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BELLONA (originally DUELLONA)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 704 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BELLONA (originally DUELLONA) , in See also:Roman See also:mythology, the goddess of See also:war (See also:helium, i.e. duellum), corresponding to the See also:Greek Enyo. By later mythologists she is called sometimes the See also:sister, daughter or wife of See also:Mars, sometimes his charioteer or See also:nurse. Her See also:worship appears to have been promoted in See also:Rome chiefly by the See also:family of the Claudii, whose See also:Sabine origin, together with their use of the name of " See also:Nero," has suggested an See also:identification of Bellona with the Sabine war goddess Nerio, herself identified, like Bellona, with Virtus. Her See also:temple at Rome, dedicated by Appius See also:Claudius Caecus (296 B.C.) during a See also:battle with the See also:Samnites and Etruscans (See also:Ovid, See also:Fasti vi. 201), stood in the Campus See also:Martius, near the Flaminian See also:Circus, and outside the See also:gates of the See also:city. It was there that the See also:senate met to discuss a See also:general's claim to a See also:triumph, and to receive ambassadors from See also:foreign states. In front of it was the columna bellica, where the ceremony of declaring war by the fetialis was performed. From this native See also:Italian goddess is to be distinguished the See also:Asiatic Bellona, whose worship was introduced into Rome from See also:Comana, in See also:Cappadocia, apparently by See also:Sulla, to whom she had appeared, urging him to See also:march to Rome and bathe in the See also:blood of his enemies (See also:Plutarch, Sulla, 9). For her a new temple was built, and a See also:college of priests (Bellonarii) instituted to conduct her fanatical See also:rites, the prominent feature of which was to lacerate themselves and sprinkle the blood on the spectators (See also:Tibullus i. 6. 45-50). To make the See also:scene more grim they wore See also:black dresses (See also:Tertullian, De Pallio) from See also:head to See also:foot.

The festival of Bellona, which originally took See also:

place on the 3rd of See also:June, was altered to the 24th of March, after the confusion of the Roman Bellona with her Asiatic namesake. See Tiesler, De Bellonae Cultu (1842).

End of Article: BELLONA (originally DUELLONA)

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