BELLONA. - Originally connected with Mars, by the middle of the 4th century she was already a war deity in her own right (Livy, VIII, 9, 6), to whom in 296 B.C. a temple was dedicated near the Circus Flaminius, where the Fetiales hurled the spear to declare war (Cassius Dio, L, 45; LXXII, 33, 2). In 92 B.C., B. was identified with Má, a deity of the Magna Mater type, imported from Cappadocia by Sulla's soldiers. Her priests (Bellonarii) wounded themselves in the frenzy of orgiastic fury (Tibullus, I, 6, 43 ff. and Horace, Sat., II, 3, 233). Virtus, in the sense of military valor, was also assimilated to her (Lactantius, Inst., I, 21, 16; CIL, V, 6507 and XIII, 7281).
Bibliography6 works
BIBL.: E. Aust, s. v. in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclop., III, col. 255 ff.; D. Vaglieri, in E. De Ruggiero, Diz. Epigr., I, p. 987 ff.; Drexler, s. v. in Roscher, Lex., II, col. 2215 ff.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, pp. 151 ff. and 348 ff.; N. Turchi, La religione di Roma antica, Bologna 1939, p. 183; G. Lugli, I monumenti antichi di Roma e Suburbia, supplement, III, Rome 1940, pp. 3-7.