ABSTRACT
The two principal gods in the war pantheon of mid-Republican Rome were Mars and Bellona. Mars was one of the most ancient deities on the Italian peninsula, and represented the most prominent Roman war god. By the middle Republic, Mars was seen as the personification of virtus, representing war as a masculine pursuit, and carried strong civic associations. The role and importance of Bellona, however, is harder to pin down. She was also a primordial Italic deity, and by the middle Republic seems to have rivalled Mars in importance as a war god. Most notably, though her connection to the fetial ritual, she was associated with the initiation of war, which was conceived of as an act of just revenge. Moreover, Bellona’s femininity was not happenstance, but rather she represented specific female elements of war: she personified audacia on the battlefield, and she represented the frenzy disorder, and chaos of combat – traits often associated with women. In the age of Augustus, Bellona came to represent civil war, and her role as a war goddess waned. Yet, her prominence in the middle Republic provides insights into Roman perceptions of gender at the intersection of war and religion.
