Bello'na

Bello'na, the goddess of war among the Romans, probably a Sabine divinity, was described by the poets as the companion, sister, or wife of Mars, and was represented as armed with a bloody scourge, and as inspiring her votaries with a resistless enthusiasm in battle. During the war with the Samnites, 296 B.C., the consul Appius Claudius vowed a temple to Bellona, which was erected afterwards in the Campus Martius. In this temple the senate gave audience to embassies from foreign powers, and also to returning consuls, whose claims to a triumph and entrance into the city would have been nullified. The priests of the goddess were styled Bellonarvii, and at their mystic festivals, especially on the 'day of blood' (March 20), used to gash their own arms and shoulders, and thus to offer their blood.