Bellona

[Favonius Cornelius]

Bellona was a goddess of war in Roman mythology. Although this goddess did not play a significant role in either myth or legend, she was important enough in Roman religion to be honored with her own temple. This temple of Bellona was located in the Campus Martius (which was, of course, in the ancient city of Rome) and was situated in close proximity to the altar of Mars.

 

The location of the temple of Bellona relative to the altar of Mars deserves a bit more explanation, for the placement of these two monuments seems not to be a random accident, but rather reveals a deeper relationship between the Roman goddess and god. For the ancient Romans sometimes identified Bellona with Mars (Mars, remember, was the Roman god of war). Both Bellona and Mars were intimately involved with war and battles, so this identification is quite natural. Indeed, some sources even went so far as to conflate Bellona with Nerio (Nerio was the wife of Mars in Roman mythology).

 

Bellona was often identified in mythology with the Greek war goddess Enyo.

 

 

BELLONA, AEDES: (templum, Liv. x.19; Fest. 33; Ov. Fast. vi.205): the temple of Bellona, a goddess who probably represented that characteristic of Mars which was displayed in the fierceness of battle frenzy (WR 137-138; AR 1909, 70, 71). It was vowed by Appius Claudius Caecus in 296 B.C. (Liv. x.19.17; Plin. NH xxxv.12; Ov. Fast. vi.201-204; CIL i2 p192 (Elog. x.) = xi.1827), and dedicated a few years later on June 3rd (Ov. Fast. vi.201). No traces, architectural or epigraphic, of the temple have been found, and its site is not known with certainty; but it was in the campus Martius, in circo Flaminio (Fast. Ven. ad III non. Iun.; CIL i2p319; Mirabil. 23; BC 1914, 383-385), probably about half-way between the north-east corner of the circus Flaminius and the Petronia amnis. From it the senators heard the cries of the prisoners whom Sulla massacred in the Villa publica (Plut. Sulla 30; Sen. de clem. i.12.2; Cass. Dio, fr. 109.5), and from the open area in front of it one looked at the eastern end of the circus Flaminius (Ov. Fast. vi.205, 209). It was probably on the east side of the via Triumphalis and faced the east. For a suggestive but hardly convincing theory that this temple was at the west end of the circus Flaminius, in the Piazza Paganica, see BC 1918, 120-126).

 

The senate met in this temple on various occasions (SC de Bacch. CIL i.581 = x.104; Cic. in Verr. v.41; Plut. Sulla 7; Cass. Dio l.4), and most frequently, as the temple lay outside the pomerium, to receive victorious generals on their return to Rome, and to vote upon their claims for a triumph (Liv. xxvi.21; xxviii.9, 38; xxxi.47; xxxiii.22; xxxvi.39; xxxviii.44; xxxix.29; xli.6; xlii.9, 21, 28; Sall. frg. v.26; cf. BC 1908, 138). Foreign ambassadors were also received here (Liv. xxx.21, 40; xxxiii.24; xlii.36). The temple is mentioned in the second and early third century (Plut. Cic. 13; Cass. Dio lxxi.33; Hist. Aug. Sev. 22; Placidus, p14 Deuerl. = CGL v.8.22, 50.8). Near It was a SENACULUM (q.v.) or place of assembly for the senators (Fest. 347), and in front of it stood the COLUMNA BELLICA (q.v.). Besides the literature already cited, see RE iii.254-255; viii.572-573; Rosch. i.775; HJ 552-554; JRS 1921, 32.

 

BELLONA PULVINENSIS, AEDES: a temple mentioned in three inscriptions (CIL vi.490, 2232, 2233; DE i.175), of the Cappadocian goddess Ma-Bellona, whose worship seems to have displaced that of the Latin Bellona during the empire. This temple was probably not built before the third century, and its site is unknown. It had no connection with the pulvinar of the circus Flaminius (HJ 554; WR 349-350; RE iii.256; PBS ix.205-213, where CIL xiii.7281, which refers to the restoration by the hastiferi (a priestly college of Bellona) Civitatis Mattiacorum of a Mons Vaticanus, is coupled with the existence of tombstones of her priests

[Pertinax]

Bellona was of course the guiding deity of Sulla- he never forgot that he had been remembered by female friends at his lowest ebb( being left a legacy by a famous courtesan). His first summons of the Senate was in Bellona's temple below the ruins of Jupiter's, with the massacre of Samnite prisoners mentioned by Favonius Cornelius (above).

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Did the Romans have any specific or stereotypical visual image of her. And can you give a link to a picture please.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Did the Romans have any specific or stereotypical visual image of her. And can you give a link to a picture please.

 

Sorry I am not aware of any, though it's easy to imagine some woman with a helmet and a spear, Athena-like perhaps but that is just a guess.

[Zeke]

Is there anything left of the Campus Martius or ruins to her Temple? I want to visit it some day to pay my respects to her fallen might.

 

Zeke

[Pertinax]

My Webpagebellona

 

try this link for an "imagined" modern image of Bellona on a roman deity page.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

All I find is a weird picture of Bellona dressed the Patriotic American. I wonder if Ben Franklin had a hand in this

[Pertinax]

yes sorry about that-but I searched high and low and that was the only thing I found! :bag: Favonius Cornelius was right-woman with helmet and spear.