Megalesia
Megalesia, a festival of the Roman calendar.
What it was like
Drums in the streets
The games of the Great Mother began with noise. Ovid hears the curved Phrygian pipe blow, the goddess's eunuch priests beating hollow drums and clashing cymbals, and the goddess herself carried shoulder-high through the middle of the city, amid wailing. Then the theatres opened.
ibunt semimares et inania tympana tundent, / aeraque tinnitus aere repulsa dabunt; / ipsa sedens molli comitum cervice feretur / Urbis per medias exululata vias
“The half-men will march and beat their hollow drums, and bronze struck on bronze will ring; she herself, seated, will be borne on the soft necks of her attendants through the middle of the city, amid howls.”
- April 4
Megalesia: the Great Mother’s games open - April 10
The Megalesia end with races in the Circus - April 12
The Great Mother arrives in Rome
Scribere me quereris, Velox, epigrammata longa.
“You complain, Velox, that I write long epigrams.”