Origin of religious positions and title

Facts about Position/Title

Date Founded		Place Founded
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Etymology
Original Function
Superior Position(s)
Inferior Position(s)

A Galli is an ancient official religious position associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele, also known as Magna Mater, Ishtar, Athena and many other names.

Among Cybele's devotees were the galli, male followers who sought to emulate Attis. They castrated themselves in an ecstatic ritual on Dies Sanguinis, the Day of Blood. Afterwards, they adopted women’s clothing and assumed female identities. They served as priestesses, leading Cybele’s followers in wild ceremonies with raucous music, drumming and dancing.

An authoritative source of information about the galli is the scholarly work, Pagan Regeneration – A Study of Mystery Initiations in the Graeco-Roman World, by Harold R. Willoughby. In chapter 5, he describes the festival of Cybele thus -

These rites came on the twenty-fourth of March, a day that was called, significantly enough, the "Day of Blood." At this time the Great Mother of the Gods [Cybele] inspired her devotees with a frenzy surpassing that which the followers of Dionysus knew. It was a madness induced not by wine, but by the din of crashing music, the dizzy whirling of the dance, and the sight of blood. The music which accompanied these rites was wild and barbaric, made by clashing cymbals and blatant horns, shrilling flutes and rolling drums.

Keyed up to the highest pitch of religious excitement, they followed the example of Attis and emasculated themselves. With this final act of self-sacrifice and consecration, the Dies Sanguinis was crowned and the devotee became one of the Galli, a eunuch-priest of the Asian goddess…

He also provides an account recorded in ancient times by Lucian -

During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them, and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd and picks up a sword. He takes it and emasculates himself and then runs wild through the city.

Roman citizens were forbidden by law to become a Galli.


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