Ante diem III Nonae Iunoniae (3 June)


Bellona, Sabine Goddess of War

It is said that at the height of the battle Appius (Claudius) was seen among the foremost standards raising his hands to heaven and praying, "If today, Bellona, You grant us victory, a new temple I vow" (Livy 10.19.17-18).

The Temple of Bellona was vowed in 296BCE and later erected in the Campus Martius. Declarations of war came to be publicly posted on a column within Her temple precinct.

Servius Ad Aen. 9.52: When thirty-three days had elapsed after they had demanded redress, the fetiales used to hurl a spear against an enemy. But later, in the time of Pyrrhus (270 BCE), the Romans were going to wage war against an overseas enemy and could not find any place for the fetiales to perform this ritual of declaring war. So they arranged for one of Pyrrhus' soldiers to be captured, and they made him purchase some land in the area of the Circus Flaminius in order to fulfill the proper procedures for declaring war on, as it were, enemy land. Later a column was consecrated on that land, in front of the temple of Bellona.


Ludi Saeculares

Lines 139-46: Three days before the Nones of June (3 June), on the Palatine, the emperor Caesar Augustus and Marcus Agrippa made sacrifice to Apollo and Diana with nine libum cakes, nine popana, nine phthoes and they spoke a prayer as follows: "Apollo, as it is prescribed for you in those books ? and for this reason may every good fortune attend the Roman people, the Quiries ? let sacrifice be made to you with nine popana cakes, and nine libum cakes, and nine phthoes cakes. I beg and pray." The rest as above. "Apollo, just as I have offered popana and prayed to you with proper prayer, for this same reason be honoured with these sacrificial cakes. Become favourable and propitious." The same was said concerning the phthoes. To Diana in the same words.

Lines 147-52: When the sacrifice was completed, the twenty-seven boys, who had been commanded, their fathers and mothers still living, and the same number of girls, sang the hymn. And in the same manner on the Capitoline. The hymn was composed by Quintus Horatius Flaccus. The quindecimviri were present: the emperor Caesar, Marcus Agrippa, Quintus Lepidus, Potitus Messalla, Caius Stolo, Caius Scaevola, Caius Sosius, Caius Norbanus, Marcus Cocceius, [Marcus] Lollius, Caius Sentius, Marcus Strigo, Lucius Arruntius, Caius Asinius, Marcus Marcellus, Decimus Laelius, Quintus Tubero, Caius Rebilus, Messalla Messallinus.

Lines 153-4: When the theatrical games had ended at the [...] hour, close by that place where sacrifice had been made on the previous nights and a theatre had been set up and a stage, turning posts were set up and chariot racing was presented; Potitus Mesalla presented trick riders.