Pudicitia

Pudicitia (Αἰδώς), a personification of modesty, was worshipped both in Greece and at Rome. At Athens an altar was dedicated to her (Pausan. i, 17, § 1). At Rome two sanctuaries were dedicated to her, one under the name of Pudicitia patricia, and the other under that of Pudicitia plebeia. The former was in the Forum Boarium, near the temple of Hercules. When the patrician Virginia was driven from this sanctuary by the other patrician women, because she had married the plebeian consul L. Volumnimts, she built a separate sanctuary to Pudicitia plebeia in the Vicus Longus (Livy, 10:23; Festus, p. 242, ed. Muller). No woman who had married twice was allowed to touch her statue; and Pudicitia, moreover, was considered by some to be the same as Fortuna Muliebris. She is represented in works of art as a matron in modest attire. See Hirt, Mythol. Bilderb. p. 114, tab. 13.