Bona Dea
Bona Dea ("the good goddess") was the goddess of fertility, healing, virginity and women in the Roman religion . Her real name was kept secret by the priestesses. She was the daughter of Faunus and was sometimes called Fauna . She had a temple on the Aventine in Rome . Their cult existed in Rome probably since the 3rd century BC. Chr.
Adoration
Every year on December 4th, secret rites were held in her honor in the house of a Roman magistrate cum imperio . Men were not allowed to participate, even images of men or male animals were affected. The festival room was decorated with vine leaves, but the use of myrtle was prohibited. Wine, music and dance must be seen as part of the celebration. Their public festival took place on May 1st. Men were not allowed here either. The sick were happy to be brought into the garden by their temple, where medicinal herbs were grown by priestesses.
The origin of the probably in the 3rd century BC Introduced cult is unclear. Presumably there is a mixture of two different cults, one Greek and one old Italian. The cult was particularly widespread in central Italy, where she could also act as a local patron goddess. Other names of the deity were Fauna , Fatua , Fenta Fauna, and Fenta Fatua .
The legends surrounding Bona Dea were only subsequently derived from the cult celebrations. In one version, she is the extremely chaste wife of the Faunus , who kills her with myrtle rods after she was secretly intoxicated. Out of repentance, he subsequently elevated her to goddess. According to another version, she is the daughter of the Faunus, who keeps chasing her, but can only successfully approach her after he has turned into a snake. In another area of legends, it is reported that during a festivity in honor of Bona Dea, the passing Hercules was refused to take a drink. Hercules then excluded women from the celebrations and sacrifices at the Ara Maxima .
She is associated with the cornucopia , snakes and coins, on which her image can often be found. Her cult remained important during the imperial period , although over time she was increasingly merged with other mother and fertility deities (see syncretism ). In late antiquity , the Bona Dea was the target of violent Christian polemics; possibly it was about a demarcation from the then emerging cult of Mary .
The Bona Dea scandal of 62 BC Chr.
During the celebration for Bona Dea in December 62 BC. Chr. Penetrated Publius Clodius Pulcher disguised as a woman in Caesar's house one. Caesar was Pontifex Maximus at the time and the celebration was held in his house. Allegedly, Clodius wanted to meet a lover there, but was discovered. The scandal that followed led to Caesar's divorce from his second wife, Pompeia . In the subsequent process, which was initiated by Cato , Clodius escaped condemnation by bribery. Cicero's testimony against Clodius led to lifelong hostility between the two men.
Literary aftermath
In allusion to the Roman deity, Robert Musil named a character Bonadea in his novel The Man Without Qualities .
literature
- Hendrik HJ Brouwer: Bona Dea. The Sources and a Description of the Cult. Brill, Leiden 1989 ( Google Books ).
- Werner Eisenhut : Bona Dea. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 1, Stuttgart 1964, column 925 f.
- Attilio Mastrocinque: Bona Dea and the Cults of Roman Women. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-515-10752-5 .