Bona Dea and Cicero’s public image

Karen Acton (University of Michigan)

In 62 BCE Clodius Pulcher, dressed as a woman, entered Julius Caesar’s house during the festival of Bona Dea, committing an act of immorality and sacrilege that created political shockwaves in the Senate. Cicero was deeply interested in this affair and the subsequent trial, and references to this event were to appear in his writings for the rest of his life. These references form the basis of our understanding of Bona Dea and her December festival; Cicero’s emphasis on the importance and antiquity of the goddess and the festival’s central position in the state cult seems to allow us to uncover a different kind of Roman festival, in which many Roman religious norms seem to have been deliberately subverted. We are left to puzzle over a festival in which women perform a sacrifice pro populo in a private home at night, drink wine from honey-pots, and participate in a public festival in which the rites are to be kept a strict secret from all men.

But Cicero’s depiction of the goddess and her December festival is not supported by any other evidence. In fact, the epigraphic evidence from the first century BCE depicts a goddess with radically different attributes, whose place in traditional Roman religion does not seem so secure. In fact, the goddess that Cicero refers to as the women’s goddess and whose festival he connects explicitly with the state and its republican past, was worshipped by slaves, men, and people with non-Roman names. These inscriptions come from both the city and beyond, such as Minturnae and Pisaurum. One explanation for this discrepancy is the argument that Cicero and the epigraphic evidence record different aspects of this goddess and her cult, perhaps reflecting the divide between state religion and personal religion; this argument presumes that Cicero had privileged and intimate knowledge of this goddess, although he criticizes Clodius for that very knowledge, and that his references offer unbiased and objective testimony. But many of Cicero’s references to the goddess, her festival, and the affair of 62 occur with reference to his enemy Clodius Pulcher, or in oratory directed against Clodius or his defenders (such as de Domo Suo).

In this paper, I argue that the epigraphic evidence and Cicero’s account do not necessarily record two different religious and historical phenomena. Rather, the differences between the goddess who emerges from the inscriptions and the goddess depicted in Cicero’s writings derive from Cicero’s representation of her and her festival, which was motivated by his own desire to situate and define himself politically, religiously, and personally. Cicero’s emphasis on the goddess’ antiquity and connection with the Roman state constituted a claim on his part that he had a unique understanding of Roman traditions, and that he was both prepared and well suited to protect these traditions against all transgressors. He stressed the goddess’ Roman origins, and then positioned himself as her protector. As such, Cicero’s Bona Dea is an element of his construction of himself as the conservator rei publicae, and shows the complexity and diversity of his attempts to craft his public image during and after his consulship.