Templa Patres illic oculos exosa viriles
Leniter acclivi constituere iugo.
Dedicat haec veteris Clausorum nominis heres,
Virgineo nullum corpore passa virum.
Livia restituit, ne non imitata maritum
Esset et ex omni parte secuta virum.
The allusion to Remus fixes the site on the Aventine. The date is uncertain[[381]]; so too the alleged foundation by Claudia, which may be only a reflection from the story of the part played by a Claudia in the introduction of the Magna Mater Idaea to Rome[[382]]. The temple, as Ovid says, was restored by Livia, in accordance with the policy of her husband, also at an unknown date.
Of the cult belonging to this temple we have certain traces, which also help us to some vague conception of the nature of the deity. It should be observed that though in one essential particular, viz. the exclusion of men, this cult was similar to that of December, it must have been quite distinct from it, as the latter took place, not in a temple, but in the house of a magistrate cum imperio[[383]].
1. The temple was cared for, and the cult celebrated, by women only[[384]]. There was an old story that Hercules, when driving the cattle of Geryon, asked for water by the cave of Cacus of the women celebrating the festival of the goddess, and was refused, because the women’s festival was going on, and men were not allowed to use their drinking-vessels; and that this led to the corresponding exclusion of women from the worship of Hercules[[385]]. The myth obviously arose out of the practice. The exclusion of men points to the earth-nature of the Bona Dea; the same was the case in the worship of the Athenian Demeter Thesmophoros. The earth seems always to be spiritualized as feminine even among savage peoples[[386]], and the reason of the exclusion of men is not difficult to conjecture, just as the exclusion of women from the worship of Hercules is explained by the fact that Hercules represents the male principle in the ancient Roman religion[[387]].
2. Macrobius[[388]] tells us that wine could not be brought into the temple suo nomine, but only under the name of milk, and that the vase in which it was carried was called mellarium, i. e. a vase for honey. A legend grew up to account for the custom, to which we shall refer again, that Faunus had beaten his daughter Fauna (i. e. Bona Dea) with a rod of myrtle because she would not yield to his incestuous love or drink the wine he pressed on her[[389]]. This may indicate a survival from the time when the herdsman used no wine in sacred rites, but milk and honey only; Pliny tells us of such a time[[390]], and his evidence is confirmed by the poets. In any case milk would be the appropriate offering to the Earth-mother, and it is hard to see why it should have been changed to wine, unless it were that life in the city and Greek influence altered the character both of the Bona Dea and her worshippers. The really rustic deities had milk offered them, e. g. Silvanus, Pales, and Ceres. The general inference from this survival is that the Bona Dea was originally of the same nature with these deities, but lost her rusticity when she became part of an organized city worship.