Bellona. Bellona was an ancient Roman goddess of war. Her main attribute is the military helmet worn on her head; she often holds a sword, spear, or shield, and brandishes a torch or whip as she rides into battle in a four-horse chariot. Her iconography was extended further by painters and sculptors following the Renaissance. Originally named Duellona in the Italic languages, the cult figure who became Bellona was an ancient Sabine goddess of war and identified with Nerio, the consort of the war god Mars-and later with her Greek equivalent Enyo. Her first temple in Rome was dedicated in 296 BCE, where her festival was celebrated on 3 June. Her priests were known as Bellonarii and used to wound their own arms or legs as a blood sacrifice to her. These rites took place on 24 March, called the day of blood, after the ceremony. In consequence of this practice, which approximated to the rites dedicated to Cybele in Asia Minor, both Enyo and Bellona became identified with her Cappadocian aspect, Ma. The Roman Campus Martius area, in which Bellona's temple was sited, had extraterritorial status. Ambassadors from foreign states, who were not allowed to enter the city proper, stayed in this complex. The area around the temple of Bellona was considered to symbolise foreign soil, and there the Senate met with ambassadors and received victorious generals prior to their Triumphs. It was here too that Roman Senate meetings relating to foreign war were conducted. Beside the temple was the war column, which represented the boundary of Rome. To declare war on a distant state, a javelin was thrown over the column by one of the priests concerned with diplomacy, from Roman territory toward the direction of the enemy land and this symbolical attack was considered the opening of war. In the military cult of Bellona, she was associated with Virtus, the personification of valour. She then travelled outside Rome with the imperial legions and her temples have been recorded in France, Germany, Britain, and North Africa. Often in poetry the name Bellona is used simply as a synonym for war, although in the Thebaid of Statius the goddess appears as a character, representing the destructive and belligerent aspect of war. There she is described as carrying a spear and a flaming torch or riding in a chariot and waving a blood-stained sword. While she does not figure as a character in Shakespeare's plays, she receives several mentions. In Henry IV, Part I, Hotspur describes her as the fire-eyed maid of smoky war. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, set in pre-Roman Athens, the sister of Hippolyta will solicit her divine aid for Theseus against Thebes. At the start of the play named after him, Macbeth is introduced as a violent and brave warrior when the Thane of Ross calls him Bellona's bridegroom, that is to say, the equivalent of Mars. In more modern times, Adam Lindsay Gordon dedicated an energetic Swinburnean evocation of the false goddess who leads men astray in his poem Bellona, published in Australia in 1867. She also figures in Edgell Rickword's World War I poem The Traveller. There the poet describes himself as marching toward the front line in the company of Art, the god Pan, and the works of Walter Pater. Meeting Bellona as they approach the fighting, one by one the pleasurable companions are forced to flee before the violence of war, until the goddess rejoices in having him to herself. Bellona appears in the prologue of Rameau's opera, Les Indes Galantes, in which the call of love ultimately triumphs over that of war. In a Bach dramma per musica performed two years before, Tonet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! BWV 214, the goddess even quitted her usual ferocity in order to congratulate Maria Josepha of Austria, Princess Elector of Saxony and Queen of Poland, on her birthday on 8 December 1733. She retains her harsh aspect in Prometheus Absolved by Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca, however. In this cantata celebrating the birth of the Archduchess Isabella in 1762, the deities sit in judgement on Prometheus, some arguing for clemency, while Bellona and others demand rigour. She also plays her proper part in the 'heroic cantata' created by the composer Francesco Bianchi and the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, entitled The Wedding of the Thames and Bellona. This was performed in London to mark the British naval victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. Bellona is commonly portrayed wearing a plumed helmet and dressed in armour, or at least a breastplate with a skirt beneath. In her hand she carries a spear, shield, or other weapons, and occasionally, she sounds a trumpet for the attack.