COTY´TTIA
COTY´TTIA or
COTTYTES (
κοτύττια,
κόττυτες),
a festival which was originally celebrated by the Edonians of Thrace, in
honour of a goddess called Cotys or Cotytto. (
Strab. x. p.470; Eupolis,
apud
Hesych. sub voce Suidas.) It was held at
night, and, according to Strabo, resembled the festivals of the Cabeiri and
the Phrygian Cybele. But the worship of Cotys, together with the festival of
the Cotyttia, was adopted by several Greek states, chiefly those which were
induced by their commercial interest to maintain friendly relations with
Thrace. Among these Corinth is expressly mentioned by Suidas, and Strabo
(
x. p.471) seems to suggest that the
worship of Cotys was adopted by the Athenians, who, as he observes, were as
hospitable to foreign gods as they were to foreigners in general. (Compare
Juven.
Sat. 2.92.) The priests of the goddess
were formerly supposed to have borne the name of
baptae; but Buttmann has shown that this opinion is utterly
groundless. Her festivals were notorious among the ancients for the
dissolute manner and the debaucheries with which they were celebrated.
(Suidas, s. v.
κότυς: Hor.
Epod. 17.56; Theocrit. 6.40.) Another festival of the same
name was celebrated in Sicily (Plut.
Proverb.), where boughs
hung with cakes and fruit were carried about, which any person had a right
to pluck off if he chose; but we have no mention that this festival was
polluted with any of the licentious practices which disgraced those of
Thrace and Greece, unless we refer the allusion made by Theocritus to the
Cotyttia, to the Sicilian festival. (Compare Buttmann's essay,
Ueber
die Kotyttia und die Baptae, in his
Mythologus,
vol. ii. p. 159; Lobeck,
Aglaoph. pp. 627, 1007, &c.)
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L.S]
