5. In Timotheus, who was no
mean mythologist, and also in others equally well informed, the birth
of the Great Mother of the gods, and the origin of her rites, are thus
detailed, being derived—as he himself writes and
suggests—from learned books of antiquities, and from
his
acquaintance with
the most secret mysteries:—Within the
confines of Phrygia, he says, there is a rock of unheard-of wildness in
every respect, the name of which is Agdus, so named by the natives of
that district. Stones taken from it, as Themis by her
oracle
4304
had enjoined,
Deucalion and Pyrrha threw upon the earth, at that time emptied of men;
from which this Great Mother, too, as she is called, was fashioned
along with the others, and animated by the deity. Her, given over
to rest and sleep on the very summit of the rock, Jupiter assailed with
lewdest
4305
desires.
But when, after long strife, he could not accomplish what he had
proposed to himself, he, baffled, spent his lust on the stone.
This the rock received, and with many groanings Acdestis
4306
is born in the
tenth month, being named from his mother rock. In him there had
been resistless might, and a fierceness of disposition beyond control,
a lust made furious, and
derived
from both sexes.
4307
He
violently plundered and laid waste; he scattered destruction wherever
the ferocity of his disposition had led him; he regarded not gods nor
men, nor did he think anything more powerful than himself; he contemned
earth, heaven, and the stars.
4304
So Ovid also (
Metam.
, i. 321), and others, speak of Themis
as the first to give oracular responses,
4305
So the
ms.
and edd., reading
quam incestis
, except Orelli, who adopts the conjecture of
Barthius,
nequam
—“lustful Jupiter with lewd
desires.”
4306
So the
ms.
and edd., except Hildebrand
and Oehler, who throughout spell
Agdestis
, following the
Greek writers, and the derivation of the word from
Agdus
.
4307
So
Ursinus suggested, followed by later edd.,
ex utroque
(
ms.
utra.
)
sexu
;
for which Meursius would read
ex utroque sexus
—“and
a sex of both,” i.e., that he was a hermaphrodite, which is
related by other writers.