In this same palace Claudius was feasting when he was told that his hitherto idolised wife Messalina was dead, without being told whether she died by her own hand or another's,--and asked no questions, merely desiring a servant to pour him out some more wine, and went on eating his supper.[117] Here also Claudius, who so dearly loved eating, devoured his last and fatal supper of poisoned mushrooms which his next loving wife (and niece) Agrippina prepared for him, to make way for her son Nero upon the throne.[118]
The Clivus Victoriæ commemorates by its name the _Temple of Victory_,[119] said to have been founded by the Sabine aborigines before the time of Romulus, and to be the earliest temple at Rome of which there is any mention except that of Saturnus. This temple was rebuilt by the consul L. Posthumius.
Chief of a group of small temples, the famous _Temple of Cybele_, "Mother of the Gods," stood at this corner of the Palatine. Thirteen years before it was built, the "Sacred Stone," the form under which the "Idæan Mother" was worshipped, had been brought from Pessinus in Phrygia, because, according to the Sibylline books, frequent showers of stones which had occurred could only be expiated by its being transported to Rome. It was given up to the Romans by their ally Attalus, king of Pergamus, and P. Cornelius Scipio, the young brother of Africanus--accounted the worthiest and most virtuous of the Romans--was sent to receive it. As the vessel bearing the holy stone came up the Tiber it grounded at the foot of the Aventine, when the aruspices declared that only chaste hands would be able to move it. Then the Vestal Claudia drew the vessel up the river by a rope.
"Ainsi Sainte Brigitte, Suédoise morte à Rome, prouva sa pureté en touchant le bois de l'autel, qui reverdit soudain. Une statue fut érigée à Claudia, dans le vestibule du temple de Cybèle. Bien qu'elle eût été, disait on, seule épargnée dans deux incendies du temple, nous n'avons plus cette statue, mais nous avons au Capitole un bas-relief où l'événement miraculeux est représenté. C'est un autel dédié par une affranchie de la gens Claudia; il a été trouvé au pied de l'Aventin, près du lieu qu'on désignait comme celui où avait été opéré le miracle."--_Ampère, Hist. Rom._ iii. 142.