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77-430: Her rites allowed women the use of strong wine and blood-sacrifice, things otherwise forbidden them by Roman tradition . Men were barred from some of her mysteries and only initiates were given the possession of her true name. Given that male authors had limited knowledge of her rites and attributes, ancient speculations about her identity abound, among them that she was an aspect of Terra , Ops , Cybele , or Ceres , or

154-454: A Latin form of a Greek goddess, "Damia" (perhaps Demeter ). Most often, she was identified as the wife, sister, or daughter of the god Faunus , thus an equivalent or aspect of the fertility nature-goddess Fauna , who could prophesy the fates of women. The goddess had two main annual festivals. One was held at her Aventine temple , for the benefit of the Roman people; the other was hosted by

231-536: A central figure in Latium 's aristocratic foundation myth, which was thus re-embroidered as a Roman moral fable. Several variants are known; Fauna is daughter, wife or sister of Faunus (also named Faunus Fatuus , meaning Faunus "the foolish", or seer). Faunus was son of Picus , and was the first king of the Latins, empowered with the gift of prophecy. In Roman religion he was a pastoral god and protector of flocks, with

308-693: A number of auspicious birds ( aves ) that signify divine approval but Remus sees fewer than Romulus. Romulus goes on to found the city of Rome at the site of his successful augury. An earlier variant, found in Ennius and some later sources, has Romulus perform his augury on one of the Aventine Hills. Remus performs his elsewhere, perhaps on the southeastern height, the lesser of the Aventine's two hills, which has been tentatively identified with Ennius' Mons Murcus . Skutsch (1961) regards Ennius' variant as

385-477: A shrine and oracle on the Aventine, sometimes identified with Inuus and later, with Greek Pan . As his female counterpart, Fauna had similar gifts, domains and powers in relation to women. In Plutarch's version of the myth, the mortal Fauna secretly gets drunk on wine, which is forbidden her. When Faunus finds out, he thrashes her with myrtle rods; in Lactantius 's version, Faunus thrashes her to death, regrets

462-409: A sign of her healing and regenerative powers. This combination of snake and cornucopia are unique to Bona Dea. The literary record offers at least one variation on this type; Macrobius describes her cult statue as overhung by a "spreading vine", and bearing a sceptre in her left hand. Cicero makes no reference to any myth pertaining to Bona Dea. Later Roman scholars connected her to the goddess Fauna ,

539-569: A snake. Personal dedications to her are attested among all classes, especially plebeians , freedmen and women , and slaves . Approximately one third of her dedications are from men, some of whom can be identified as acolytes and priests of her cult. Bona Dea ("The Good Goddess") is a name, an honorific title and a respectful pseudonym; the goddess' true or cult name is unknown. Her other, less common names or pseudonyms include Feminea Dea ("The Women's Goddess"), Laudanda ... Dea ("The Goddess who must be Praised"), and Sancta ("The Holy One"). She

616-510: A sow, sacrificed to her on behalf of the Roman people ( pro populo Romano ), and a libation of sacrificial wine. The festival continued through the night, a banquet with female musicians, fun and games ( ludere ), and wine; the last was euphemistically referred to as "milk", and its container as a "honey jar". The rites sanctified the temporary removal of customary constraints imposed on Roman women of all classes by Roman tradition , and underlined

693-465: A winter festival, attested on only two occasions (63 and 62 BC). It was held in December, at the home of a current senior annual Roman magistrate cum imperio , whether consul or praetor . It was hosted by the magistrate's wife and attended by respectable matrons of the Roman elite. This festival is not marked on any known religious calendar, but was dedicated to the public interest and supervised by

770-413: Is a goddess of "no definable type", with several origins and a range of different characteristics and functions. Based on what little they knew of her rites and attributes, Roman historians speculated about her true name and identity. Festus describes her as identical with a "women's goddess" named Damia, which Georges Dumézil sees as an ancient misreading of Greek " Demeter ". In the late Imperial era,

847-453: Is believed that the father changed himself into a serpent, however, and under this guise had intercourse with his daughter." This myth bears a marked similarity to the rape of Persephone, by her father Zeus in the form of a chthonic snake, in Orphic mythology . Macrobius refers the serpent's image at the goddess' rites to this mythical transformation, and to the live, harmless serpents who roamed

