god
Bona Dea
the Good Goddess
also: Good Goddess, Bona Dea, bonam deam
Roman goddess of women, whose December rites were open only to women; Clodius's intrusion on them in 62 BC (disguised as a woman, in Caesar's house) was the sacrilege at the root of his feud with Cicero.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 1.12 §3 caught in women's dress at Gaius Caesar's house when the rite \textit{pro populo} was being held
The rite "for the people" (pro populo) was the December festival of the Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, from which all males were rigorously excluded; it was held in the house of a magistrate with imperium, here Caesar's (he was praetor and pontifex maximus), and conducted by the women and the Vestals. Clodius's intrusion in a woman's dress was therefore a grave sacrilege.
- Ad Atticum 2.4 §2 what kind of priest of the Bona Dea he is going to be
A barbed reference to Clodius, who in 62 BC had profaned the women-only December rites of the Bona Dea (the "Good Goddess") by infiltrating them dressed as a woman. Cicero's testimony at the resulting sacrilege trial earned Clodius's lasting enmity.
- On His House §105 Bona Dea
The Good Goddess, whose December rites were celebrated by women only at the house of a senior magistrate. Clodius's infiltration of them in 62 BC, disguised as a woman, was the original scandal between the two men; Cicero turns Clodius's pose as a guardian of religion against him here.
- For Titus Annius Milo §73 most sacred shrines
An allusion to the Bona Dea scandal of 62 BC, when Clodius infiltrated the all-female rites of the Good Goddess held in Caesar's house, disguised as a woman. Cicero repeatedly recalls the sacrilege as the measure of Clodius's impiety.