The Parabiago plate, also known as the Parabiago patera,[a] is an ancient Roman circular silver plate depicting mythological figures. It was found in an ancient Roman cemetery at Parabiago, near Milan, in 1907,[1] and is now in the Archaeological Museum of Milan. The plate depicts Cybele with her consort Attis in a "vast cosmic setting"[2] amid "sun, moon, earth and sea, time and the seasons."[3] At the time of its discovery, it was thought to have been used as a lid for a funerary amphora.[4]
The plate is difficult to date. Earlier scholars tended to date it to the 2nd century CE, because of its classicizing style, but stylistic characteristics also permit a later date. Technical analyses, however, support a provenance in the 4th–5th centuries, even though it bears little stylistic resemblance to other silver pieces from that period.[1]
^ abc
Ruth E. Leader-Newby
(2004)
Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries,
Ashgate,
p 146
^
Giulia Sfameni Gasparro
(1985)
Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis,
Brill,
p 99
^
John Ferguson
(1970, 1985)
The Religions of the Roman Empire,
Cornell University Press,
p 26
^Arthur Bernard Cook
(1940) edition, (2010) reprinting,
Zeus,
Cambridge University Press,
vol 3, plt 2, pp 1127–1128
^
Danuta Shanzer
(1986)
A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercuii, Book 1,
University of California Press,
pp 159–160
^
Jaime Alvar Ezquerra
(2008)
Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Brill,
p 140