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924-417: Is done contrary to the usage and customs of our ancestors, seems not to be right." However, because the mos maiorum was a matter of custom, not written law, the complex norms that it embodied evolved over time. The ability to preserve a strongly-centralised sense of identity while it adapted to changing circumstances permitted the expansionism that took Rome from city-state to world power. The preservation of

1001-558: Is presumed that the Aventine was public land , owned by the state on behalf of the Roman people. In c.456 BC a Lex Icilia allowed or granted the plebs property rights there. By c.391 BC, the city's overspill had overtaken the Aventine and the Campus Martius , and left the city vulnerable to attack; around that year, the Gauls overran and temporarily held the city. After this, the walls were rebuilt or extended to properly incorporate

1078-572: Is the only known festival in which women could gather at night, drink strong, sacrificial-grade wine and perform a blood sacrifice. Although women were present at most public ceremonies and festivals, the religious authorities in Roman society were the male pontiffs and augurs , and women could not lawfully perform rites at night, unless "offered for the people in proper form". Women were allowed wine at these and other religious occasions. At other times, they might drink weak, sweetened, or diluted wine in moderation but Roman traditionalists believed that in

1155-490: Is the southernmost of Rome's seven hills. It has two distinct heights, one greater to the northwest ( Aventinus Major ) and one lesser to the southeast ( Aventinus Minor ), divided by a steep cleft that provides the base for an ancient roadway between the heights. During the Republican era , the two hills may have been recognized as a single entity. The Augustan reforms of Rome's urban neighbourhoods ( vici ) recognised

1232-548: Is uncertain – Ovid credits it to Claudia Quinta (c. late 3rd century BC). The rites are inferred as some form of mystery, concealed from the public gaze and, according to most later Roman literary sources, entirely forbidden to men. In the Republican era, Bona Dea's Aventine festivals were probably distinctly plebeian affairs, open to all classes of women and in some limited fashion, to men. Control of her Aventine cult seems to have been contested at various times during

1309-864: The Graeco-Roman world , especially the Thesmophoria festival to Demeter. They included nocturnal rites conducted by predominantly or exclusively female initiates and female priestesses, music, dance and wine, and sacrifice of a sow. During the Roman Republican era, two such cults to Bona Dea were held at different times and locations in the city of Rome . One was held on May 1 at Bona Dea's Aventine temple. Its date connects her to Maia ; its location connects her to Rome's plebeian commoner class, whose tribunes and emergent aristocracy resisted patrician claims to rightful religious and political dominance. The festival and temple's foundation year

1386-618: The Latins of Politorium , and resettled them on the Aventine. The Roman geographer Strabo credits Ancus with the building of a city wall to incorporate the Aventine. Others credit the same wall to Rome's sixth king, Servius Tullius . The remains known as the Servian Wall used stone quarried at Veii , which was not conquered by Rome until c.393 BC, so the Aventine might have been part-walled, or an extramural suburb. The Aventine appears to have functioned as some kind of staging post for

1463-648: The Rome Rose Garden . The Aventine Hill is portrayed as a rough working-class area of ancient Rome in the popular Falco series of historical novels written by Lindsey Davis about Marcus Didius Falco , a 'private informer' who occasionally works for the Emperor Vespasian and lives in the Aventine. The same image is portrayed in much of the series Rome , in which the Aventine is the home of Lucius Vorenus . In season two, Vorenus and his friend legionary Titus Pullo seek to maintain order over

1540-431: The familia was the discrete unit underlying society, these interlocking networks countered that autonomy and created the bonds that made a complex society possible. Although one of the major spheres of activity within patron-client relations was the law courts, patronage was not itself a legal contract; the pressures to uphold one's obligations were moral, founded on the quality of fides , "trust" (see Values below), and

1617-438: The mos . Patronage served as a model when conquerors or governors abroad established personal ties as patron to whole communities, ties which then might be perpetuated as a family obligation. In this sense, mos becomes less a matter of unchanging tradition than precedent. Roman conservatism finds succinct expression in an edict of the censors from 92 BC, as preserved by the 2nd-century historian Suetonius : "All new that

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1694-404: The mos maiorum depended on consensus and moderation among the ruling elite whose competition for power and status threatened it. Democratic politics, driven by the charismatic appeal of individuals ( populares ) to the Roman people (populus) , potentially undermined the conservative principle of the mos . Because the higher magistracies and priesthoods were originally the prerogative of

