She loves
the clatter of rattles
the din of kettle drums
and she loves
the wailing of flutes
and also she loves
the howling of wolves
and the growling
of bright-eyed lions ... Hymn
to the mother goddess by Homer
The
Festival of Megalesia
(or Megalensia, Magna Mater,
Ludi Megalenses) of Cybele, (Apr 4-10),ancient
Rome
Magna
Mater (Cybele,
'the All-Begetting Mother, who beats a drum
to mark the rhythm of life'; Great
Mother of the Gods),
was the great mother and all other Roman goddesses may be seen as aspects of
her. Earlier, the Greeks had identified her with the Titan goddess,
This
week-long festival was to celebrate the arrival in Rome of the idol of
Cybele in 204 BCE. From 191 BCE, when Cybele's temple had been completed,
the great festivities began on this day and were celebrated for six days
each year.
The
prophetic
Sybilline
Oracles had advised that the stone of Cybele, the Anatolian
mother goddess ofmountains and
fertility, who was a life-death-rebirth deity, must be brought to Rome to help bring about a victory against
Hannibal the Carthaginian in what we now call the Second Punic War. So in
204 BCE, Cybele's sacred black statue, which was a meteorite (to which the
Romans later added a likeness of the goddess) from Pessinus
in Anatolia
(in modern Turkey), was shipped to Ostia. There, Scipio Nasica took custody
of it and brought it to the city of Rome.On
April 4, 204 BCE the ship bearing the idol ran aground at the mouth of the
Tiber River.
By
prayer, Claudia
Quinta, a
vestal
virgin, helped to release the grounded ship. Claudia, who had
previously been falsely accused of breaking her holy vows, joined the throng
that gathered at the ship, and, praying to Cybele, laid her hands on the
ropes being employed to tow the foundering vessel. Although the crowd
thought her mad, the ship came free of the mud, and Claudia and the goddess
were brought to Rome in triumph. In the Middle Ages,
Claudia
was revered as the paragon of womanly virtue.
The
festival of Megalesia included the ludi scaenici ('stage games',
held on the third day of the festival,
April 6) of which the curile
aedile was in charge. These were held first in a theatre on the Palatine
hill near Cybele's temple, but later in Roman theatres generally, which
until about the first century BCE were mainly in al fresco settings.
The ludi were not athletic or circus games, as we might imagine, but
dramatic presentations, and included the plays of Terence
(c. 190 - 159 BCE). However, there were also other games, sacrifices and
chariot races held in this week of Roman celebration.
Cybele and Attis
Before
long, the Roman citizenry discovered that the worship of Cybele required not
only self-flagellation, but emasculation of the priests (galli) on
initiation – because Cybele's lover, Attis,
had castrated himself and died of haemorrhage,
violets springing from his blood. (Castration apparently ran in
the family. Attis's mother was Nana, who was
impregnated by an almond of the tree sprung from the severed genitals of
Agdistis–Pausanias 7.17.8.
Note that Pausanias's version of
the Attis story differs from others;
there are several Attis myths.)He had been driven mad by the
jealous Cybele, but when he mutilated himself she was remorseful, and Zeus
helped
her resurrect him after three days. (The
myth of Cybele and Attis has inspired one of the greatest of all Roman
poems, the 93-line Attis of Catullus.)
During the Cybelean rites in Asia Minor, at
about the time of the Spring Equinox, a felled pine tree was covered
with violets and carried to the shrine of Cybele on Mount Dindymus. There,
Attis was mourned for three days until, in ritual, he was resurrected by the
love of Cybele, following which the devotees engaged in joyous and
unrestrained celebration.
As
it came to be treated with some disdain, the
cult
was restricted to non-Romans, until the time of Emperor Claudius.
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