PUDICITIA PATRICIA, SACELLUM
(templum, signum):
a shrine in the forum
Boarium (
Liv. x. 23. 3 (296 B.C.):
in sacello Pudicitiae patriciae quae
in foro boario est ad aedem rotundam Herculis; 5: in patriciae Pudicitiae
templum; Fest. 242: Pudicitiae signum in foro boario est, ubi Aemiliana
aedes est Herculis.1 ear quidam Fortunae esse existimant. item
via Latina ad milliarium IIII Fortuna Muliebris, nefas est attingi nisi ab
ea quae semel nupsit (cf. PBS iv. 79); ib. 243: Pudicitiae signum
Romae celebratur quod nefas erat attingi nisi ab ea quae semel nupserit).
There is no further record of this shrine, and the theory has been advanced
that there never was any such, but that the veiled statue of Fortuna
in her temple in the
FORUM BOARIUM (q.v.) was mistaken for one of
Pudicitia, and gave rise to the aetiological story told by Livy which
made Pudicitia patricia a contrast to Pudicitia plebeia (WR 333-334;
Wissowa, Ges. Abh. 254-260;
Rosch. iii. 3273-3275). If the shrine did
exist, it was a locus sacratus, not an aedes, and not to be identified with
any existing remains (DAP 2. vi. 241, 269).