1771-517: The mos maiorum , and the early Christian poet Prudentius dismissed the conservative adherence to native Roman traditions as "the superstition of old grandpas" ( superstitio veterum avorum) and inferior to the new revealed truth of Christianity. After the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and ascension of the various Barbarian kingdoms , the old Roman mores were then either superseded by or synthesized with

1848-507: The neoplatonist author Macrobius identifies her as a universal earth-goddess, an epithet of Maia , Terra , or Cybele, worshiped under the names of Ops, Fauna and Fatua. The Christian author Lactantius , claiming the late Republican polymath Varro as his source, describes her as Faunus ' wife and sister, named " Fenta Fauna " or " Fenta Fatua " (Fenta " the prophetess " or Fenta " the foolish "). The known features of Bona Dea's cults recall those of various earth and fertility goddesses of

1925-464: The patricians , the efforts of plebeians (the plebs ) for access could be cast as a threat to tradition (see Conflict of the Orders ). Reform was accomplished by legislation, and written law replaced consensus. When plebeians gained admission to nearly all the highest offices, except for a few arcane priesthoods, the interests of plebeian families who ascended to the elite began to align with those of

2002-607: The Aventine; this is more or less coincident with the increasing power and influence of the Aventine-based plebeian aediles and tribunes in Roman public affairs, and the rise of a plebeian nobility. Rome absorbed many more foreign deities via the Aventine: "No other location approaches [its] concentration of foreign cults". In 392 BC, Camillus established a Temple of Juno Regina . Later introductions include Summanus , c. 278, Vortumnus c. 264, and at some time before

2079-694: The Mid Republican era; a dedication or rededication of the temple in 123 BC by the Vestal Virgin Licinia, with the gift of an altar, shrine and couch, was immediately annulled as unlawful by the Roman Senate ; Licinia herself was later charged with inchastity, and executed. By the Late Republic era, Bona Dea's May festival and Aventine temple could have fallen into official disuse, or official disrepute. The goddess also had

2156-645: The Roman commoners or plebs ; the dedication followed one of the first in a long series of threatened or actual plebeian secessions. The temple overlooked the Circus Maximus and the Temple of Vesta , and faced the Palatine Hill . It became an important repository for plebeian and senatorial records. The Aventine's outlying position, its longstanding association with Latins and plebeians and its extra-pomerial position reflect its early marginal status. It

2233-399: The Roman plebs, particularly the ingenui . The greatest number of all are from freedmen and slaves, male and female. An estimated one-third of all dedications are from men, one of whom, a provincial Greek, claims to be a priest of her cult. Others describe themselves as sacerdotes , magistri or ministri (priests and ministers) of the goddess. While almost all Roman literary sources present

2310-650: The Senior Vestal and the Pontifex Maximus . Their ritual obligations and religious integrity were central to the well being of the Roman state and all its citizens. The euphemistic naming of strong wine at this festival has been variously described as an actual substitution for milk and honey, relatively late in the cult's development; as a theological absurdity; and as an ingenious justification for behaviours that would be considered unacceptable outside this specific religious sphere. Fauna's myths illustrate

2387-455: The Vestals, and therefore must be considered official. Shortly after 62 BC, Cicero describes it as one of very few lawful nocturnal festivals allowed to women, privileged to those of aristocratic class, and coeval with Rome's earliest history. The house was ritually cleansed of all unauthorized male persons. Then the magistrate's wife and her assistants made bowers of vine-leaves, and decorated

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2464-470: The Vestals, whose presence and authority he conspicuously promoted. His wife Livia was a distant relative of the long-dead but still notorious Clodius; but also related to the unfortunate Vestal Licinia, whose attempted dedication of Bona Dea's Aventine Temple had been thwarted by the Senate. Livia restored the temple and revived its May 1 festival, perhaps drawing attention away from her disreputable kinsman and

2541-573: The ancestors"; pl. : mores , cf. English " mores "; maiorum is the genitive plural of "greater" or "elder") is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms . It is the core concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from but in dynamic complement to written law . The mos maiorum was collectively the time-honoured principles, behavioural models, and social practices that affected private, political, and military life in ancient Rome. The Roman family (the familia , better translated as "household" than "family")

