Читать книгу The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic - W. Warde Fowler - Страница 26

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MATR[I] MAG[NAE]. (MAFF.)

LUDI MEGALESIACI. (PHILOC.)

Note in Praen.: LUDI M[ATRI] D[EUM] M[AGNAE] I[DAEAE]. MEGALESIA VOCANTUR QUOD EA DEA MEGALE APPELLATUR. NOBILIUM MUTITATIONES CENARUM SOLITAE SUNT FREQUENTER FIERI, QUOD MATER MAGNA EX LIBRIS SIBULLINIS ARCESSITA LOCUM MUTAVIT EX PHRYGIA ROMAM.

The introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea into Rome can only be briefly mentioned here, as being more important for the history of religion at Rome than for that of the Roman religion. In B.C. 204, in accordance with a Sibylline oracle which had previously prophesied that the presence of this deity alone could drive the enemy out of Italy, the sacred stone representing the goddess arrived at Rome from Pessinus in Phrygia^[205]. Attalus, King of Pergamus, had acquired this territory, and now, as a faithful friend to Rome, consented to the transportation of the stone, which was received at Rome with enthusiasm by an excited and now hopeful people^[206]. Scipio was about to leave with his army for Africa; a fine harvest followed; Hannibal was forced to evacuate Italy the next year; and the goddess did everything that was expected of her^[207].

The stone was deposited in the temple of Victory on the Palatine on April 4^[208]. The day was made a festival; though no Roman festival occurs between the Kalends and Nones of any month, the rule apparently did not hold good in the case of a foreign worship^[209]. Great care was taken to keep up the foreign character of the cult. The name of the festival was a Greek one (Megalesia), as Cicero remarked^[210]; all Romans were forbidden by a senatus consultum to take any part in the service of the goddess^[211]. The temple dedicated thirteen years later on April 10^[212] seems to have been frequented by the nobilitas only, and the custom of giving dinner-parties on April 4, which is well attested, was confined to the upper classes^[213], while the plebs waited for its festivities till the ensuing Cerealia. The later and more extravagant developments of the cult did not come in until the Empire^[214].

The story told by Livy of the introduction of the goddess is an interesting episode in Roman history. It illustrates the far-reaching policy of the Senate in enlisting Eastern kings, religions, and oracles in the service of the state at a critical time, and also the curious readiness of the Roman people to believe in the efficacy of cults utterly foreign to their own religious practices. At the same time it shows how careful the government was then, as always, to keep such cults under strict supervision. But the long stress of the Hannibalic War had its natural effect on the Italian peoples; and less than twenty years later the introduction of the Bacchic orgies forced the senate to strain every nerve to counteract a serious danger to the national religion and morality.