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In
like manner the worshippers of Adonis abstained from pork, because a
boar had killed their god. After his death Attis is said to have
been changed into a pine-tree.
The worship of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods was adopted by the
Romans in 204 B.C. towards the close of their long struggle with
Hannibal. For their drooping spirits had been opportunely cheered by
a prophecy, alleged to be drawn from that convenient farrago of
nonsense, the Sibylline Books, that the foreign invader would be
driven from Italy if the great Oriental goddess were brought to
Rome. Accordingly ambassadors were despatched to her sacred city
Pessinus in Phrygia. The small black stone which embodied the mighty
divinity was entrusted to them and conveyed to Rome, where it was
received with great respect and installed in the temple of Victory
on the Palatine Hill. It was the middle of April when the goddess
arrived, and she went to work at once. For the harvest that year was
such as had not been seen for many a long day, and in the very next
year Hannibal and his veterans embarked for Africa.


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