country temples of cybele in rome
The sibyls were women that the ancient Greeks believed were oracles . The earliest sibyls , according to legend , prophesied at holy sites . Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity ; originally at Delphi and Pessinos , the deities were chthonic deities . In later antiquity , various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in ___MASK18___ , ___MASK7___ , the Levant , and Asia Minor . A number of temples to Cybele in Rome have been identified . Originally an Anatolian mother goddess , the cult of Cybele was formally brought to Rome during the Second Punic War ( 218 to 201 BCE ) after a consultation with the Sibylline Books . The ___MASK16___ was the era of ancient Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the ___MASK56___ , traditionally dated to 509 BC , and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire . It was during this period that Rome ' s control expanded from the city ' s immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world . A mother goddess is a goddess who represents , or is a personification of nature , motherhood , fertility , creation , destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth . When equated with the Earth or the natural ___MASK100___ , such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother . Earth , otherwise known as the ___MASK100___ , is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life . It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets . ___MASK57___ ( 202 BC  46 BC ) was an ancient kingdom of the Numidians , located in what is now ___MASK15___ and a smaller part of Tunisia and Libya in the Maghreb . The polity was originally divided between Massylii in the east and Masaesyli in the west . During the Second Punic War ( 218 - 201 BC ), Massinissa , king of the Massylii , defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify ___MASK57___ into one kingdom . The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state . It was bordered by the kingdom of Mauretania to the west , the Roman province of Africa ( modern - day Tunisia ) to the east , the Mediterranean Sea to the north , and the Sahara Desert to the south . It is considered to be the first major state in the history of ___MASK15___ and the Berber territories . Anatolia ( from Greek , '  " east " or "( sun ) rise "; in modern ), in geography known as Asia Minor ( from '  " small Asia "; in modern ), Asian ___MASK3___ , Anatolian peninsula , or Anatolian plateau , is the westernmost protrusion of Asia , which makes up the majority of modern - day ___MASK3___ . The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north , the Mediterranean Sea to the south , and the Aegean Sea to the west . The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland . ___MASK18___ (' ), officially the Hellenic Republic ( Greek : ' ), historically also known as Hellas ("" ), is a country in southeastern Europe . ___MASK18___ ' s population is approximately 10 . 955 million as of 2015 . Athens is the nation ' s capital and largest city , followed by Thessaloniki . Cybele ( Phrygian : " Matar Kubileya / Kubeleya " "" Kubeleyan " Mother ", perhaps "" Mountain " Mother "; Lydian " Kuvava "; " Kybele ", " Kybebe ", " Kybelis ") is an Anatolian mother goddess ; she may have a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük , where statues of obese women , sometimes sitting , have been found in excavations . She is Phrygia ' s only known goddess , and was probably its state deity . Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland ___MASK18___ and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BCE . In antiquity , Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia , in what is now ___MASK3___ , centered on the Sakarya River . Çatalhöyük ( also " Çatal Höyük " and " Çatal Hüyük "; from Turkish " çatal " " fork " + " höyük " " mound ") was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto - city settlement in southern Anatolia , which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC , and flourished around 7000 BC . In July 2012 , it was inscribed as a UNESCO ___MASK100___ Heritage Site . Nature , in the broadest sense , is the natural , physical , or material ___MASK100___ or universe . " Nature " can refer to the phenomena of the physical ___MASK100___ , and also to life in general . The study of nature is a large part of science . Although humans are part of nature , human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena . The Sibylline Books were a collection of oracular utterances , set out in Greek hexameters , that according to tradition were purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome , Tarquinius Superbus , and were consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Republic and the Empire . Only fragments have survived , the rest being lost or deliberately destroyed . The Second Punic War , also referred to as The Hannibalic War and ( by the Romans ) the War Against Hannibal , lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean . This was the second major war between Carthage and the ___MASK16___ and its allied Italic socii , with the crucial participation of Numidian - Berber armies and tribes on both sides . The two states fought three major wars with each other over the course of their existence . They are called the " Punic Wars " because Rome ' s name for Carthaginians was " Poeni ", derived from " Poenici " ( earlier form of " Punici "), a reference to the founding of Carthage by Phoenician settlers . The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC . At the time , they were probably the largest wars that had ever taken place . The term " Punic " comes from the Latin word " Punicus " ( or " Poenicus "), meaning " Carthaginian ", with reference to the Carthaginians ' Phoenician ancestry . The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding ___MASK16___ . The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily ( which at that time was a cultural melting pot ), part of which lay under Carthaginian control . At the start of the first Punic War , Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean , with an extensive maritime empire . Rome was a rapidly ascending power in ___MASK7___ , but it lacked the naval power of Carthage . By the end of the third war , after more than a hundred years and the loss of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides , Rome had conquered Carthage ' s empire , completely destroyed the city , and become the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean . The socii ( in Classical Latin ; in Italian Latin ; in English ; " allies ") were the autonomous tribes and city - states of the Italian Peninsula in permanent military alliance with the ___MASK16___ until the Social War of 91  88 BC . After this conflict , all Rome ' s peninsular Italian allies were awarded Roman citizenship and their territories incorporated in the Roman state . The Romans themselves referred to their confederates as the " socii Latini " (" Latin allies "), although most were not members of the Latin tribe strictly speaking , but members of various other Italian tribes and city - states . In everyday usage , the word socius could mean " associate " or " partner " in general .