Cotys

Or Cotytto (Κοτυττώ), a Thracian divinity, whose festival, the Cotyttia,1 resembled that of the Phrygian Cybele, and was celebrated on hills with riotous proceedings. In later times her worship was introduced at Athens and Corinth, and was connected, like that of Dionysus, with licentious frivolity. Her worship appears to have spread even as far as Italy and Sicily.

Those who celebrated her festival were called βάπται (baptai), from the purifications which were originally connected with the solemnity.

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References

Notes

  1. Dictionary of Antiquities, s.v.

Sources

  • Hesychius, Suidas, s.v. Κότυς, Διασώτης.
  • Horatio, Epodes, xvii, 56.
  • Juvenal, ii, 92.
  • Meineke, A. Quaestiones Scenicae, p. 41 ff.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Strabo. Geography x, p. 470.
  • Virgil. Catalepton v, 19.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.