) emphasizes Agdistis' overwhelming physical might and ferocity, while Pausanias treats Agdistis as a daimon born of a divine emission tied to local topography. The most detailed bodily motif in the texts is the later removal/severing of the male genitals as a transforming event.

In the mythic narratives Agdistis embodies potent, transgressive force: ambisexuality and irresistible physical power (Arnobius) that provoke fear among the gods and ecstatic frenzy among humans. Agdistis falls passionately for the youth Attis and, by appearing at the wedding hymn in the Attis story, precipitates frenzied madness that leads Attis (and in some tellings others) to castrate themselves. The myths also attribute regenerative transformations to the severed organ (trees or fruit arising from the blood and severed member) and report Agdistis interceding with the chief sky-god on Attis's behalf to secure that Attis' body will not decay.