Attis accompanied Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, brought to Rome from Phrygia in 204 B.C. They were established in a temple on the Vatican hill, where they remained for six centuries. At first Attis was separated from, and subordinated to, the Goddess, whom the emperor Augustus regarded as the Supreme Mother of Rome. 'The Romans tolerated Attis because, maintaining the tradition of earlier days, they continued to regard Cybele as a national Goddess."
Attis was a son of the Goddess's earthly incarnation, the virgin Nana, who miraculouslyconceived him by eating an almond or a pomegranate, yonic symbols both. Thus he was a typical "god without a father," the Virgin's son. He grew up to become a sacrificial victim and Savior, slain to bring salvation to mankind. His body was eaten by his worshippers in the form of bread. He was resurrected as "The Most High God, who holds the universe together." His epiphany was announced with the words, "Hail, Bridegroom, Hail, new Light." LIke his priests he was castrated, then crucified on a pine tree, whence his holy blood poured down to redeem the earth.
Attis's passion was celebrated on the 25th of March, exactly nine months before the solstitial festival of his birth, the 25th of December. The time of his death was also the time of his conception, or re-conception. To mark the event when Attis entered his mother to beget his reincarnation, his tree-phallus was carried into her sacred cavern. Thus the virgin mother Nana was actually the Goddess herself; she who was called Inanna by the Sumerians, Mari-Anna by the Canaanites, Anna Perenna by the Sabines, and Nanna, mother of the dying god Balder, in northern Europe.
. . . The day of Attis's death was Black Friday, or the Day of Blood. His image was carried to the temple and bound to the tree,escorted by "reed-bearers" (cannophori) with the reed scepters representing regenrated phalli and new fertility. During the ceremonies, initiates castrated themselves in imitation of the castrated god, and presented their severed genitals to the Goddess along with those of the gelded bull sacrificed at the Taurobolium. All these male remnants were deposited in the sacred cave of the Great Mother.
The god died and was buried. He descended into the underworld. On the third day he rose again from the dead. His worshippers were told: "The god is saved; and for you also will come salvation from your trials." This day was the Carnival or Hilaria, also known as the Day of Joy. People danced in the streets and went about in disguise, indulging in horseplay and casual love affairs. This was the Sunday; the god arose in glory as the solar deity of a new season. Christians ever afterward kept Easter Sunday with carnival processions derived from the mysteries of Attis. Like Christ, Attis arose when "the sun makes the day for the first time longer than the night."