RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Tammuz. Adonis
decay, whether of the sun of the springtime or of vegetation (see below, § 15). In view of this wealth of explicit and authoritative testimony to the identity of Tammuz and Adonis, combined with inferential evidence including the coincidence in the two centers of principal features in myth and ritual, the identification must stand against the doubts of Chwolson (Die Ssabier, ut sup., ii. 510), Renan (Mission de Phenicie, pp. 216, 235), and Baudissin (Hauck-Herzog, RE, xix. 376). The argument of the last-named that the identification argues separateness falls before the apparent fact that the separateness is no more than difference in name in a different environment. The duality is only apparent.
The identification, however, raises two questions: (1) the transmission of the cult from Babylonia to Phenicia (see below, § 16), and (2) the origin of the name Adonis. There can be no doubt that the latter is the common West Semitic Adon, " lord," occurring frequently in the Hebrew in
g. The the form Adonai, translated " my Name lord " or " Lord " in the A. V. (cf., e.g.,
Adonis. Gen. xviii. 12; Ezek. vi. 3). The way had already been prepared in Babylonia for the application of such a title of address to Tammuz when he was addressed as Bel (" lord "; see above, § 4); and it requires no imagination to see that this title might become a proper name in a cult, just as Baal did in Canaan. It is curious that, in spite of the wealth of testimony to this worship at Byblus, there is no monumental or inscriptional testimony in Phenicia to the name as applied to this particular deity. Yet the name was applied to other deities, as is shown by numerous inscriptions — to Baal-Shamem, Melkarth (both of Cyprus and Tyre) , Reseph, Hamman, Esmun, Shamash, and others (cf. CIS, vol. i. passim; M. Lidzbarski, Epigraphik, Berlin, 1898, and Ephemeris, Giessen, 1900 sqq.). Zimmern (in Schrader, KAT, p. 398, note 2) remarks on a number of compounds in the Assyrian cuneiform, but of Phenician origin, in which the form Aduni occurs, giving such characteristic combinations as " Aduni has given a son," " Aduni is brother," " Aduni is my rock "; but no certainty exists that Aduni is here more than an appellative. By the Greeks, however, the term was regarded as a proper name and adopted as such, being taken into the scheme of declension of nouns. It seems beyond doubt, therefore, on the basis of the preceding, that the Adonis of the Greeks and the Tammuz (Tamuz) of the Babylonians are one, and that their meeting-place was Byblus (on the Phenician coast about 32 m. n. of Sidon). It was no secret to the Greeks that Adonis came to them from the Semites (Strabo, XVI., ii. 18-19), especially from Byblus, " sacred to Adonis," and the coins of the city contain the epithet " sacred," but do not name the deity.
That the Greeks adopted Adonis very early is evinced by the quotation from Hesiod (8th century B.C.; in Hesiodi quce ferunter omnia, ed. A. Rzach, fragment 41, Leipsic, 1884) and by a fragment of Sappho (c. 600 B.C.; cf. T. Bergk, Poetos lyrici Grceci, iii. 897, Leipsic, 1843; Pausanias, IX., xxix. 8). The transfer came about through the Phenicians, and the locations of the temples in which Adonis
had a part (with Aphrodite) are in some degree indicated by Phenician settlements. Before naming
these it is proper to remark that the
io. Dis- cult was established in Antioch in
tribution of Syria — Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII.,
the Cult. ix. 15, Eng. transl., by C. D. Yonge
in Bonn's Classical Library, p. 297, London, 1887) reports that on the occasion of Julian's visit to Antioch the festival of Adonis, the beloved of Venus, was being celebrated. In Cyprus, early settled by the Phenicians, on the south coast was Amathus, where Astarte-Aphrodite had a sanctuary, and Adonis was worshiped (Pausanias, IX., xli. 2; confirmed by Stephen of Byzantium, Ethnika, s.v. " Adonis "). Paphos in the southwest was a notable center, and coins of the Roman period picture the sanctuary with doves (the bird sacred to the goddess) over the facade. There is an interesting model of a shrine of just this pattern recovered at Mycenae (Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix., 1888, pp. 210-213), and if there is a connection — which it is tempting to see — the history of the shrine is carried back to c. 1100 B.C. The cone and pillar, so characteristic of the Ishtar-Astarte-Aphrodite cult, were present, and the custom obtained of requiring of the native women submission as a religious duty to strangers once in a lifetime, as at Babylon, Baalbek, and elsewhere. Photius (MPG, ciii. 632) quotes Ptolemy Hephaestion to the effect that Aphrodite found the body of Adonis in " Argos, a city of Cyprus "; and Pausanias (II., xx. 5) remarks upon the wailing for Adonis by the women of the city. It will be remembered that Melito makes Balthi a queen of Cyprus, asserting that she changed her residence to Byblus and Aphaka. Pausanias also quotes Apollodorus (III., xiv. 3-4) as making Adonis son of Kinyras, founder of Paphos in Cyprus. There is similar testimony for Aphrodisias in Cyprus — if the name is not enough. This island seems to have been covered by the cult. At Alexandria the celebration was elaborate, and is described by Theocritus in one of his celebrated Idyls (the fifteenth, named the Idoniazusm) , which relates the part taken in the festival by Ptolemy Philadelphus and his queen. The story as current in the West connects closely with Byblus (see below, § 11). Canopus in Egypt was another center. Concerning Athens there can be no mistake, for Plutarch (Alcibiades, xviii.) states that when the ill-fated expedition against Sicily in 415 was departing, the celebration of the Adoneia (the local name for the mourning) was in progress, and the ill omen was noted after the event. Evidence can be adduced for the celebration in Alexandria of Caria, Perga of Pamphylia, Samos (cf. O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religions-Geschichte, p. 275, note 6, p. 291, note 1, Munich, 1902), Laconia, and Dion in Macedonia. These names of places are representative, not exhaustive. The earliest explicit witness for the celebration among the Romans is Ovid (43 b.c-18 a.d.; Ars Amatoria, i. 75); but an Etruscan mirror bears the name Atunis, suspected to mean Adonis (A. Falratti, Corpus inscriptionum Italicarum, Turin, 1867), and this suggests a much earlier footing in the Italian peninsula. The cult was favored by Elagabulus (q.v.). Certainly to be attributed to a
Tammuz- Adonis