In honor of Attis a spring festival was held in which the drama of the myth was repeated by the priests and devotees. This festival was introduced at Rome during the reign of Claudius (41-54 A.D.), from which time the god’s importance there may be dated.[293] The celebration began on March 15, which is designated in a calendar of the fourth century by _Canna intrat_. These obscure words must be brought into connection with the colleges of the Cannophori, “reed-bearers,” which are known to us from inscriptions, but the significance of the day is not clear; apparently it is to be connected with the story of the discovery of the infant Attis, who had been exposed among the reeds by the banks of the river Gallus. On March 22, _Arbor intrat_, the dendrophori, “tree-bearers,” cut down a pine tree and in solemn procession brought its trunk, decorated with violets and woolen fillets, to the temple of the Great Mother on the Palatine. This act was obviously in memory of the pine tree into which the spirit of Attis passed at his death. Two days later came the “day of blood,” _Sanguen, dies Sanguinis_, which marked the height of the mourning for Attis. Stimulated by wild music and dances, the Galli scourged themselves with whips loaded with pieces of bone or metal, slashed their arms with knives, offering their blood on the altar of the goddess, while the would-be Galli mutilated themselves. The whole period from the first day was a time of sorrow, during which fasting and continence were required; it was followed on March 25th, _Hilaria_, “rejoicing,” by the wildest outbursts of joy in celebration of the resurrection of Attis.[294] The next day was that of “rest,” _Requietio_; and on the 27th, the festival closed with the solemn bathing in the brook Almo of the sacred meteoric stone, which was the symbol of the Great Mother. It is clear that this festival, centering in the spring equinox, had its origin in rites which were intended to recall the vegetation from its winter’s death into vernal life again, but like other similar festivals it had long had a deeper meaning before it came to Rome. As the Orphic devotee by participation in the holy rites became a Bacchus, the Isiac an Osiris, so here the orgiastic participant became an Attis and received assurance of his own resurrection. The result was identical in all essentials with that in other mysteries.