Temple of Cybele (Palatine)

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See also: Temples of Cybele in Rome

The Temple of Cybele or Temple of Magna Mater was a temple on the Palatine Hill in Rome. This, the main temple of Cybele or Magna Mater in Rome, was erected after the Roman embassy brought back her icon from Pessinus in 204 BC. It was dedicated on 11th April, 191 BC, by the praetor Marcus Junius Brutus, on which occasion the ludi Megalenses were instituted (Liv. loc. cit.; Fast. Praen. ap. CIL I2 pp235, 314‑315, cf. p251 = VI.32498; Fast. Ant. ap. NS 1921, 91) and celebrated in front of the temple (Cic. de har. resp. 24; cf. for site Ov. Fast. II.55; Mart. VII.73.3).[1]

It burned down in 111 BC, though the statue of Quinta Cloelia inside was undamaged. A Metellus, probably the consul of 110 BC, restored it, but it burned down again and was restored by Augustus in 3 (Val. Max. I.8.11; Obseq. 99; Ov. Fast. IV.347‑348; Mon. Anc. IV.8). Surviving intact from the Augustan era until the fourth century (Not. Reg. X), it is referred to incidentally as a place of assignation by Juvenal (IX.23), during the events of 38 BC (Cass. Dio XLVIII.43.4), and in the third century (Hist. Aug. Claud. 4; Aurel. 1).

The stone needle or icon kept there itself is described by a late writer (Arnob. adv. gentes VII.49) as small and set in a silver statue of the goddess (cf. Herodianus ab exc. d. Marci I.11; Arnob. V.5). It was perhaps removed by Elagabalus to his temple on the Palatine (Hist. Aug. Elag. 3; cf. LR 134‑138; but cf. BC 1883, 211; HJ 53‑54, n44).

At the top of the Scalae Caci, on the west corner of the Palatine, are the ruins of an ancient temple near which have been found inscriptions relating to Magna Mater (CIL VI.496, 1040, 3702 =30967; NS 1896, 186; cf. CIL XII.405), a portion of a colossal female figure seated on a throne, and a fragment of a base with the paws of lions, the regular attendants of the goddess. These ruins consist of a massive podium made of irregular pieces of tufa and peperino laid in thick mortar, and fragments of columns and entablature. The walls of the podium are 3.84 metres thick (those of the cella were somewhat thinner) on the sides and 5.50 in the rear, p325but this unusual thickness is because the rear wall is double, with an air space, 1.80 metre wide, between the two parts. This wall was faced on the outside with stucco, not with opus quadratum. The total length of the temple was 33.18 metres and its width 17.10. It was prostyle hexastyle, of the Corinthian order, and was approached by a flight of steps extending entirely across the front. From the rear wall of the cella projects the base of a pedestal on which the stone needle probably stood. The concrete of the podium belongs to the time of Augustus (AJA 1912, 393), and since the remaining architectural fragments are of peperino, it is evident that the restoration of that period was carried out with the material of the original structure.2 The character of these remains and the inscriptions and objects found here make it extremely probable, to say the least, that this is the temple of Magna Mater, an identification that is strongly supported by the evidence of a coin of the elder Faustina (Cohen, Faust. sen. 55). This represents a temple of the Corinthian order, with curved roof, and a flight of steps on which is a statue of Cybele with a turreted crown enthroned between lions. The temple is also represented in a relief in the Villa Medici, formerly attributed to the Ara Pacis (SScR 69). (For the complete description of the ruins and argument for identification, see Mitt. 1895, 1‑28; 1906, 277; for the coins, ib. 1908, 368‑374; in general, HJ 51‑4; Rosch. II.1666‑1667; Gilb. III.104‑107; Graillot, Cybele (Bibl. Ec. Franç. 107, 320‑326; SScR 247‑249).)

A seated statue of a goddess in the Palatine Antiquarium is now accepted to be of Cybele, and may be from the temple complex.[2]