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An Analysis of 'Bronze Statuette of Cybele on a Cart Drawn by Lions'

Decent Essays

Culture and Art Cybele was worshipped in the Anatolian region of the world during the time of the Second Punic War in approximately 205 AD (Scullard 10). This was the part of the world which had been part of the Greek and then the Roman Empire which was then rebuilt after Christianity developed throughout the region and took over as the predominant religion of the world. Even when other gods and goddesses where introduced, cultists still worshipped Cybele, their mother goddess, above all others. In the period of the Second Punic War, the Romans did not seem to be winning the day. After consulting their means of prognostication, the Sibyline Books, they determined that they needed to recommit themselves to the ancient way, reinvigorating the belief in the mother goddess who existed long before the established Roman religion. During the invasion of Hannibal, the Romans' prophets told the leaders that Hannibal would be expelled from the Roman land if the "Idaean Mother" were brought from the ancient and into Rome. With her must be brought a symbolic stone which allegedly fell from Heaven and must be honored just as much as the goddess herself was worshipped. The cult of Cybele was a very important one to the people of Rome as indicated by the elaborate means by which the population went about honoring even the statue of the goddess. The work of art discussed here is a piece called "Bronze Statuette of Cybele on a Cart Drawn by Lions." This particular piece is mostly a

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