Bona Dea (Latin,"Good Goddess") is an ancient Roman Goddess whose rituals were celebrated by Roman women. She's less well known to us today than, say, Juno or Venus or Minerva, possibly because Roman historians tended to be men. And Roman women were apparently very good at keeping certain details about their Goddess from the men in their lives. We know that "Bona Dea" was an honorific and a substitute for her true name, which was known only to her devotees. To this day there's speculation about her real name and origins, mainly based on similarities between her and Goddesses of neighboring regions.
She's often depicted with a cornucopia and her sacred animal, a snake.
By the early to mid Roman Republic the religion of Bona Dea had the status of a state cult and it's own temple on the Aventine hill. Her rites were celebrated on May first and again in early December. The temple ritual was focused on the Goddess as a protector of the State and People of Rome; the other celebration was held in the home of a high ranking magistrate and hosted by his wife. It's possible that those celebrations were of a more personal nature for those present given this Goddess's reputation as a protector of women, their health, wellbeing, and chastity as well as fertility. The Vestal Virgins were present at these rituals along with high ranking matrons of impeccable ancestry and reputation. At a time when the lives of Roman women, particularly of the upper classes, were severely restricted the celebration of "the Women's Goddess" included drinking and offering undiluted strong wine. Something otherwise forbidden to them.
The prohibition on men at these rituals was strictly enforced; not only men themselves but any male creature, or image, or discussion of such was forbidden. The home of the magistrate whose wife was hosting the celebration had to be ritually purified first, all males banished for the duration, and statues or other images temporarily removed or covered up. Any mistake or oversight would vitiate the ritual and render the prayers and offerings useless. In 62 BCE the hostess was Pompeia, wife of Julius Caesar. (His mother Aurelia was also involved, possibly at Caesar's request as his wife was what we might call "ditzy") A young, impulsive and not terribly smart populist politician named Publius Clodius Pulcher snuck in disguised as a woman. He was caught, the ritual was profaned, and a huge scandal resulted. Clodius was tried for sacrilege, which carried the death penalty. Clodius was also a supporter of Caesar and ended up being found not guilty. (Cicero, whose wife had hosted the previous year's celebration, was a prosecutor.) But because of rampant gossip that Clodius was there to hook up with the beautiful hostess (something that was never conclusively proved), Caesar divorced Pompeia. Famously stating that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion".
The fallout of the scandal and sacrilege was serious enough that Augustus, Julius Caesar's heir and the first Roman emperor, was still dealing with the repercussions decades later. By the late Republic the cult of Bona Dea was in decline, although there is no evidence that it was officially banned. And despite Augustus's efforts to return Rome to the morals and religious devotion of the past, it eventually disappeared.
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