2618-448: The ancient road between the two heights (the modern Viale Aventino) as a common boundary between the new Regio XIII, which absorbed Aventinus Maior, and the part of Regio XII known as Aventinus Minor. Most Roman sources trace the name of the hill to a legendary king Aventinus . Servius identifies two kings of that name, one ancient Italic, and one Alban, both said to have been buried on the hill in remote antiquity. Servius believes that

2695-683: The celestial Virgin, Great Mother of the gods, whom later Mariologists identify as prototype for the Virgin Mary in Christian theology. Christian writers present Bona Dea – or rather, Fauna, whom they clearly take her to be – as an example of the immorality and absurdity at the heart of traditional Roman religion; according to them, she is no prophetess, merely "foolish Fenta", daughter and wife to her incestuous father, and "good" (bona) only at drinking too much wine. The Temple of Bona Dea in Rome

2772-417: The concealment of inner cults or mysteries from non-initiates. There is evidence that at least some remained in use to the 4th century AD as cultic healing centres. Despite the exclusively female, aristocratic connections claimed by Cicero for her winter festival at Rome and her high status as a protecting deity of the Roman state, elite dedications to Bona Dea are far outnumbered by the personal dedications of

2849-418: The cults of Aesculapius , Demeter and Ceres . Some Romans kept live, harmless snakes as household pets, and credited them with similarly beneficial functions. Images of the goddess show her enthroned, clad in chiton and mantle. On her left arm she holds a cornucopia , a sign of her abundant generosity and fruitfulness. In her right hand, she holds a bowl, which feeds a serpent coiled around her right arm:

2926-612: The deed and deifies her. Servius derives the names Faunus and Fauna, collectively the Fatui, from fari (to prophesy): they "are also called Fatui because they utter divine prophecy in a state of stupor". Macrobius writes that Bona Dea is "the same as Fauna, Ops or Fatua ... It is said too that she was the daughter of Faunus, and that she resisted the amorous advances of her father who had fallen in love with her, so that he even beat her with myrtle twigs because she did not yield to his desires though she had been made drunk by him on wine. It

3003-485: The end of the 3rd century, Minerva . In the imperial era the character of the hill changed and it became the seat of numerous aristocratic residences, including the private houses of Trajan and Hadrian before they became emperors and of Lucius Licinius Sura , friend of Trajan who built the private Baths of Licinius Sura . The emperor Vitellius and the Praefectus urbi Lucius Fabius Cilo also lived there at

3080-734: The exclusion of men as an official and absolute rule of her cult, this is more likely a ritualised element of her annual festival, at least in Cicero's account of the same, than an everyday prohibition or an aspect of mystes vitiated by Clodius' unlawful presence. Inscriptions of the Imperial era show her appeal as a personal or saviour-goddess, extolled as Augusta and Domina ; or as an all-goddess, titled as Regina Triumphalis (Triumphal Queen), or Terrae marisque Dominatrici (Mistress of sea and land). Private and public dedications associate her with agricultural deities such as Ceres , Silvanus , and

3157-401: The first; the impeccably patrician Clodius, Cicero's social superior by birth, is presented as an innately impious, low-class oaf, and his popularist policies as threats to Rome's moral and religious security. After two years of legal wrangling, Clodius was acquitted – which Cicero put down to jury-fixing and other backroom dealings – but his reputation was damaged. The scandalous revelations at

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3234-479: The forbidden myrtle – transform the sophisticated, urban banqueting hall into a "primitive" dwelling, evoking the innocence of an ancestral golden age in which women rule themselves, without reference to men or Venus, drinking "milk and honey", which are "markers par excellence of utopian golden times" – under the divine authority of Bona Dea. Mos maiorum The mos maiorum ( Classical Latin : [ˈmoːs majˈjoːrʊ̃] ; "ancestral custom" or "way of

3311-548: The goddess' cult as native to Rome, coeval with its foundation. In the middle Republican era, the temple may have fallen into disrepair, or its cult into official disfavour. In 123 BC the Vestal Licinia gave the temple an altar , small shrine and couch for the goddess, but they were removed as unlawful by the pontifex maximus P. Scaevola . The temple's use and status at the time of the Bona Dea scandal are unknown. It

3388-582: The goddess' rites continued to circulate. Well over a century after the Clodius scandal, Juvenal describes Bona Dea's festival as an opportunity for women of all classes, most shamefully those of the upper class – and men in drag ("which altars do not have their Clodius these days?") – to get drunk and cavort indiscriminately in a sexual free-for-all. From the late 2nd century, an increasing religious syncretism in Rome's traditional religions presents Bona Dea as one of many aspects of Virgo Caelestis,

