![]() He was greeted by the magistrate's wife and attended by respectable matrons of the Roman elite. She held on December, at the home of a current senior Roman magistrate annual cum imperio, whether consul or praetor. The goddess also had a winter feast, attested only twice (63 and 62 BC). At the time of the end of the Republic, the May festival of Bona Dea and the Temple of the Aventine may have fallen into official disuse or official discredit. Licinia herself was then accused of immorality and executed. In Republican times, the Aventine celebrations of Bona Dea were probably typical plebeian affairs, open to all classes of women and perhaps, in a limited way, to men.Ĭontrol of his cult of the Aventine appears to have been challenged several times during the mid-Republican era a dedication or a new dedication of the temple in 123 BC. The rites are inferred as a form of mystery, hidden from the public eye and, according to most later Roman literary sources, forbidden entirely to men. The founding year of the festival and the temple is uncertain – Ovid attributes it to Claudia Quinta (around the end of the 3rd century BC). Its date links it to Maia its location connects it to the plebeian commoner class of Rome, whose tribunes and emerging aristocracy resisted patrician claims for legitimate religious and political rule. One took place on the 1st may at the Aventine temple of Bona Dea. About a third of his dedications come from men, some of whom may have been legally involved in his worship. Personal devotion to him is attested among all classes, especially plebeians, freedmen and slaves. ![]() The surviving statuary shows her as a calm Roman matron with a cornucopia and a serpent. The cults of Bona Dea in the city of Rome were led by vestal virgins and Sacerdos Bonae Deae, and her provincial cults by virgin priestesses or matrons. ![]() Rites remained a subject of male curiosity and speculation, both religious and lascivious. This last festival took on scandalous importance in 62 BC. One took place in his temple in Aventine the other was greeted by the wife of a senior Roman annual magistrate for a guest group of elite matrons and attendants. Its rites allowed women to use strong wine and the sacrifice of blood, things that were otherwise forbidden to them by Roman tradition. According to Roman literary sources, she was brought from Magna Graecia at some point in the beginning or middle of the Republic, and received her own state worship on Aventine Hill. She was associated with the chastity and fertility of Roman women, with the healing and protection of the state and people of Rome. ![]() Bona Dea was a goddess in ancient Roman religion. ![]()
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