Kybele the Intersex

This week's episode covers the story of the Agdistis. They were created through an immaculate conception with an intersex condition resulting in the manifestation of male and female sexual characteristics. The other Gods were so terrified by Agdistis, that they violently exposed and publicly castrated them. 

This episode explores the Intersex condition in Antiquity. Whether human or divine, intersex conditions reflected a fundamental challenge to the established social order. Everything social role from the business deal called marriage to the citizen roles were challenged by the mere existence of Intersex conditions. 

The story of the Agdistis is a divine archetype for how humans publicly exposed and addressed such conditions. 

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast, your home for all things LGBT in the ancient world. I'm your host, Dominica Raven, episode 12, Kaibalay the Intersex. Once the great sky god of the Phrygians spilled his seed on the slopes of Mount Agdistus. This resulted in a remarkable metamorphosis. The seed became a strange-looking stone. Stones of this sort, which have a touch of the divine in them, are actually given sentience and have a conscious soul. This figure was called the Agdistus, who was a divinity in their own right. Agdistus was created as a synthesis of male and female, identified by an intersex condition resulting in a manifestation of male and female genitals. Now all the other gods, especially the Sky Father himself, were absolutely terrified by this unexpected body now roaming in the mountains. The gods were fundamentally frightened by this manifestation of male and female in one body. Possessing both male and female attributes was an attack on the social and the natural orders at once. Agdistus was not necessarily in male or female categories and therefore could not properly play male or female social roles. Agdistus possessed male and female genitals, so they could potentially recreate asexually without the need of any partners. So the gods decided to castrate the Agdistus, who remember was the offspring of the Sky Father directly. They publicly exposed and removed one set of their genitals. This castrated figure was renamed Chibalay, also called Rea, the mother of the gods. Kaibele is a wild intersex deity who comes from Phrygia, modern Turkey. The world they inhabit is first and foremost a world of wild women who dwell in the wild spaces where things do not operate by conventional rules. In this world, things are not as they're meant to be in standard heteronormative Greco-Roman society. This dynamic is represented visually when the lion pulls a chariot like a horse, or when rivers flow spontaneously out of rocks. They already existed well outside the normal human interaction, but this is taken even further when their sexuality and sexual characteristics are taken into account. Being as this story is a Phrygian one and not a standard Greco-Roman myth, there is a bit of interpretation necessary for the story which comes down to us. The stories we have access to are all of them interpreted through Greek authors living during the Roman Empire. The Agdistus was created by the Phrygian Sky Father, who can be thought of as Uranus or as Zeus. When the Sky Father cast his seed onto the earth, it created this intersex stone at the summit of Mount Agdistos. So even from the beginning, there is something unconventional about the sexual creation of this deity. Agdistus was born with an intersex condition which resulted in the manifestation of both male and female sexual organs at the same time. Since this was one of the most outwardly obvious intersex manifestations, this is the one we most commonly get in classical literature. For the Greeks and the Romans, it was something to be feared. This is why the very gods themselves were fearful of the egistus when they were born. The gods were so terrified that they had to ensure their body conformed to proper expectations. The Skyfather first publicly exposed, then assaulted with forced sexual modification, his own kin. The eggistus is Chibele, or Rea, so the Sky Father, if he is Uranus, is actually assaulting his own offspring. Or, if the Skyfather is Zeus, he's attacking his own forbearer. Either way, the violence is directed at their own kin. In this way, the story of Aggistos parallels the story of Uranus, who was conceived as male, then castrated by Kronos the Titan. These stories create an archetype for how intersex people are to be treated in the human world. But the question remains, why were the gods so fearful of this Agdistos? If you'll remember from our discussion of Dionysus, beings who were able to manifest both male and female were able to manifest an inconceivable amount of power. The ancient mind and imagination, as well as the ancient divine sphere, found something unnerving in their potential to challenge the social order. For everything we've ever discussed on this podcast, the ancient world is excruciatingly heteronormative. There were, of course, acceptable ranges from the admirable heroic love and an acceptable amount of homoeroticism at different points in one's life. However, people who went too far were viewed with extreme suspicion precisely because they were attempting to operate outside the default settings in ancient society. In the case of Dionysus, it represented a conscious rejection