236 i Flora Unveiled
“pollinated” Hera with the magic f lower, just as Babylonian farmers hand- pollinated
their female date trees. Alternatively, the magic f lower might symbolize the female
parthenogenic powers of plants. When Hera is touched by the f lower, she acquires the
ability to conceive parthenogenically, like plants. The latter interpretation would be
more in keeping with the classical understanding of reproduction in the plant kingdom
as a whole.
Pomona (from the Latin pomum, meaning fruit) was the Roman goddess of fruit trees,
especially those with showy flowers. Like Flora and Ceres, she was one of the early Roman
deities and thus had her own flamen dedicated to her worship. Unlike these two goddesses,
however, Pomona was never merged with a comparable Greek deity, and she retained her
original attribute, the pruning knife.
Two other important nature deities that the Romans imported from Anatolia and
Egypt by way of Greece were Magna Mater and Isis. Magna Mater, or Cybele, as she was
called in Rome, was originally the Phrygian goddess Matar kubileya (“Mother of the
Mountain”). The Greeks worshipped her as Kybele or Meter Thea (“Mother Goddess”)—
the mother of the gods, and the Etruscans also depicted her on pottery as early as the
mid- sixth century bce (Fi g u re 9.3).^13 However, Roman worship of Magna Mater greatly
intensified around 204 bce, when a stone artifact representing the goddess was removed
from her temple in Pergamon and borne triumphantly back to Rome, marking the begin-
ning of her status as a mainstream Roman deity. Several factors contributed to the impor-
tation of the Phrygian mother goddess at this particular time. During the preceding year,
a series of meteorite showers had exacerbated a feeling of insecurity and religious anxiety
brought on by the lingering presence of Hannibal’s army in Italy. As was the practice
whenever a crisis or a perplexing situation arose, Roman leaders sought guidance from
a collection of oracular sayings known as the “Syballine books.” Based on the oracle’s
interpretation of certain passages, most likely selected at random, officials were directed
to seek and bring back to Rome a new deity from Anatolia. Magna Mater was already
revered by Romans based on her association with Mount Ida near Troy, the birthplace
of Aeneas. Indeed, upon her arrival in Rome in 204 bce in the form of a sacred stone,
she was welcomed as the primordial Roman mother goddess from Troy, rather than as a
newly adopted foreign deity.
Like the Greeks, Romans revered Magna Mater as the “womb of the gods.” Once firmly
installed in Rome, however, she took on new attributes that differed significantly from those
of either her Greek or Phrygian counterparts. Both the Phrygian and Greek versions of the
deity had been concerned mainly with “wild and unstructured mountain landscapes,” and,
despite their roles as mothers of the gods, they had little or nothing to do with human
fertility or agricultural abundance.^14 However, both the Magna Mater of Rome and her
male consort Attis were strongly associated with human sexuality, fertility, and bountiful
harvests. According to the Roman statesman and encyclopedist, Pliny the Elder, Magna
Mater’s arrival in Rome led to bumper crops the following year. Her festival, the Megalensia
Ludi Comitialis, was celebrated on April 4.
The Egyptian goddess Isis did not enjoy the same warm welcome into Rome as Magna
Mater because she was viewed as a potentially subversive Egyptian influence. During the
reign of Antony and Cleopatra in the Hellenistic period, her Roman devotees received
rough treatment from the Roman Senate, as well as from Rome’s first two emperors,
Augustus and Tiberius. From the reign of Caligula onward, however, Isis was welcomed