3465-411: The goddess' temple precincts. Varro explains the exclusion of men from Bona Dea's cult as a consequence of her great modesty; no man but her husband had ever seen her, or heard her name. For Servius , this makes her the paragon of chaste womanhood. Most likely, once Fauna's mythology seemed to offer an explanation for Bona Dea's mysterious cult, the myth developed circumstantially, to fit what little

3542-475: The goddess, or, according to Ovid, could enter the precincts "if bidden by the goddess". Most provincial sanctuaries and temples to Bona Dea are too decayed, despoiled or fragmentary to offer firm evidence of structure and layout, but the remains of four are consistent with the sparse descriptions of her Aventine temple. In each, a perimeter wall surrounds a dense compound of annexes, in which some rooms show possible use as dispensaries. The layout would have allowed

3619-592: The hill was named after the ancient Italic king Aventinus . He rejects Varro's proposition that the Sabines named the hill after the nearby Aventus river; likewise, he believes that the Aventinus who was fathered by Hercules on Rhea Silvia was likely named after the Aventine Hill. The Aventine was a significant site in Roman mythology . In Virgil 's Aeneid , a cave on the Aventine's rocky slope next

3696-414: The house's banqueting hall with "all manner of growing and blooming plants" except for myrtle , whose presence and naming were expressly forbidden. A banquet table was prepared, with a couch ( pulvinar ) for the goddess and the image of a snake. The Vestals brought Bona Dea's cult image from her temple and laid it upon her couch, as an honoured guest. The goddess' meal was prepared: the entrails ( exta ) of

3773-525: The intruder; but as the rites had been vitiated , the Vestals were obliged to repeat them, and after further inquiry by the senate and pontifices , Clodius was charged with desecration, which carried a death sentence. Cicero , whose wife Terentia had hosted the previous year's rites, testified for the prosecution. Caesar publicly distanced himself from the affair as much as possible – and certainly from Pompeia, whom he divorced because "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion". He had been correctly absent from

3850-572: The legitimate ingress of foreign peoples and foreign cults into Rome. During the late regal era, Servius Tullius built a temple to Diana on the Aventine, as a Roman focus for the new-founded Latin League . At some time around 493 BC, soon after the expulsion of Rome's last King and the establishment of the Roman Republic , the Roman Senate provided a temple for the so-called Aventine Triad of Ceres , Liber and Libera , patron deities of

3927-405: The more distant and virtuous past, this was forbidden, "for fear that they might lapse into some disgraceful act. For it is only a step from the intemperance of Liber pater to the forbidden things of Venus". Some ancient sources infer that women were banned from offering blood-and-wine sacrifice in their own right; even banned from handling such materials; both claims are questionable. Nevertheless,

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4004-568: The more fortunate Palatine, the traditional site of Rome's foundation. The less fortunate Remus, who lost not only the contest but later, his life, remained on the Aventine: Servius notes the Aventine's reputation as a haunt of "inauspicious birds". According to Roman tradition, the Aventine was not included within Rome's original foundation, and lay outside the city's ancient sacred boundary ( pomerium ). The Roman historian Livy reports that Ancus Marcius , Rome's fourth king, defeated

4081-409: The most likely, with Romulus's Palatine augury as a later development, after common usage had extended the Aventine's name – formerly used for only the greater, northeastern height – to include its lesser neighbour. Augural rules and the mythos itself required that each twin take his auspices at a different place; therefore Romulus, who won the contest and founded the city, was repositioned to

4158-566: The new Imperial ideology. An imperial cult centre in Aquileia honours an Augusta Bona Dea Cereria , probably in connection with the corn dole . Other state cults to the goddess are found at Ostia and Portus . As the Vestals seldom went beyond Rome's city boundary, these cults would have been led by leading women of local elites, whether virgin or matron. Livia's best efforts to restore Bona Dea's reputation had only moderate success in some circles, where scurrilous and titillating stories of

4235-486: The opposition retired on this hill after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti , here ending—by the so-called " Aventine Secession "—their presence at the Parliament and, as a consequence, their political activity. The hill is now an elegant residential part of Rome with a wealth of architectural interest, including palaces, churches, and gardens, for example, the basilica of Santa Sabina , Santi Bonifacio ed Alessio and

