Editing Bona Dea (section)

==Dedications and iconography==
Despite the exclusively female, aristocratic connections claimed by Cicero for her winter festival at Rome and her high status as a protecting deity of the Roman state, elite dedications to Bona Dea are far outnumbered by the personal dedications of the Roman plebs, particularly the [[ingenui]]. The greatest number of all are from freedmen and slaves, male and female. An estimated one-third of all dedications are from men, one of whom, a provincial Greek, claims to be a priest of her cult. Others describe themselves as ''sacerdotes'', ''magistri'' or ''ministri'' (priests and ministers) of the goddess. While almost all Roman literary sources present the exclusion of men as an official and absolute rule of her cult, this is more likely a ritualised element of her annual festival, at least in Cicero's account of the same, than an everyday prohibition or an aspect of ''mystes'' vitiated by Clodius' unlawful presence.{{Sfn|Brouwer|1989|p=258}}<ref>The estimate is in Peter F. Dorcey, ''The cult of Silvanus: a study in Roman folk religion'', Columbia studies in the Classical tradition, BRILL, 1992, p. 124, footnote 125. The claim to be a male priest of Bona Dea is from ''Inscriptiones Graecae'', XIV 1499.</ref> Inscriptions of the Imperial era show her appeal as a personal or saviour-goddess, extolled as ''Augusta''  and ''Domina''; or as an all-goddess, titled as  ''Regina Triumphalis'' (Triumphal Queen), or ''Terrae marisque Dominatrici'' (Mistress of sea and land).{{Sfn|Brouwer|1989|pp=384–386}} Private and public dedications associate her with agricultural deities such as [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], [[Silvanus (mythology)|Silvanus]], and the virgin goddess [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]].{{Sfn|Brouwer|1989|p=21}} She is also named in some dedications of public works, such as the restoration of the [[Aqua Claudia|Claudian Aqueduct]].{{Sfn|Brouwer|1989|pp=79–80}}
[[File:Bona Dea Marble Statue with Epigraph.jpg|thumb|Bona Dea marble statue with epigraph; "Ex visu iussu Bonae Deae sacr(um) Callistus Rufinae N(ostrae) Act(or)" (Dedicated to Bona Dea by Callistus, slave of Rufina) CIL. XIV 2251. [[Antoninus Pius|Antoninian]], from ''Ager Albanus'', Italy <ref>Brouwer 1989, p. 293, Inscript. 8</ref>]]
Most inscriptions to Bona Dea are simple and unadorned but some show serpents, often paired. Cumont (1932) remarks their similarity to the serpents featured in domestic shrines ([[Lares#Lararium|lararia]]) at [[Pompei]]; serpents are associated with many earth-deities, and had protective, fertilising and regenerating functions, as in the cults of [[Aesculapius]], [[Demeter]] and [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]]. Some Romans kept live, harmless snakes as household pets, and credited them with similarly beneficial functions.<ref>Franz Cumont, "La Bona Dea et ses serpents", Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 1932, Vol. 49, Issue 49, pp. 1–5. [http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/mefr_0223-4874_1932_num_49_1_7221 link to French language article at Persée.]</ref>

Images of the goddess show her enthroned, clad in [[chiton (costume)|chiton]] and mantle. On her left arm she holds a [[cornucopia]], a sign of her abundant generosity and fruitfulness. In her right hand, she holds a bowl, which feeds a serpent coiled around her right arm: a sign of her healing and regenerative powers. This combination of snake and cornucopia are unique to Bona Dea. The literary record offers at least one variation on this type; Macrobius describes her cult statue as overhung by a "spreading vine", and bearing a sceptre in her left hand.<ref>{{harvnb|Brouwer|1989|p=401|ps=: Macrobius may have been referring to her Aventine cult statue (now lost): cf. the sceptre as an attribute of Juno, and a dedication at Aquincum to ''Bonae Deae Iunoni''.}}</ref>