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BONA DEA

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 191 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BONA DEA , the " See also:good goddess," an old See also:Roman deity of fruitfulness, both in the See also:earth and in See also:women. She was identified with See also:Fauna, and by later See also:syncretism also with Ops and Maiathe latter no doubt because the See also:dedication-See also:day of her See also:temple on the Aventine was 1st May (See also:Ovid, See also:Fasti, v. 149 See also:foil.). This temple was cared for, and the cult attended, by women only, and the same was the See also:case at a second celebration at the beginning of See also:December in the See also:house of a See also:magistrate with imperium, which became famous owing to the profanation of these mysteries by P. See also:Clodius in 62 B.C., and the See also:political consequences of his See also:act. See also:Wine and See also:myrtle were tabooed in the cult of this deity, and myths See also:grew up to explain these features of the cult, of which an See also:account may be read in W. W. See also:Fowler's Roman Festivals, pp. 103 foil. Herbs with healing properties were kept in her temple, and also See also:snakes, the usual See also:symbol of the medicinal See also:art. Her victim was a porca, as in the cults of other deities of fertility, and was called damium, and we are told that the goddess herself was known as Damia and her priestess as damiatrix. These names are almost certainly See also:Greek; Damia is found worshipped at several places in See also:Greece, and also at See also:Tarentum, where there was a festival called Dameia.

It is thus highly probable that on the cult of the See also:

original Roman goddess was engrafted the Greek See also:ICI one of Damia, perhaps after the See also:conquest of Tarentum (272 B.c.). It is no longer possible to distinguish clearly the Greek and Roman elements in this curious cult, though it is itself quite intelligible as that of an Earth-goddess with mysteries attached. See also Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie. (W. W.

End of Article: BONA DEA

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