The first and most significant temple of Rome devoted to the Magna Mater, also known as the Great Mother, or Cybele as the Greeks called her, was called the Temple of Cybele or the Temple of Magna Mater. It was constructed to hold a specific image or form of the goddess, a meteoric stone that was briefly placed in the Palatine temple of goddess of Victory and brought to Rome in 204 BC at the request of an oracle from Greek Asia Minor. On April 11, 191 BC, the proscenium of the new temple hosted inaugural Megalesia celebration of Magna Mater. Situated on the elevated western flank of the Palatine, the temple had a commanding view of the Circus Maximus valley and faced the Ceres-temple situated atop the Aventine mountains. The flattened space, or proscenium, below, where the festival sports and plays in honour of the Goddess were staged, was reached by a long flight of steps rising higher. From the proscenium as well as the inside of the temple, one could see the goddess-altar. After the first temple burned down in 111 BC, a Metellus—possibly Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius—restored it. In the early Imperial Empire, it burnt twice more, but Augustus rebuilt it each time, the second reconstruction being arguably the more opulent of the two. A figure of Cybele enthroned with lion attendants and a turreted crown sits atop the steps. This is in line with a massive, broken statue of the goddess that was discovered inside the temple grounds. Up to the late 4th century, the temple was still in operation [Information and Image Credit : Temple_of_Cybele_(Palatine), Wikipedia] [Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Cybele_(Palatine) ] [Image : Magna Mater Temple on a relief currently displayed at Villa Medici of Rome; Wikipedia-Image-Author : Sailko] [Image Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property and Sharing, Remixing or Attributing the Work)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en ] [Original Wikipedia-Image-Source-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 ] #History#Art#Architecture
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Monuments and Architecture
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