of societal heteronormativity. In the case of Attis, it reflected a choice to transition genders. In the case of Chibalae, it was an innate inborn property of their own life. Yet all of these different manifestations of gender and sexual nonconformity, even among the deathless gods, were viewed with suspicion and met with outrageous violence. Though it was the spilled seed of the sky god himself that birthed Eggistus, there was something unnerving about what it created. As with the intersex deity Phanes, it was precisely the capability of mutual self-procreation that was so unnerving. Phanes and Egdistos could create life without the need for intercourse or additional partners. Remember, there is a social contract at work with procreation. Marriage, as we've said before, is a business arrangement made between two households, and child rearing is a way to continue the social contract with the community. Sexual reproduction is the only possible way we can produce a new citizen. There were complex laws in the ancient world, which varied by city, state, nation, and era, which were designed to keep the proper citizenship roles undiluted, as well as the societal roles they were meant to hold in the community. In democratic Athens or Thebes, or the Republic of Rome, having people at different social ranks playing different social roles was critical. In the same way, Sparta required an infinite supply of new citizen warriors to fill its armies. In all of these systems, societal trouble follows their citizenship rules starting to break down. Sparta failed to refill its famous armies due to the intense social birth control. Rome could no longer fill its legions with free-born property-owning citizens, and so they transitioned to a professional army in the late republic, and Athens was no longer able to sustain the flourishing city it had built. The extent to which conservative backlash against the diluting of real citizenship with foreigners actually led to the political instability is a matter for another time. For now, the key is that sexual reproduction was hugely important to maintain that social contract between the families and the cohesion of the entire community. This is why procreation by oneself had the potential to alter the ancient world. Ultimately, an intersex condition reflected a potential threat to the entire social order. The same appears to have been true in the divine realm. Though there were spaces for such intersex deities, they were still viewed as other in the ancient world religions. There is a secondary way this story could be read. The implication of the wording implies that this Sky Father, who could be associated with Uranus, is actually referring to Zeus. If we read the story like this, it becomes somehow even more terrifying. Zeus assaulted his own forebear with public exposure and physical assault. This reading of the story shows how important it was to maintain the social order, even at the expense of one's own familial connections. The simple possibility that this egistos could have reproduced asexually was enough of a threat that Zeus had to act. Ultimately, whether it was Uranus or Zeus, the castrated Agistos becomes Chibalae, who was associated with the mother of the gods, Rea. It is a bit ironic then that the story does not end here. From the castrated bits that were cast onto the ground, an almond tree grew. Even the act of deforming Agistus' body did not impact their overall fertility. The almond tree is not infrequently associated with male fertility and can even be used euphemistically to represent testicles. So the outrage committed by Zeus or Uranus did not actually impact the fertility of Aegistos, it just changed the form the fertility took. This is best manifested by an immaculate conception occurring some years later. Sangarios, one of the daughters of the river called Naides, or freshwater nymphs, collected almonds from that very tree. Ancient women's garments varied significantly over the years, but a common trend is that they generally contained many layers of clothing, starting with an overdress and going all the way down to multiple layers of undergarments. So this nymph collected the almonds and stored them in one of the inner layers of the mantle, meaning that the almonds were in direct contact with her chest. When they touched the skin, the almonds disappear. So great was the latent fertility in these almonds, they impregnated the nymph on the spot. The resulting child was Attis, the future bride of Kybele from a few weeks ago. Attis was exposed as a child when the nymph realized in horror that just like Aegistus, Attis had been born with an intersex condition. Though the child had been exposed in the mountains, a goat attended Attis until Attis grew and became an adult. So within the context of this story, the attempted castration and removal of the Aegistos' fertility actually facilitated the birth of Attis. So now we can see the stories of Attis and Chibalae were linked all along. They are literally two facets of the same entity. One intersex deity is female coded and one who is male coded, at least to start. Importantly, both of them would have been considered female coded by the end. It's important to note here that generally speaking, intersex conditions made one not fully male or female in the ancient world, so by default, they were considered effeminized in many situations. This