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| Aedes Matris Deum
The praetor M. Junius Brutus IV, the day of ID APR AVC
DLXIII (10 April of 191 bce), dedicated for the first time
the Temple of Magna Mater on Palatine Hill; since that date
every year in front of the temple were held the Ludi Megalesia
in honour of the goddess. And since that date the Magna
Mater was enthroned as Sacred Protectress of the City.
The exhausting, long-lasting and terrible second Punic
War determined a profound civil, military and social crisis
inside Rome and its lands. Hannibal with his punic army
and his allies was plundering the Italian lands, and the
Romans felt great discomfort. For these reasons, the religion
was considered a good shelter by many of the Romans. The
Sybilline books (see) were asked to find a solution for
that long-lasting conflict: the answer given to the Romans
was that they had to introduce a new cult in Rome, and to
start the construction of a temple in honour of Mater Cybele
(Magna Mater). In 204 a delegacy was sent from Rome to the
city of Pessinus, in Phrigia, considered the capital of
the Magna Mater cult. After a rapid negotiation, this delegacy
obtained what was sent there for, and came back to Rome
with the conical shape black (and probably silver) stone
representing Mater Cybele. It was accompanied even by the
procession of Gallae, the priests dedicated to this cult.
These priests had to bring the symbol of the goddess during
Ludi Megalesia around Rome, but for all the rest of the
year had to remain in their sanctuary at the Vaticans (outside
the Pomoerium).
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The Sanctuary of Goddess
Magna Mater on the Palatine Hill in Rome. View from the
Campidoglio
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One of the noblest lady of Rome, Claudia Quinta,
personally welcomed the black stone of the Magna Mater when
the ship arrived at the harbour of Ostia; she virtually pulled
the ship with her virtuous strength, with the admiration of
the people arrived to see the delegation back: this episode
was considered a miraculous sign for a better destiny about
the current war. Arrived at Rome, the Mother of the Gods was
temporarily housed in the temple of Victoria on the Palatine
Hill. Censors M. Livius Salinator and C. Claudius Nero suddenly
started the construction of a worthy edifice on the Palatine
Hill to house the black stone.
It took 13 years to build this temple. It was located on the
Palatine Hill, inside the Pomoerium, on its west corner, at
the top of the Scalae Caci, at the north-west of
the so called Domus Liviae. Here is the podium how
we can see it nowadays, and probably it is the real, originary
podium built of pieces of tufa and peperino.
Formerly it was a prostyle hexastyle temple (without colums
at both sides) of Corinthian order, and had a total length
of 33.18 meters, and a widht of 17.10. At the front, facing
the Vallis Murcia and the Circus Maximus, stood a big flight
of steps.
It was decided to attribute the actual ruins to the Temple
of the Magna Mater mostly thanks to the statue of the Goddess
found near the edifice, and now in the close Domus Tiberiana,
and to an inscription found on the right side of the façade,
that says: M(ater) D(eum) M(agna) I(daea). A coin of Faustina
the elder gives the confirmation to these doubts, showing
in one of its face the entire shape of this temple of Corinthian
order. Another confirmation is given by a relief of Claudian
age, now at Villa Medici, with the representation of the same
facade. |
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