Spaniards, and in the 16th it was held for some time by Charles V., who
strengthened its citadel. Thereafter it was held in turn by Genoese,
Tunisians and Algerines. From the time of Louis XIV. to the Revolution,
the French _Compagnie d'Afrique_ maintained a very active trade with the
port. The town was occupied by the French for a few months in 1830 and
reoccupied in 1832, when Captains Armandy and Yusuf with a small force
of marines seized the Kasbah and held it for some months until help
arrived. From that time the history of Bona is one of industrial
development, greatly stimulated since 1883 by the discovery of the
phosphate beds at Tebessa.

BONA DEA, the "good goddess," an old Roman deity of fruitfulness, both
in the earth and in women. She was identified with Fauna, and by later
syncretism also with Ops and Maia--the latter no doubt because the
dedication-day of her temple on the Aventine was 1st May (Ovid, _Fasti_,
v. 149 foll.). This temple was cared for, and the cult attended, by
women only, and the same was the case at a second celebration at the
beginning of December in the house of a magistrate with _imperium_,
which became famous owing to the profanation of these mysteries by P.
Clodius in 62 B.C., and the political consequences of his act. Wine and
myrtle were tabooed in the cult of this deity, and myths grew up to
explain these features of the cult, of which an account may be read in
W.W. Fowler's _Roman Festivals_, pp. 103 foll. Herbs with healing
properties were kept in her temple, and also snakes, the usual symbol of
the medicinal art. Her victim was a porca, as in the cults of other
deities of fertility, and was called _damium_, and we are told that the
goddess herself was known as Damia and her priestess as _damiatrix_.
These names are almost certainly Greek; Damia is found worshipped at
several places in Greece, and also at Tarentum, where there was a
festival called _Dameia_. It is thus highly probable that on the cult of
the original Roman goddess was engrafted the Greek one of Damia,
perhaps after the conquest of Tarentum (272 B.C.). It is no longer
possible to distinguish clearly the Greek and Roman elements in this
curious cult, though it is itself quite intelligible as that of an
Earth-goddess with mysteries attached.

See also Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_. (W. W. F.*)

BONA FIDE (Lat. "in good faith"), in law, a term implying the absence of
all fraud or unfair dea