BONA DEA, in Pagan Mythology, one of the names of Cybele. According to some, she was a Roman lady, the wife of one Faunus, and so famous for her chastity that after her death she was deified. Her sacrifices were performed only by matrons, and in so secret a manner that it was death for any man to intrude himself into the assembly. Cicero reproaches Clodius with having entered this temple disguised as a singing woman, and by his presence polluted the mysteries of the Bona Dea. What kind of mysteries these were, we learn incidentally from Juvenal, sat. vi. 313, where the horrid abominations practised in them are very significantly pointed at.