See Enyo

Enyo

Enyo , was an ancient goddess of war, acting as a counterpart and companion to the war god Ares. She is also identified as his sister, and daughter of Zeus and Hera, in a role closely resembling that of Eris; with Homer representing the two as the same goddess...

 for the Greek counterpart, and Bellona

Bellona

-Places:United States of America*Bellona Foundry and adjacent Bellona Arsenal, 19th century United States Army and Confederate munitions factory and depot in VirginiaItaly*Bellona, Campania, a comune in the Province of CasertaSolomon Islands...

 for other meanings of this word.

Bellona was an Ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....

 of war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

, similar to the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 Enyo

Enyo

Enyo , was an ancient goddess of war, acting as a counterpart and companion to the war god Ares. She is also identified as his sister, and daughter of Zeus and Hera, in a role closely resembling that of Eris; with Homer representing the two as the same goddess...

. Bellona's attribute is a sword and she is depicted wearing a helmet and armed with a spear and a torch.

Politically, all Senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 meetings relating to foreign war were conducted in the Templum Bellonae

Temple of Bellona (Rome)

The temple of Bellona was an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Bellona and sited next to the Temple of Apollo Sosianus and the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome.-History:...

 (Temple of Bellona) on the Collis Capitolinus

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...

 outside the pomerium

Pomerium

The pomerium or pomoerium , was the sacred boundary of the city of Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within the pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory belonging to Rome.-Location and extensions:Tradition maintained that it was the original line ploughed by Romulus around the...

.

Bellona's festival was celebrated on June 3.

Etymology

The name "Bellona" derived from the Latin word for "war" (bellum), and is directly related to the modern English word "belligerent" (lit., "war-waging"). In earlier times she was called Duellona, the name being derived from a more ancient word for "battle".

Attributes

In art, she is portrayed with a helmet, sword, spear, and torch.

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...

, in describing the Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople

Battle of Adrianople

The Battle of Adrianople , sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between a Roman army led by the Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels led by Fritigern...

 refers to "Bellona, blowing her mournful trumpet, was raging more fiercely than usual, to inflict disaster on the Romans".

In later culture

Near the beginning of Shakespeare's Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

(I.ii.54), Macbeth is introduced as a violent and brave warrior when the Thane of Ross calls him "Bellona's bridegroom" (i.e. Mars). In Henry IV, Part I, Hotspur describes her as "the fire-eyed maid of smoky war" (IV.i.119). The goddess has also proved popular in post-Renaissance art as a female embodiment of military virtue, and an excellent opportunity to portray the feminine form in armour and helmet.

Bellona appears in the prologue of Rameau's opera, Les Indes Galantes

Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet consisting of a prologue and four entrées by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier...

.

Also, the "Temple of Bellona" was a popular choice of name for the small mock-temples that were a popular feature of eighteenth and nineteenth century English landscaped gardens (e.g. William Chambers

William Chambers (architect)

Sir William Chambers was a Scottish architect, born in Gothenburg, Sweden, where his father was a merchant. Between 1740 and 1749 he was employed by the Swedish East India Company making several voyages to China where he studied Chinese architecture and decoration.Returning to Europe, he studied...

's 1760 Temple of Bellona for Kew Gardens, a small Doric temple with a four-column facade to contain plaques honouring those who served in the Seven Years War of 1756–64).

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as "Chip" is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein...

's 1975 novel Dhalgren

Dhalgren

Dhalgren is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. The story begins with a cryptic passage:to wound the autumnal city.So howled out for the world to give him a name.The in-dark answered with wind....

is set in the city of Bellona.

The detective novel The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fourth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot outline:General Fentiman is found dead at the Bellona Club in London, where his body went unnoticed for some hours. His wealthy sister also passed away the same day and under...

takes place at a (fictional) London club whose membership is composed of active or retired military officers, named after the goddess.

In the book The Son of Neptune

The Son of Neptune

The Son of Neptune is the second book in the Heroes of Olympus series written by Rick Riordan. It was released on October 4, 2011.-Development:...

 Bellona is the mother of Camp Jupiter praetor

Praetor

Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

 Reyna and Hylla a former employee at Circe

Circe

In Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...

's Island and the current queen of the Amazons.