BONA DEA SUBSAXANA, AEDES
(templa, Ov.
Fast. v. 153): a temple of
Bona Dea at the north end of the eastern part of the
Aventine, directly
south of the east end of the circus Maximus. It lay just
below that section
of the hill called Saxum (v.
REMORIA), now occupied by
the church of
S. Balbina, and hence was named Subsaxana (Ov. cit.;
Not. Reg. XII;
Merlin 108-110;
BC 1914, 344-345). The early Roman
goddess Bona
Dea Fauna (Macrob.
Sat. i. 12. 22; Fest. 68) had
apparently been merged
in the Greek goddess Dalia, whose cult had perhaps been
introduced
into Rome after the capture of Tarentum, or a little later. To
this
period the founding of the temple is probably to be
assigned. It was
restored by Livia, the wife of Augustus (Ov.
Fast. v. 157-
158), and by
Hadrian (Hist. Aug. Hadr. 19), and was standing in the
fourth century
(Not. Reg. XII), but has left no traces. The statement of
Ovid (
Fast.
v. 155-156) that this temple was dedicated by a Vestal,
Claudia, is based
on an erroneous identification of this aedes with an
aedicula which a
Vestal, Licinia, dedicated in 123 B.C., and which evidently
was not allowed
to stand (Cic. pro domo 136). Bona Dea (Damia) was a
goddess of
healing and her temple a centre of healing, as is shown by
the fact that
in this temple snakes moved about unharmed and
innocuous, and there
was a store within it of herbs of every sort '
ex quibus
antistites dant
plerumque medicinas' (Macrob.
Sat. i. 12. 25-26). No men
were allowed
to enter its precincts (Fest. 278; Macrob. Ov. locc. citt.).
See HJ 181-183;
WR 216-219;
RE iii. 690-691;
Rosch. i. 790-791;
Gilb. ii.
206-211;
DE i. 1015.
