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 i 2. p. 192 (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 i 2. p. 319; 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). See Addenda to
HERCULES CUSTOS, AEDES.
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
1. 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. 2 ;
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, p. 14 Deuerl.=CGLv. 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.
