Somewhat peripheral to our purview, but this is one of the basilicas one often is presented with in art history classes … from Rome Reports comes coverage of an interesting annual ritual:
It’s also noteworthy (if you’re relic-obsessed, as I am) as one of the places to find relics of St Jerome and the manger in which Jesus briefly sojourned… but there is a question that has been lingering in my skull for quite a while. Quite a few ‘travel’ websites say the basilica was built on the site of a temple of Cybele … does anyone know of a reliable source for this claim? In the context of this particular video, it’s interesting that showers of rose petals were also assorted with the cult of Cybele (see, e.g., this page from Kirk Summers’ essay in Cybele, Attis and related cults: essays in memory of M.J. Vermaseren … just another one of those ‘things that make you go hmmmm’ …
UPDATE (a few hours later and after reading the comments): further poking around suggests that some discovery was made in the 1990s which has been interpreted by F van Haeperen in various articles as indicating the existence of a sanctuary of Cybele on the site. The primary reference which seems to keep coming up is “Nouvelle proposition d’identification des vestiges découverts sous la basilique Sainte-Marie-Majeure de Rome : un sanctuaire de Cybèle”, Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 67 (1997) pp. 65-98
rogue classicism 
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