PUDICITIA

The Roman goddess of modesty and chastity. She was at first worshipped in a chapel in Rome exclusively by the patrician matrons. When, in 296 B.C., the patrician Verginia was excluded from this worship by her marriage with the plebeian consul Volumnius, she erected in her own house a chapel to the goddess, so that the plebeian matrons might worship there. Afterwards this cult died out with the decay of morals. In imperial times altars were erected to Pudicitia in honour of the empresses. The goddess was her right hand in her garment.