Attis

In Anatolian myth cycles linked to the Mother Goddess (Cybele/Agdistis), Attis is born from a sequence involving the hermaphroditic mountain-daemon Agdistis: Agdistis’s castration produces an almond tree, from which Nana conceives Attis (accounts vary across ancient authors). Attis becomes the youthful beloved of the Mother Goddess; after a frenzy of events he self-mutilates (castrates himself), dies from his wound, and is preserved or ritually restored at the goddess's request, a sequence that etiologically explains the cult’s rites of mourning and rebirth centered at Pessinus and later re-enacted in Greek and Roman practice.

Classical literary sources emphasize Attis as a long-haired, godlike youth noted for beauty. Ancient accounts describe him as young and long-haired; some literary traditions (notably Ovid) narrate a metamorphosis in which Attis becomes a pine tree, linking his form to arboreal and vegetation imagery. Beyond these motifs, the provided sources do not supply a systematic bodily description such as stature or dress.

Attis’s mythic role is primarily symbolic rather than described as exercising overt supernatural powers. His defining actions are self-castration and death from his wound, followed in literary and cultic narratives by preservation or ritual rebirth at the behest of the Mother Goddess; these events model seasonal decay and renewal of plant life. The myth sanctions cult practices—especially ecstatic behavior and ritual castration among certain initiates (the Galli)—but texts in the provided material depict these practices as inspired by Attis’s story rather than as magical powers Attis actively bestows.