4312-513: The patricians, creating Rome's nobiles , an elite social status of nebulous definition during the Roman Republic . The plebs and their support of popular politicians continued as a threat to the mos and elite consensus into the late Republic, as noted in the rhetoric of Cicero . During the transition to the Christian Empire, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus argued that Rome's continued prosperity and stability depended on preserving

4389-432: The political and social turmoil of the Late Republic, Rome's misfortunes were taken as signs of divine anger against the personal ambition, religious negligence and outright impiety of her leading politicians. Clodius' prosecution was at least partly driven by politics. In an otherwise seemingly thorough account, Cicero makes no mention of Bona Dea's May festival, and claims the goddess' cult as an aristocratic privilege from

4466-510: The potential of wine as an agent of sexual transgression; wine was thought to be an invention of Liber-Dionysus, who was present as the male principle in certain "soft fruits", including semen and grapes; and ordinary wine was produced under the divine patronage of Venus , the goddess of love and sexual desire. Its aphrodisiac effects were well known. For Staples, the euphemisms are agents of transformation. The designation of wine as "milk" conceives it as an entirely female product, dissociated from

4543-541: The prosecution, Cicero earned Clodius' undying hatred. The festival fertility rites remained a subject of male curiosity and speculation, both religious and prurient. Bona Dea's cults in the city of Rome were led by the Vestal Virgins and the Sacerdos Bonae Deae , and her provincial cults by virgin or matron priestesses. Surviving statuary shows her as a sedate Roman matron with a cornucopia and

4620-410: The pure and lawful sexual potency of virgins and matrons in a context that focused on female lust, instead of the lust of men. According to Cicero, any unauthorized man who caught even a glimpse of the rites could be punished by blinding, but he offers no example of this. Later Roman writers assume that apart from their different dates and locations, Bona Dea's December and May 1 festivals were essentially

4697-450: The rites but as a paterfamilias he was responsible for their piety. As pontifex maximus , he was responsible for the ritual purity and piety of public and private religion. He had the responsibility to ensure that the Vestals had acted correctly, then chair the inquiry into what were essentially his own household affairs. Worse, the place of the alleged offense was the state property lent to every pontifex maximus for his tenure of office. It

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4774-482: The river is home to the monstrous Cacus , killed by Hercules for stealing Geryon's cattle . In Rome's founding myth, the divinely fathered twins Romulus and Remus hold a contest of augury , whose outcome determines the right to found, name and lead a new city, and to determine its site. In most versions of the story, Remus sets up his augural tent on the Aventine; Romulus sets his up on the Palatine . Each sees

4851-474: The same. The Winter festival rites of 62 BC were hosted by Pompeia , wife of Julius Caesar , senior magistrate in residence and pontifex maximus . Publius Clodius Pulcher , a popularist politician and ally of Caesar, was said to have intruded, dressed as a woman and intent on the hostess's seduction. According to Plutarch, Caesar's mother, Aurelia concealed the cult objects of the Goddess's mysteries from

4928-500: The scandalous events of 62 BC. Thereafter, Bona Dea's December festival may have continued quietly, or could simply have lapsed, its reputation irreparably damaged. There is no evidence of its abolition. Livia's name did not and could not appear in the official religious calendars, but Ovid's Fasti associates her with May 1, and presents her as the ideal wife and "paragon of female Roman virtue". Most of Bona Dea's provincial and municipal sanctuaries were founded around this time, to propagate

5005-432: The sexually and morally complex realms of Venus and Liber. Likewise, the wine jar described as a "honey jar" refers to bees, which in Roman lore are sexually abstinent, virtuous females who will desert an adulterous household. Myrtle, as the sign of Venus, Faunus' lust and Fauna's unjust punishment, is simply banned; or as Versnel puts it, "Wine in, Myrtle out". The vine-leaf bowers and the profusion of plants – any and all but

5082-497: The strong, sacrificial grade wine used in the rites to Bona Dea was normally reserved for Roman gods, and Roman men. The unusual permissions implicit at these rites probably derived from the presence and religious authority of the Vestals. They were exceptional and revered persons; virgins, but not subject to their fathers' authority; and matrons, but independent of any husband. They held forms of privilege and authority otherwise associated only with Roman men, and were answerable only to

