Bona Dea - Mythology

Mythology

Cicero makes no reference to any myth of Bona Dea. Later Roman scholars connected her to the goddess Fauna, a central figure in Latium's aristocratic foundation myth, which was thus re-embroidered as a Roman moral fable. Several variants are known; Fauna is daughter, wife or sister of Faunus (also named Faunus Fatuus, meaning Faunus "the foolish", or seer). Faunus was son of Picus, and was the first king of the Latins, empowered with the gift of prophecy. In Roman religion he was a pastoral god and protector of flocks, with a shrine and oracle on the Aventine, sometimes identified with Inuus and later, with Greek Pan. As his female counterpart, Fauna had similar gifts, domains and powers in relation to women. In Plutarch's version of the myth, the mortal Fauna secretly gets drunk on wine, which is forbidden her. When Faunus finds out, he thrashes her with myrtle rods; in Lactantius's version, Faunus thrashes her to death, regrets the deed and deifies her. Servius derives the names Faunus and Fauna, collectively the Fatui, from fari (to prophesy): they "are also called Fatui because they utter divine prophecy in a state of stupor". Macrobius writes that Bona Dea is "the same as Fauna, Ops or Fatua... It is said too that she was the daughter of Faunus, and that she resisted the amorous advances of her father who had fallen in love with her, so that he even beat her with myrtle twigs because she did not yield to his desires though she had been made drunk by him on wine. It is believed that the father changed himself into a serpent, however, and under this guise had intercourse with his daughter." Macrobius refers the serpent's image at the goddess' rites to this mythical transformation, and to the live, harmless serpents who roamed the goddess' temple precincts.

Varro explains the exclusion of men from Bona Dea's cult as a consequence of her great modesty; no man but her husband had ever seen her, or heard her name. For Servius, this makes her the paragon of chaste womanhood. Most likely, once Fauna's mythology seemed to offer an explanation for Bona Dea's mysterious cult, the myth developed circumstantially, to fit what little was known of the practice. In turn, the cult practice may have changed to support the virtuous ideological message required of the myths, particularly during the Augustan religious reforms that identified Bona Dea with the empress Livia. Versnel (1992) notes the elements common to the Bona Dea festival, Fauna's myths, and Greek Demeter's Thesmophoria, as "wine, myrtle, serpents and female modesty blemished".