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PESSINUS (IIeaatvoi3r, lleacvoiis)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 284 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PESSINUS (IIeaatvoi3r, lleacvoiis) , an See also:ancient See also:city of See also:Galatia in See also:Asia See also:Minor, situated on the lowest See also:southern slope of Mt Dindymus, on the See also:left See also:bank of the See also:river Sangarius, not far from its source. The ruins, discovered by Texier, See also:lie See also:round the See also:village of See also:Bala-See also:Hissar, 8 or 9 m. S.E. of Sivri-Hissar. • They include a See also:theatre in partial preservation, but they have been mostly carried off to Sivri-Hissar, which is largely built out of them. Originally a Phrygian city, probably on the See also:Persian " Royal Road," it became the See also:capital of the Gallic tribe Tolistobogii and the See also:chief commercial city of the See also:district. It contained the most famous See also:sanctuary of the See also:mother of the gods (See also:Cybele), who here went by the name of Agdistis, and was associated with the See also:god See also:Attis, as elsewhere with See also:Sabazius, &c. Her priests were also princes, who See also:bore See also:rule not only in the city (the coinage of which, beginning about too B.C., was for See also:long issued by them) but also in the See also:country round, deriving a large See also:revenue from the See also:temple estates; but in the See also:time of See also:Strabo (A.D. 19–20) their privileges were much diminished. The high-See also:priest always bore the god's name Attis. In the crisis of the second Punic See also:War (205 B.c.), when the See also:Romans lost faith in the efficacy of their own See also:religion to See also:save the See also:state, the See also:Senate, in compliance with an See also:oracle in the Sibylline books to the effect that the See also:foreign'foe could be driven from See also:Italy if the Idaean Mother (Cybele) were brought from Pessinus to See also:Rome, sent ambassadors to the See also:town, who obtained the sacred See also:stone which was the See also:symbol of the goddess and brought it to Rome, where the See also:worship of Cybele was established. But the goddess continued to be worshipped in her old See also:home; her priests, the Galli, went out to welcome See also:Manlius on his See also:march in 189 B.C., which shows that the town was not yet in the hands of the Tolistobogii. Soon after this a splendid new temple of the goddess was built by the Pergamenian See also:kings.

Some time before 164 B.C. Pessinus See also:

fell into the See also:power of the Gauls, and the membership of the priestly See also:college was then equally divided between the Gauls and the old priestly families. Like See also:Ancyra and Tavium, Pessinus was Romanized first and Hellenized afterwards. Only about A. D. 165 did Hellenic ways and modes of thought begin to be assumed; before that we find a deep substratum of See also:Celtic feeling and ways, on which See also:Roman elements had been superimposed without filtering through a Hellenic See also:medium. See also:Christianity was introduced See also:late; it cannot be traced before the 4th See also:century. When Galatia was divided into two provinces (A.D. 386—395) Pessinus was made the capital of Galatia Secunda or Salutaris, and it became a See also:metropolitan bishopric. After the 16th century it disappears from See also:history, being supplanted, from the beginning of the See also:period of Saracen invasion, by the impregnable fortress Justinianopolis (Sivri-Hissar), which became the capital and the See also:residence of the See also:bishop, thenceforward called " See also:arch-bishop of Pessinus or of Justinianopolis." (J. G. C.

End of Article: PESSINUS (IIeaatvoi3r, lleacvoiis)

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