Tertium genus? Representations of religious practitioners in the cult of Magna Mater

Abstract

The representations of practitioners in the cult of Magna Mater/Cybele hold a special position in Roman imperial imagery. The male images in particular exhibit characteristic somatic features and types of clothing as well as striking attributes, connected to certain rituals, religious duties or to the expertise of divination. The images oscillate indeterminately between genders. The effect is to contruct a tertium genus by visual means. It seems that this marked otherness was chosen deliberately as a pictorial scheme to accommodate the specific religious status of the cult of Magna Mater and its practitioners.