preserves an ancient legend and an archaic idol-type. But the earliest
fact of Lycian religion recorded is the predominance of Apollo, and
the Lycians maintained him as their chief divinity throughout their
history and long after the very early influences of Hellenic
colonisation had waned. The inscriptions of Lycia that mention Leto
are all of the later period; her temple near Xanthos and her two holy
groves on the coast that Strabo mentions[90.2] are just on the track
along which the earliest Hellenic influence travelled: and the most
tenable view is that the Hellenes introduced her. In Caria, at
Labranda, and again in the vicinity of Stratonikeia, we have proof of
the early supremacy of a great god whom the Hellenes called Zeus,
attaching to him in the latter centre of cult the Carian name of
Panamaros, and associating him with a native goddess called Hera or
{91} Hekate, who did not claim to be the predominant partner.[91.1]
It is not till we come to the neighbourhood of Ephesos that we can
speak positively of goddess-supremacy. Artemis, as the Greeks called
her here, is admittedly πρωτοθρονία, the first in power and in place.
Her brother Apollo himself served as the στεφανηφόρος of the Artemis
of Magnesia, that is, as her officiating magistrate,[91.2] and
Artemis of Magnesia we may take to be the same aboriginal goddess as
the Ephesian. Certain features of her worship will be considered later
in a comparative survey of ritual and cult-ideas. I will only indicate
here the absence of any proof of the Semitic origins of the Ephesian
Artemis,[91.3] and the associations that link her with the great
mother-goddess of Phrygia. When we reach the area within which this
latter cult and its cognate forms prevailed, we can posit the
predominance of the goddess as a salient fact of the popular religion
imprinting indelible traits upon the religious physiognomy of the
people. The god Attis was dear to the aboriginal Phrygian as to the
later generations, but he was only the boy-lover, the young son who
died and rose again. The great goddess was supreme and eternal; and
her power spread into Lydia, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Galatia, and far
and wide in the later period across the sea. {92} Her counterpart in
Cappadocia was Mā, the great goddess of Comana, in whose worship we
hear nothing of the male divinity. In this wide area, governed by the
religion of the Great Mother, we can trace a similar ritual and
something of the same religious psychology in the various peoples:
orgiastic liturgy and ecstatic passion, a craving for complete
identification with the goddess that led to acts of sexual madness
such as emasculation; also a marked tone of sorrow and tenderness in
the legends and religious service. In following back to its
fountain-head the origins of this cult, we are led inevitably to
Minoan Crete.
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