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[ The Ancile was a round shield, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of Mars. It was kept with great care in the sanctuary of his temple, as a symbol of the perpetuity of the Roman empire; and that it might not be stolen, eleven others were made exactly similar to it.]
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[ This ideal personage, who has been mentioned before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxviii., was the goddess Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called also Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna, Mater, etc. She was painted as a matron, crowned with towers, sitting in a chariot drawn by lions. A statue of her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome, in the time of the second Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests, called the Galli and Corybantes, were castrated; and worshipped her with the sound of drums, tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were disgraced by great indecencies.]
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[ Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, Jupiter Infernus, and Stygnis. He was the brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions. His wife was Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she was gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, in Sicily. The victims offered to the infernal gods were black: they were killed with their faces bent downwards; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was poured into a ditch.]
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[ A town between Mantua and Cremona.]
684 ([return])
[ The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from Cremona. Tacitus gives some details of this action. Hist. ii. 243.]