MEGALE´SIA
MEGALE´SIA,
MEGALENSIA, or MEGALENSES
LUDI. It is important to mark the distinction between the celebration of
this festival under the Republic, and its later development under the
Empire. We find it early in the 2nd century B.C. celebrated at Rome in the
month of April and in honour of the great mother of the gods (Cybele,
μεγάλη θεός, whence the festival
derived its name;
Cic. de Harusp.
Resp. 12, 24). The sacred stone representing the goddess
was brought to Rome from Pessinus in the year 204 B.C., and the day of its arrival was solemnised with a magnificent
procession, lectisternia, and games, and great numbers of
[p. 2.156]people carried presents to the goddess, whose temporary
resting-place was the temple of Victory on the Palatine. (Varro,
L.
L. 6.15;
Liv. 29.14.) The
celebration of the Megalesia, however, did not begin till ten years later
(194 B.C.), and the temple which had been vowed and ordered to be built in
204 B.C. was completed and dedicated by M. Junius Brutus (
Liv. 36.36) on April 10, B.C. 191, after which
time the celebration was annual. The temple (
Matris
Magnae Idaeae) was on the Palatine, a position within the
pomoerium, which, as Marquardt points out, shows that she was not regarded
as a foreign deity: she came from Ida, the home of their race. The rites
were originally under the charge of a Phrygian priest and priestess (
Dionys. A. R. 2.19); but the numbers were
afterwards greatly increased, and we find an
archigallus at their head, as chief priest, and a
sacerdos maxima matris, as chief priestess,
mentioned in numerous inscriptions. (See Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.368, note 6.) These archigalli bear Roman
names; but the ordinary galli were foreigners. The priestly dress is a
mitra (Propert. 5.7, 61), a veil, a
necklace (
occabus), and a purple dress: a small
image of the goddess or of Attis in an
aedicula
was suspended at his breast: in his hand he bore a basket of fruit, cymbals,
and flutes. The festival lasted for six days, beginning on the 4th of April
(reading
Prid. Non. in
Liv.
29.14, according to the Cal. Praen.). The season of this festival,
like that of the whole month in which it took place, was full of general
rejoicings and feasting. It was customary for the Patricians on this
occasion to invite one another to their repasts (
mutitare), and the extravagance was such, that a senatusconsultum
was issued in 161 B.C., prescribing that no one
should go beyond a certain extent of expenditure. (Gellius,
2.24; compare 18.2.)
The games which were held at the Megalesia were scenic, but there is some
indication that they were also
circenses (Mommsen,
C. I. L. 1.391). They were at first held on the Palatine
in front of the temple of the goddess, but afterwards also in the theatres.
(
Cic. de Harusp. Resp. 11,
&c.) The day which was especially set apart for the performance of
scenic plays was the third of the festival. (Ovid.
Fast. 4.377; Ael. Spartian.
Antonin. Carac.
100.6.) We know that four of the extant plays of Terence were performed at
the Megalesia. Cicero (
de Harusp. Resp. 12, 24), probably
contrasting the games of the Megalesia with the more rude and barbarous
games and exhibitions of the circus, calls them
maxime
cast, solemnes, religiosi: they were under the superintendence of
the curule aediles (
Liv. 34.54), till in B.C. 22
Augustus took the cura ludorum from the aediles and gave it to the praetor.
The procession of galli, which began the festival (Ovid.
Fast. 4.179 if.), bore the sacred image in a chariot through
the city. The priests sang
Greek hymns and collected coins
from the people as they went (
Cic. de
Leg. 2.1. 6, 40): the passage in Lucret. 2.618 ff.
describes the procession.
Under the Empire there was a great increase in the ceremonial, which took a
new character, more Eastern, and more elaborately symbolical. In its first
observance it was a thanksgiving for the aid granted in the Second Punic
War, and a time of feasting and theatrical shows for the patrician houses.
In its later form Cybele represents the earth and fruitfulness, and it is
recollected that the year of her entry was marked by great plenty (
Plin. Nat. 18.16). Attis represents the sun,
and in this sun-myth it is observed by Macrobius (1.21, 7) that the day of
rejoicing (
Hilaria) is that day when the sun
begins to make the day longer than the night. The tendency to adopt the full
Phrygian rites instead of the simpler rites first introduced may perhaps be
beginning when Lucretius (
l.c.) and Catullus take up
the subject, and it appears from inscriptions that the Phrygian rites
existed earlier in South Italy (see Preller,
Röm.
Myth. p. 736): but they were not fully celebrated under the
Republic, and perhaps not before the time of Claudius. Preller notes that
the first mention of the March ceremonies is in
Lucan
1.599 (cf. Suet.
Oth. 8). The festival so
developed began on March 15, which day stands in the Calendar as
canna intrat, because there was then a procession of
men and women bearing reeds, which were sacred to Attis. There is some
allusion to Attis hiding himself among reeds, and being there discovered by
Cybele. There were colleges of
Cannophori or
Cannofori in several places, the heads of which are called
pater and
mater. Inscriptions about them have been found at Locri, Ostia,
Milan, &c. (
C. I. L. 10.24; 5.5850). They have
sometimes been confused with
κανηφόροι. On
March 22 was the day of
Arbor intrat, when the
sacred pine of Attis (Ovid.
Met. 10.103) was borne to the
temple of Cybele on the Palatine. The pine was hung with wool and with
violet crowns (Arnob. 5.16). For this service there was a
collegium
dendrophororum Matris Magnae (
C. I. L. 6.641).
March 24 was
Dies sanguinis, on which, to
commemorate the wounds of Attis, the
archigallus cut his arm with a knife; it was a fast and a day of
mourning (
Mart. 11.84; Arnob.
l.c.): on March 25 was the day of rejoicing
(
Hilaria), a great festival (Lamprid.
Alex. Sev. 37; Macrob.
l.c.);
and, finally, on March 27 a procession of priests bore the sacred image on a
chariot down to the Almo (
Mart. 3.47;
Sil. Ital. 8.365), to wash it in the place
where the Almo joins the Tiber near the Ostian road, half a mile from the
walls (Burn's
Rome and Campagna, p. 329). The image was the
sacred black stone (Preller suggests a meteorite), to which a female head of
silver was added. The ceremonies ended with a general carnival. The Ludi
Megalenses of the original Megalesia, ludi scenici and ludi circenses, were
as before for seven days, from April 4 to April 10. It should be noted that
the bathing of the goddess was not an entirely new ceremony, since Ovid
mentions it as belonging to her first entry, and we hear also of the image
being bathed in the sea by order of the Sibylline books in the year B.C. 38
(
D. C. 48.43); but this was an exceptional
case, and there is no trace of the annual March ceremonies under the
Republic. The ceremonies lasted till a late period in various places.
Marquardt cites a passage from Gregory of Tours, who says that Simplicius
(in the 5th century) saw the procession of the image at Autun, with the
attendants singing and playing before it
pro salvatione
agrorum ac vinearum. (See further on this subject Preller,
Röm. Myth. pp. 448 ff. and
[p. 2.157]735 ff., and Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, pp.
367-374, where a mass of authorities from ancient writers and inscriptions
is given in the notes.)
[
L.S] [
G.E.M]
