Gaianum
The Gaianum was an area in the
circus building as such.[3]
The
Calendar of Philocalus (354 AD) lists an Initium Caiani on March 28, at the conclusion of an Imperial-era religious festival for Cybele and Attis that began March 22. The older Republican festival of the Megalesia for Cybele as Magna Mater ran April 4–10. The regionary catalogues connect the Gaianum to the Phrygianum, a sanctuary of the Magna Mater on the Vatican Hill. Some scholars think an initiation rite in connection with the cult was held on March 28, with the Gaianum substituting for the Phrygianum when it was made inaccessible by the construction of St. Peter's beginning in the early 4th century.[4] March 28 was also the date of Caligula's entry (initium) into Rome in 37 AD, when he was acclaimed as princeps,[5] and the festival may originate with him, with no relation to the cult of Cybele.[6]
References
- ^ Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 180; Antony A. Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (Taylor & Francis, 1989, 2001), p. 303, citing Filippo Coarelli and others.
- ^ Cassius Dio 59.14.6–7.
- ^ Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 180.
- ^ Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 167, 169.
- ^ CIL 6.2028e; Suetonius, Caligula 14.1, as cited by Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, p. 180.
- ^ Duncan Fishwick, "The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater," Transactions of the American Philological Association 97 (1966), pp. 193–194.
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