Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XLIX

by Arnobius

49.^[1] But the Great Mother, also, says my opponent, being summoned from Phrygian Pessinus in precisely the same way by command of the seers, was a cause of safety and great joy to the people. For, on the one hand, a long-powerful enemy was thrust out from the position he had gained in^[2] Italy; and, on the other, its ancient glory was restored to the city by glorious and illustrious victories, and the boundaries of the empire were extended far and wide, and their rights as freemen were torn from races, states, peoples without number, and the yoke of slavery imposed on them, and many other things accomplished at home and abroad established the renown and dignity of the race with irresistible power. If the histories tell the truth, and do not insert what is false in their accounts of events, nothing else truly^[3] is said to have been brought from Phrygia, sent by King Attalus, than a stone, not large, which could be carried in a man’s hand without any pressure—of a dusky and black colour—not smooth, but having little corners standing out, and which to-day we all see put in that image instead of a face, rough and unhewn, giving to the figure a countenance by no means lifelike.^[4]

Footnotes

1. 46 In Orelli.
2. Lit., “from the possession of Italy.”
3. So all edd. to Orelli, adding -em to the ms. quid. [See, concerning Pessinus, p. 492, supra.]
4. Lit., “a face too little expressed with imitation.”