A Roman divinity, closely associated with the cult of Faunus. Her legend, which is fairly concise, was devised to explain some details of her cult. In the earliest version, Bona Dea was the daughter of Faunus. He fell in love with her but she was unwilling to yield to his desires, even after he had made her drunk with wine, and he chastised her with switches of myrtle (this is given as the explanation of why myrtle could not be brought into her temple). He finally succeeded in having intercourse with her in the guise of a snake.
Another version of the legend claims that Bona Dea was the wife of Faunus, a woman highly skilled in all the domestic arts and so chaste that she never left her room or saw no other man than her husband. One day she found a jug of wine, drank it and became inebriated. Her husband beat her so severely with switches of myrtle that she died. In remorse, he granted her divine honours.
In Rome, Bone Dea had her shrine under the Aventine Hill and there the women and girls annually celebrated the mysteries of the Good Goddess, which no man was allowed to attend. Hercules, who had himself been shut out by way of revenge, founded ceremonies which no woman could take part in at his Great Altar, which was not far away.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Macrob. Sat. 1, 12, 21ff.
- Serv. on Virgil, Aen. 8, 314
- Prop. 4, 9
- Ovid, Fast. 5, 148ff.
- Lact. Inst. Div. 1, 22
- Arnobius, Adv. Nat. 5, 18