It was a conical mass bearing a rude resemblance to a human head, and was said to have fallen near Pessinus. It was placed in the Temple of Cybele and worshipped as her image. During the second Punic war, in 205 B.C., because of Hannibal’s prolonged invasion of Italy, the downfall of the Roman state was feared, and the Romans were terrified by a shower of stones from the sky. On consulting the Sibylline books, some verses were found to the effect that a foreign enemy could be driven from Italy if the Idæan mother (Cybele) was brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome. An embassy was sent to King Attalus of Pergamos to request his consent to the transfer of the stone, and although he even refused obedience to the commands of the Delphic oracle, which required him to surrender the stone as an act of hospitality, he at last yielded when a violent earthquake shook the country, and the voice of the goddess was heard, enunciating these words: “It is my will. Rome is a worthy place for any god; delay not.”[134] Herodian, who relates this story, proceeds to narrate the arrival of the stone at Rome, where Scipio Africanus was chosen to bear it to the Temple of Victory. A silver image of the goddess was made, the conical stone serving as the head. For five hundred years this image, later transferred to the Temple of the Great Mother of the Gods, was an object of Roman worship. It has been described very fully by Arnobius (fl. 300 A.D.).[135] He states that it was a small stone which could be easily and lightly carried in the hand; it was of a black hue and of rough surface, and had many irregular projecting angles. As it was naturally marked with the form of a mouth, it was inserted in the face of an image of the goddess to figure that feature. As the stone was valueless, modern explorers long hoped that it might not have been carried off from Rome by the spoilers, but the search for it has been in vain. In a rare volume describing excavations made in the Palatine hill in 1730, Professor Lanciani is stated to have found a stone that had been unearthed at that time in a chapel, lacking any inscription to indicate the divinity to whom it was dedicated. This stone was said to be “of a deep brown color, looking very much like a piece of lava, and ending in a sharp point.” The similarity of this description to that of Arnobius indicates that the Cybele stone may really have been found in 1730, but it has since disappeared. It would have been extremely interesting for mineralogists if they could have been enabled to examine this supposed meteorite, perhaps the very earliest regarding which we have such definite information.