Note 1016 — Chapter III · (691-695.)

Suetonius, Cæsar, 1.—Plutarch, Cicero, 27; Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.—“This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the right of imperium, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal. The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to men, and whom Clodius terms the Good Goddess (Bona Dea), because she forgave him so gross an outrage.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 17.)—The Good Goddess, like the majority of the divinities of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.