Bronze fountain statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions, Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

Bronze fountain statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions, Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
This bronze fountain ornament represents the cult image of the goddess Cybele enthroned on a cart drawn by two lions. Spouts formerly projecting from the open mouths of the lions. The original cart, harness, and throne no longer survive. The rear left wheel is a 19th century restoration. Originally a Phrygian Mother Goddess, the cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century B.C.E. Rites included the presence of a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention, and was represented by members of a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Rome officially adopted her cult during the Second Punic War (218 to 201 B.C.E.), after dire prodigies, including a meteor shower, a failed harvest and famine, seemed to warn of Rome's imminent defeat. The Roman Senate and its religious advisers consulted the Sibylline oracle and decided that Carthage might be defeated if Rome imported the Magna Mater ("Great Mother") of Phrygian Pessinos. As this cult object belonged to a Roman ally, the Kingdom of Pergamum, the Roman Senate sent ambassadors to seek the king's consent. En route, a consultation with the Greek oracle at Delphi confirmed that the goddess should be brought to Rome.


Image: Bronze fountain statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions, Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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