by Marcus Calidius Gracchus on Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:51 am
M•CALIDIVS•GRACCHVS• QVIRITIBVS•S•P•D
SALVETE AMICI!
Here’a a little background to Claudia Quinta.
Cybele's Advent in Rome:
About 213 BCE the Romans were fighting a war with Carthage. It was not going well and panic and uncertainty was the rule. Many superstitious ideas and practices were about that were not Roman in origin. This alarmed the Senate, and to reinstate order, they issued a decree that all books of prayers, prophecies and manuals for the sacrificial cult to be delivered to the city praetor. Nor was anyone to sacrifice in public or in a sacred place according to a new or foreign rite.
Now some of the families in Rome were descended from Trojan emigrants, and prided themselves in their supposed Trojan origin. Rome was considered to be a "New Troy" by many, and thought that its fate might be dependent upon the Phrygian Goddess(2). The Sibylline books declared that "whenever a foreign enemy has invaded Italy, he can only be driven away and vanquished, if the Mother of Mount Ida is transferred from Pessinus to Rome".
A delegation was sent to Delphi to consult the Oracle and then to Pergamun where the ruling King (then allied with Rome against Philip V of Macedon) gave them the statue and the black meteorite that personified Cybele. This was carried on a ship built of pine trees from Mt Ida, through Tenedos, Lesbos, the Cyclades, Euboea, Cythera, around Sicily and then to Ostia (chief port of Rome).
Miracle of Claudia Quinta:
Claudia Quinta embodied the greatest virtues of Roman womanhood—chastity, piety, and fortitude. It had been prophesied that Roman victory in the Second Punic War depended on bringing Cybele, the Anatolian Great Mother goddess, to Rome. But when a ship with her image arrived at the mouth of the Tiber River, it became mired in mud. Strong men were unable to free it. Claudia was a virtuous young matron, falsely accused of impropriety, who had prayed to Cybele for a sign of her innocence. At the goddess's direction she slipped a slender cord over the ship's bow and easily pulled the vessel free.
For further information try reading this excellent article by Eleanor Winsor Leach:
http--dictynna.revue.univ-lille3.fr-1Articles-4Articlespdf-Winsor.pdf
M. TVLLI CICERONIS ORATIO DE HARVSPICVM RESPONSO IN P. CLODIVM IN SENATV HABITA
[24] “Ac si volumus ea quae de quoque deo nobis tradita sunt recordari, hanc Matrem Magnam, cuius ludi violati, polluti, paene ad caedem et ad funus civitatis conversi sunt, hanc, inquam, accepimus agros et nemora cum quodam strepitu fremituque peragrare. Haec igitur vobis, haec populo Romano et scelerum indicia ostendit et periculorum signa patefecit. Nam quid ego de illis ludis loquar quos in Palatio nostri maiores ante templum in ipso Matris Magnae conspectu Megalesibus fieri celebrarique voluerunt? qui sunt more institutisque maxime casti, sollemnes, religiosi; quibus ludis primum ante populi consessum senatui locum P. Africanus iterum consul ille maior dedit, ut eos ludos haec lues impura pollueret! quo si qui liber aut spectandi aut etiam religionis causa accesserat, manus adferebantur, quo matrona nulla adiit propter vim consessumque servorum. Ita ludos eos, quorum religio tanta est ut ex ultimis terris arcessita in hac urbe consederit, qui uni ludi ne verbo quidem appellantur Latino, ut vocabulo ipso et appetita religio externa et Matris Magnae nomine suscepta declaretur—hos ludos servi fecerunt, servi spectaverunt, tota denique hoc aedile servorum Megalesia fuerunt. ”
VALETE,
M•CALIDIVS•GRACCHVS
VERITAS•LVX•MEA
Fratres, quod in vitae spatium agimus in aeternum resonat!
(Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity!)