is why medical texts as well as historic documents and even legal discussions often refer to these types of people largely in feminine verbiage. When there is any sexual ambiguity, the default is generally feminine. This is why Attis and Kybele are feminine coded in the story. Thus, what is initially based around biases and ancient misinterpretation of intersex conditions actually shows queer relationships in the past. In the story of the egdistus, we see an intersex deity who is perceived as a great threat. The threat is principally to the social order, as things like marriage, child rearing, and societal bonds are threatened by the inclusion of intersex folks. So the great sky god, be he Zeus or Uranus, exposed the Eggdistus and then publicly corrected this perceived threat by publicly reassigning genital expressions. As shocking as this narrative may be, it plays out many times in the ancient world. Pretty much every time we discuss an intersex condition in antiquity, this dynamic is present. People would publicly expose their own family members if it meant being seen as ritually pious or upholding the social order. Not infrequently these stories end with public reassignment or with the exposure of a newborn child. What always stands out to me is that these people, whatever the nature of their intersex condition, are seen as powerful. Because they contain attributes of both male and female, often characterized by visual external traits, intersex people are feared for the knowledge they have, as much for the potential attack on the social order. The language used in these stories seems to indicate that the presence of male and female genital attributes was seen as an act of prideful hubris before the gods. Simply possessing this type of knowledge was something normal humans and even divine manifestations were never meant to know. So while these stories seem to present a very violent and publicly voyeuristic humiliation, this act of societally sanctioned violence is predicated on the assumption that these types of intersex conditions reflect a power which is outside of the ability of even Zeus or Uranus to control. I choose to read this as a statement of strength. Intersex folks are strong in ways that the average person can only kind of grasp, as so often happens with bodily disabilities, infirmities, or just plain failure to conform to values and expectations. People are frightened by what they do not understand. To quote Joseph Merrick, himself derided as the elephant man. Next time we're going to explore the narrative of Athena. Like Artemis, Athena is unwed, but the key difference is that Athena is frequently shown in a gendered expression which is completely outside of societal expectations. Athena is shown excelling in conflict, battle strategies, and public speaking, all of which are male pursuits in antiquity. Athena also excels at homemaking tasks such as weaving and handiwork, as well as playing integral roles in nurturing young warriors in coming of age, which are female tasks in the ancient world. In both cases, Athena takes these pursuits to their zenith, often described as the greatest weaver in the universe, and habitually defeating the god of war, Ares himself. So Athena operates outside of traditional gender binaries, making them an excellent candidate for a non-binary interpretation. There won't actually be a new episode next Monday. Athena the non binary is planned to be live on the twenty fifth of May. See you in two weeks. Notes and comments. The main source of information on the Agdistos comes from Pausanias, the second century AD traveler. He was a Greek-speaking geographer who wrote an extensive guidebook and travelogue to the wonders of Greece, curated for wealthy Roman tourists. He often describes the location of significant historic events, religious sites, and pilgrimage locations throughout the Greek-speaking East. He describes the religious site and relays the story of Agdistus in Book 10, chapter 3, section 12. The other source of information comes from another geographer named Strabo. He was also a Greek geographer who wrote in the first century AD. He attempted to describe the world known to Greek and Roman scholars at the time. He often explains significant religious locations and importantly how they all connect together. He directly ties Agdistus to Chaibalae in Book 10, chapter 3, section 12, and he describes the shrine at Piscinus on the slopes of Mount Agdistus, also called Mount Dindimus, at Book 12, Section 5, number 3. Sometimes you may read that Hermes castrated Agdistus, or that Dionysus got the Agdistus drunk and then castrated them. However, I cannot find any reference to these versions of the story which genuinely date to antiquity. In fact, there are precious few references to the Agdistus at all from any Greek or Roman authors. Later artists, especially during the Renaissance, were fascinated with intersex conditions, often commodifying and sexualizing them for the sake of art and poetry. This is likely the origin of these modern narratives. The same is likely true of the version where Agdistus is a lawless savage showing no respect for the other gods and thus deserving of the assault and public mutilation. It appears no such genuine narrative comes down to us from antiquity. That's all for this week, folks. We'll see you in two weeks for our discussion of Athena the non binary.