Note 105 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

As in the hymn to Attis said to have been sung in the Great Mysteries, given in the Philosophumena (see p. 54, infra). Cf. Ramsay, Cities, etc., I. pp. 132, 263, 264, for other identifications. The Anatolian name of the Dea Syria to whose cult Nero was addicted, was Atargatis, which Prof. Garstang would derive from the Babylonian Ishtar (Strong, Syrian Goddess, 1913, p. vii); see Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain, Paris, 1906, p. 126. The whole of Cumont’s chapters on Syria and Asia Minor (op. cit. pp. 57-89) can be consulted with advantage. The American edition, 1911, contains some additional notes. See, too, Decharme’s article on Cybele in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq.