Bona Dea, a name given to Ops, Vesta, Cybele, and Rhea, by the Greeks; and by the Latins, to Fauna, or Fatua. This goddess was so chaste that no man but her husband saw her after her marriage; from which reason, her festivals were celebrated only in the night by the Roman matrons in the houses of the highest officers of the state, and all the statues of the men were carefully covered with a veil where the ceremonies were observed. In the latter ages of the republic, however, the sanctity of these mysteries was profaned by the introduction of lasciviousness and debauchery. Juvenal, satire 6, li. 313.—Propertius, bk. 4, poem 10, li. 25.—Ovid, de Ars Amatoria, bk. 3, li. 637.
Bonōnia, called also Felsina, a town on the borders of the Rhine, or Rheno, which falls into the Po. Valerius Maximus, bk. 8, ch. 1.—Silius Italicus, bk. 8, li. 599.
Bonosius, an officer of Probus, who assumed the imperial purple in Gaul.
Bonus Eventus, a Roman deity, whose worship was first introduced by the peasants. He was represented holding a cup in his right hand, and in his left, ears of corn. Varro, de Re Rustica, bk. 1.—Pliny, bk. 34, ch. 8.
Boosūra (bovis cauda), a town of Cyprus, where Venus had an ancient temple. Strabo.
Boōtes, a northern constellation near the Ursa Major, also called Bubulcus and Arctophylax. Some suppose it to be Icarus the father of Erigone, who was killed by shepherds for inebriating them. Others maintain that it is Arcas, whom Jupiter placed in heaven. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 3, li. 405.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 42.
Bootus and Bœotus, a son of Neptune and Menalippe, exposed by his mother, but preserved by shepherds. Hyginus, fable 186.
Borea, a town taken by Sextus Pompey. Cicero, bk. 16, Letters to Atticus, ltr. 4.
Boreădes, the descendants of Boreas, who long possessed the supreme power and the priesthood in the island of the Hyperboreans. Diodorus, bks. 1 & 2.
Boreas, the name of the north wind blowing from the Hyperborean mountains. According to the poets, he was son of Astræus and Aurora, but others make him son of the Strymon. He was passionately fond of Hyacinthus [See: [Hyacinthus]], and carried away Orithyia, who refused to receive his addresses, and by her he had Zetes and Calais, Cleopatra and Chione. He was worshipped as a deity, and represented with wings and white hair. The Athenians dedicated altars to him, and to the winds, when Xerxes invaded Europe. Boreas changed himself into a horse, to unite himself with the mares of Dardanus, by which he had 12 mares so swift, that they ran or rather flew over the sea, without scarce wetting their feet. Homer, Iliad, bk. 20, li. 222.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 379.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 15.—Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 189.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, li. 700.