BENDIS (Βενδίς) and BENDIDIE (Βενδίδετο). - Bendis is a Thracian goddess, identified by the Greeks with Artemis; Thracian women offered her ears of wheat. She was also worshipped in Bithynia, where a month was named after her “bendidios,” and at Athens, where, unlike other foreign divinities, she seems already to have had official worship in 429–428 B.C. Her sanctuary at Piraeus, on the hill of Munichia, was built by order of the oracle of Dodona; the Thracian god Deloptes was also venerated there. On reliefs and statuettes Bendis wears a short garment, covered by an animal skin, and a rough cloak, high boots, and a Phrygian cap; in her right hand she holds a patera, in her left a spear.
In Attica, at Piraeus, the Bendidia were celebrated on the 19th or 20th of the month of Thargelion (May): two associations, one Athenian and one Thracian, were entrusted with the cult and proceeded in procession to the sanctuary; in the evening there were torchlit horse races.