TheMegalesia,Megalensia, orMegalenses Ludi was a festival celebrated inancient Rome fromApril 4 to April 10, in honour ofCybele, whom the Romans calledMagna Mater ("Great Mother"). The name of the festival derives from Greekmegalē (μϵγάλη), meaning "great". The festival was one of several on theRoman calendar celebrated withludi, games and performances.
Cybele's cult image was brought to Rome fromPessinus in 204 BC, along with the goddess'sGallae priestesses. As the "Great Mother of the Gods" and a purported ancestralTrojan goddess of Rome's rulingpatrician caste, she was recruited to act on Rome's behalf in thewar against Carthage. Her arrival was solemnized with a magnificent procession, sacred feasts (lectisternia), games, and offerings to her at thetemple of Victory on thePalatine Hill, where her image was temporarily housed.[1][2][3]In 203 Cybele was promised a temple of her own. Games in her honour were celebrated in 193.[4][5] Regular annual celebration of the Megalesia began in 191, with the temple's completion and dedication by Marcus Junius Brutus.[6][7]
TheMegalesia commenced on April 4, the anniversary of Cybele's arrival in Rome. The festival structure is unclear, but it includedludi scaenici (plays and other entertainments based on religious themes), probably performed on the deeply stepped approach to her temple; some of the plays were commissioned from well-known playwrights. On April 10, her image was taken in public procession to theCircus Maximus, andchariot races were held there in her honour. The racetrack could be seen from her temple's threshold, and a statue of Magna Mater was permanently sited on the racetrack's dividing barrier, showing the goddess seated on a lion's back: the goddess could thus watch the festivities held in her honour.[8]
Roman bystanders seem to have perceived Megalesia as either characteristically "Greek";[10] or Phrygian. At the cusp of Rome's transition to Empire, the GreekDionysius of Halicarnassus describes this procession as wild Phrygian "mummery" and "fabulous clap-trap", in contrast to the Megalesian sacrifices and games, carried out in what he admires as a dignified "traditional Roman" manner; Dionysius also applauds the wisdom of Roman religious law, which forbids the participation of any Roman citizen in the procession, and in the goddess'smysteries;[11] Slaves are forbidden to witness any of this.[12] In the late republican era,Lucretius vividly describes the procession's armed "war dancers" in their three-plumed helmets, clashing their shields together, bronze on bronze,[13] "delighted by blood"; yellow-robed, long-haired, perfumed Galli waving their knives, wild music of thrumming tympanons and shrill flutes. Along the route, rose petals are scattered, and clouds of incense arise.[14] The goddess's image, wearing the Mural Crown and seated within a sculpted, lion-drawn chariot, is carried high on a bier.[15] The Roman display of Cybele's Megalesia procession as an exotic, privileged public pageant offers signal contrast to what is known of the private, socially inclusive Phrygian-Greek mysteries on which it was based.[16]
During the festival, wealthy Roman nobles played host to each other, in rotation, in honour of the goddess; these were lavish, costly and competitive occasions in which the wealthy sought to impress their inferiors and peers; or in the latter case, to outdo them in extravagance. In direct response to this, thesenate issued a decree in 161 BC, limiting expenditure on meat, wine and silverware for such feasts.[17]
In the late republican era, Cicero attacked his political opponentClodius for sacrilegious disruption of thecasti, sollemnes, religiosi (pure, traditional, religious) rites of Megalesia. Clodius had sought popular support by defecting from a patrician to a plebeian gens. The Megalesia was a predominantly patrician affair; and in an apparent attempt to undermine patrician privilege, Clodius had hired slave-gangs to forcibly take control of the festival. The attempt was a failure, and Clodius was prosecuted for this and other outrages against Rome's traditional and social proprieties.[18]