By the 3rd century BC at the latest, Pessinus had become a temple state ruled by a clerical oligarchy consisting of Galloi, eunuch priests of the Mother Goddess.

The Galli (singular: Gallus) were eunuch priests of the goddess Cybele or Agdistis.

Her main cult followers were the Galli, these were eunuch priests of a feminine nature, who celebrated her festivals with wild dancing, self-laceration, and self-scourging.

Some followers may have castrated themselves on this day, as a preliminary to becoming galli, the eunuch priests of Cybele.

Galli) was a eunuch priest of the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis, whose worship was incorporated into the state religious practices of ancient Rome.

"Gallai [eunuch priests] of the Meter Oreias (Mountain Mother), thyrsos-loving, racing, by whom instruments and bronze cymbals are clashed."

Inhaling its vapors was said to be lethal to all living things except the Galli, the goddess's eunuch priests.

As at Didyma and Delphi, the temple had an oracle tended by eunuch priests.

The eunuch priests of the goddess Cybele, the galli, flogged themselves until they bled during the annual festival called Dies sanguinis.

Frazer also mentions a sanctuary whose mephitic area contains only 'the eunuch priests of the Great Mother Goddess', who have 'a look on their faces as if they were being choked'.