Back Храм на Кибела (Палатин) Bulgarian Temple de Cíbele (Palatí) Catalan Tempel der Magna Mater German Templo de Cibeles (Palatino) Spanish Temple de Magna Mater French Cybele temploma Hungarian Tempio della Magna Mater Italian Tempel van Magna Mater Dutch Templo de Cibele (Palatino) Portuguese Храм Кибелы (Палатин) Russian
&sq=&lang=en&file=File:Controfacciata_di_villa_medici,_rilievi_romani_13_victimarii_conducono_un_bue_e_al_Tempio_della_Magna_Mater_sul_Palatino_(ara_gentis_Iuliae)_2.jpg) Temple of Magna Mater on a relief now in Villa Medici, Rome | |
&sq=&lang=en&file=File:Roma_PlanFXD.jpg)  Temple of Cybele Shown in ancient Rome | |
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| Coordinates | 41°53′22″N 12°29′06″E / 41.88944°N 12.48500°E |
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The Temple of Cybele or Temple of Magna Mater was Rome's first and most important temple to the Magna Mater ("Great Mother"), who was known to the Greeks as Cybele. It was built to house a particular image or form of the goddess, a meteoric stone brought from Greek Asia Minor to Rome in 204 BC at the behest of an oracle and temporarily housed in the goddess of Victory's Palatine temple. The new temple was dedicated on 11 April 191 BC, and Magna Mater's first Megalesia festival was held on the temple's proscenium.[1]
The temple was sited on the high western slope of the Palatine, overlooking the valley of the Circus Maximus and facing the temple of Ceres on the slopes of the Aventine. It was accessible via a long upward flight of steps from the flattened area or proscenium below, where the goddess's festival games and plays were staged. The goddess's altar was visible both from the proscenium and the temple's interior. The original temple burned down in 111 BC, and was restored by one Metellus, possibly Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius.[2] It burned on a further two occasions in the early Imperial era, and was restored each time by Augustus; his second rebuilding was probably the more sumptuous of the two.[3]
- ^ (Liv. loc. cit.; Fasti Praenestini apud Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I2 pp235, 314‑315, cf. p251 = VI.32498; Fast. Ant. ap. NS 1921, 91) and celebrated in front of the temple (Cicero, De haruspicum responsis 24; cf. for site Ovid Fasti II.55; Mart. VII.73.3).
- ^ Ovid gives simply Metellus. Roller, 1999, p. 291 states that "it has been plausibly argued that this was C. Mettelus Caprarius, who would have built the temple with funds from military spoils and dedicated it in 101 BC".
- ^ Roller, 1999, pp.309 - 310.