Myths and legends

Park of the Caffarella

Herod Atticus

• Herod Atticus (Marathon, 100 - 177)

• He was made consul in 143 and sent to rule Greece and parts of Asia. He embellished Athens with magnificent monuments, in particular the famous theater called Odeon (dedicated to his dead wife, Annia Regilla), still clearly visible on the way leaning to the Acropolis.

• Herodes Atticus excelled especially in improvisation. He compose quite a few orations, none of which has been preserved; an oration refered to him is found in the collections of Greek speakers.

• He ieducated the future emperor Marcus Aurelius

Temple of the God Rediculus

• According to a legend travelers who undertook a journey to the South of Italy on the Appian Way or the Via Latina, before leaving, went to the temple of the god Redicolusasking him to make it back safe and sound. (Rede [lat.])In addition it is said that the God appeared to Hannibal when he marched on Rome and convinced him to abandon the enterprise by scaring him.

The River Almone

• The river was deified as a god Almone, who gave water or drought at will.

• This god was important. He was worshipped at the gates of Rome and his ritual took place every year where the river waters flew into the Tiber from the Palatine hill, where the temple of Magna Mater (the goddess Cybele) stood.

• Worshippers bore the statue of the goddess with a solemn procession to the Via Ostiensisand there they washed both the statue and the vessels of worship in the Almone waters.

• The cult was of Eastern origin, it was held on 27 March and the ceremony was performed until the end of the Roman Empire.

Egeria mourns Numa (1669) by Claude Lorrain

The nymph Egeria

• The Camenae were the nymphs of the springs who lived in a cave surrounded by a sacred grove. Egeria was the most important of them. She was the wife and adviser to Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome.

• When he died she was transformed into a spring by Goddess Diana moved by her pain.

• The ancient texts also report that when King Numa Pompilius died Egeria escaped from Rome to take refuge in the sacred forest of Ariccia and there she was transformed into a spring.

• The building in the picture is part of the Triopio of Herodes Atticus and Annia Regillaand dates back to the second century AD.

Apse of the Ninfeo d'Egeria, Parco Cafarella, Rome