5159-594: The time of Septimius Severus . The Aventine was also the site of the Baths of Decius , built in 252. This new character of an aristocratic neighbourhood was probably the cause of its total destruction during the sack of Rome by Alaric I in 410. The poorer population had meanwhile moved further south, to the plain near the port ( Emporium ) and to the other bank of the Tiber. During the Fascist period, many deputies of

5236-580: The traditions of the Germanic elite and subsequent feudal values. Traditional Roman values were essential to the mos maiorum : Aventine Hill The Aventine Hill ( / ˈ æ v ɪ n t aɪ n , - t ɪ n / ; Latin : Collis Aventinus ; Italian : Aventino [avenˈtiːno] ) is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa , the modern twelfth rione , or ward, of Rome . The Aventine Hill

5313-546: The trial also undermined the sacred dignity and authority of the Vestals, the festival, the goddess, office of the pontifex maximus and, by association, Caesar and Rome itself. Some fifty years later, Caesar's heir Octavian, later the princeps Augustus , had to deal with its repercussions. Octavian presented himself as restorer of Rome's traditional religion and social values, and as peacemaker between its hitherto warring factions. In 12 BC he became pontifex maximus, which gave him authority over Rome's religious affairs, and over

5390-520: The virgin goddess Diana . She is also named in some dedications of public works, such as the restoration of the Claudian Aqueduct . Most inscriptions to Bona Dea are simple and unadorned but some show serpents, often paired. Cumont (1932) remarks their similarity to the serpents featured in domestic shrines ( lararia ) at Pompei ; serpents are associated with many earth-deities, and had protective, fertilising and regenerating functions, as in

5467-466: The wife of a Roman senior annual magistrate for an invited group of elite matrons and female attendants. The latter festival came to scandalous prominence in 62 BC, when the politician Publius Clodius Pulcher was tried for his sacrilegious intrusion on the rites, allegedly bent on the seduction of Julius Caesar 's wife, Pompeia . Clodius was found not guilty, but Caesar divorced Pompeia because " Caesar's wife must be above suspicion ". For his support of

5544-562: Was a high-profile, much-commented case. The rites remained officially secret, but many details emerged during and after the trial, and remained permanently in the public domain. They fueled theological speculation, as in Plutarch and Macrobius: and they fed the prurient male imagination – given their innate moral weakness, what might women do when given wine and left to their own devices? Such anxieties were nothing new, and underpinned Rome's traditional strictures against female autonomy. In

5621-474: Was also a form of mos . The distinctive social relationship of ancient Rome was that between patron (patronus) and client (cliens) . Although the obligations of this relationship were mutual, they were also hierarchical. The relationship was not a unit, but a network (clientela) , as a patronus might himself be obligated to someone of higher status or greater power, and a cliens might have more than one patron, whose interests might come into conflict. If

5698-525: Was hierarchical, as was Roman society . These hierarchies were traditional and self-perpetuating, that is, they supported and were supported by the mos maiorum . The pater familias , or head of household, held absolute authority over his familia , which was both an autonomous unit within society and a model for the social order, but he was expected to exercise this power with moderation and to act responsibly on behalf of his family. The risk and pressure of social censure if he failed to live up to expectations

5775-482: Was known of the practice. In turn, the cult practice may have changed to support the virtuous ideological message required of the myths, particularly during the Augustan religious reforms that identified Bona Dea with the empress Livia. Versnel (1992) notes the elements common to the Bona Dea festival, Fauna's myths, and Greek Demeter's Thesmophoria , as "wine, myrtle, serpents and female modesty blemished". Bona Dea's

5852-501: Was restored in the Imperial era, once by the empress Livia , wife of Augustus, and perhaps again by Hadrian . It survived to at least the 4th century AD. Nothing is known of its architecture or appearance, save that unlike most Roman temples it was walled. It was an important centre of healing; it held a store of various medicinal herbs that could be dispensed at need by its priestesses. Harmless snakes roamed its precincts. Men were supposedly forbidden entry but could dedicate offerings to

5929-445: Was situated on a lower slope of the northeastern Aventine Hill , beneath the height known as Saxum, southeast of the Circus Maximus . Its foundation year is unknown but the Aventine was host to several foreign or imported cults. Dumezil claims that Festus' identification of Bona Dea with Damia infers a foundation date in or shortly after 272 BC, after Rome's capture of Tarentum . On the other hand Cicero , during Clodius' trial, claimed

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