Day of Blood

Dies Sanguinis (Day of Blood) was a festival held in Ancient Rome on 24 March. Also known as Bellona’s Day, this was an occasion when the Roman votaries of the war-goddess Bellona cut themselves and drank this sacrificial blood to propitiate the deity.

The worship of this asiatic goddess was introduced into Rome apparently by Sulla, to whom she had appeared, urging him to march to Rome and bathe in the blood of his enemies.

Note: She should not be mistaken for the Roman Bellona, whose festival, which was largely a huge feast, took place on the 3rd of June.

For her a new temple was built, and a college of priests (Bellonarii) instituted to conduct her fanatical rites, the prominent feature of which was to lacerate themselves and sprinkle the blood on the spectators. To make the scene more grim they wore black dresses (Tertullian, De Pallio) from head to foot.

The Priests of Bellona (also known as Bellonarii) practiced other rituals on Dies Sanguinis, one rite being to mutilate their own limbs, such as their own arms and legs with a sharp knife or knives in order to collect their own blood to either drink, or offer to their goddess Bellona in order to get her to invoke her war fury on them. In some instances, they would even drink their own blood in hopes that Bellona would grant a warlike frenzy.

An ancient source about Dies Sanguinis is in a book called “Apologeticum” by an early Roman Christian who states:

“on the sixteenth before the Kalends of April, that most sacred high priest of hers was offering, a week after, impure libations of blood drawn from his own arms…”

There also a plant known as the Bellonaria plant (solanum). Which is a corruption on the name Belladonna, a deadly nightshade, was used by priests at this festival, Dies Sanguinis.

When a priest ate its seeds, they would start to hallucinate. Those hallucinations were used by them to make prophetic and oracular statements in the name of their goddess.

Collected from various sources.