BONA DEA. - Originally an epithet of a goddess who protected pastures and woods, she was identified, after the conquest of Taranto (271 B.C.), with Damia, a Greek divinity whose cult was reserved exclusively for women (Macrobius, Sat., I, 12, 27; Plutarch, Quaest. rom., 20).
The festival of B. D. was celebrated at night (only women being admitted) at the beginning of December; her priestess
was called Damiatrix (Festus, s. v.; De har. resp., 8, 37). A sow and a libation of wine, which was however called milk, were offered to her. The date of foundation of the temple, thought to have stood on the Aventine, is unknown, though it was no later than the 4th century B.C. In the 4th century A.D. it was still standing.
B. D. also possessed, as Damia, healing prerogatives; indeed, a pharmacy for the use of women was attached to her temple, as various inscriptions attest.