The sanctuaries of Cybele in Salona in the light of epigraphic sources

Sa？etak The cult of the Great Mother (Magna Mater) in Dalmatia has been confirmed by numerous material and textual sources. The Metroac building inscriptions of Salona and the monuments where these are inscribed testify clearly that in the Salonitan ager certainly existed Cybele's several smaller, private, sanctuaries and at least one larger, public. Although as many as 14 inscriptions are preserved, five of which found intra muros, and nine extra muros, only one site may be assumed with greater certainty to have been the place of a Cybele's temple (aedes), in the eastern part of the town (the present day Baku？a neighbourhood). At three locations, probably, after Cybele, worshiped was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Based on the sanctuary related terminology (aedes, fanum, templum) we assume that the goddess' sanctuaries situated next to temples had other contents as well. It is assumed that temple buildings were normally smaller structures of rectangular ground plan. It is certain that one of them was a tholos or that it had a semicircular apse in the cella. Confirmed are also a chapel (aedicula) and a main temple altar (ara). The temples were built (facere, curare facere), but also renewed (reficere, restituere), extended (ampliare), decorated (expolire), donated (donare), vowed (vovere), and dedicated (dedicare). The Cybele's March festival was held in front of the sanctuaries in Salona. Structures dedicated to Cybele were built by individuals and by members of the religious community – the cognatio. Among the donors dominate bearers of the Roman civil rights, men. Accordingly, Cybele was primarily worshipped as a national goddess – the Phrygian Great Mother – who was, like Venus, considered a protectress of the Roman people. The imperial propaganda was a reason of the goddess' popularity in Salona from the first to the last evidences, as indicated by the dedications of the Seviri Augustales. Most part of the Metroac inscriptions in Salona are dated to the 1st-2nd centuries. This can be connected just to the propaganda of the emperor Claudius, who gave the Cybele's cult the official character and established the Spring Festivals. The last evidences of sanctuaries are dated to the turn of the 2nd century – the time of Antoninus Pius and his religious reforms that introduced Cybele's high priesthood, archigallatus, and of the Severan emperors who propagated eastern cults