Ludi Megalenses
The megalesia (also Megalensia ; Games of the Magna Mater Idaea ) were in the Roman calendar to 11 of 4 April as the official Feriae stativae the Magna Mater dedicated. Immediately after the Ludi Megalenses followed the Ludi Cereris , which began on April 12th as part of the celebrations for the goddess Ceres .
The last day of the Ludi Megalenses was also the dedication day of 191 BC. The temple of the Magna Mater Idaea , founded in the 4th century BC , was built on the Palatine Hill on the side facing the Circus Maximus . Initially, the 294 BC. The Victoria Temple , built during the second consulate of Lucius Postumius Megellus of Victoria , houses the cult image of the Magna Mater Idaea after the Magna Mater cult based on a saying in the Sibylline books during the Second Punic War in 204 BC. Was introduced in Rome . A Roman embassy had previously transferred its cult image in the form of a black meteor stone from the Phrygian home shrine of the Magna Mater in Pessinus . The stone was worked into a silver statue.
The festival program included theater performances (ludi scaenici) and chariot races in the Circus Maximus (ludi circenses) . During the Ludi Megalenses, four comedies by Terence and a work by Plautus were premiered . The Fasti Antiates maiores and the Fasti Quirinales , which also classify the final day of April 11th as the EN day , are the oldest Fasti text witnesses. Later Fasti traditions contain a transcription error, which is why the festival period stated there April 4 to 10 is to be regarded as incorrect.
See also
literature
- Christoff Neumeister : Ancient Rome: A literary city guide . Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42683-2 , p. 185.
- Jörg Rüpke : Errors and misinterpretations in the dating of the “dies natalis” of the Mater Magna temple in Rome . In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik No. 102, 1994, pp. 237–240 ( online ; PDF, 36 kB).