"The Winter rites of 62 BC were hosted by Pompeia, wife of Julius Caesar, senior magistrate in residence and pontifex maximus. Publius Clodius Pulcher, a popularist politician and ally of Caesar, was said to have intruded, dressed as a woman and intent on the hostess's seduction. As the rites had been vitiated, the Vestals were obliged to repeat them, and after further inquiry by the senate and pontifices, Clodius was charged with desecration, which carried a death sentence. Cicero, whose wife Terentia had hosted the previous year's rites, testified for the prosecution.[24]
Caesar publicly distanced himself from the affair as much as possible – and certainly from Pompeia, whom he divorced because "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion".[25] He had been correctly absent from the rites but as a paterfamilias he was responsible for their piety. As pontifex maximus, he was responsible for the ritual purity and piety of public and private religion. He had the responsibility to ensure that the Vestals had acted correctly, then chair the inquiry into what were essentially his own household affairs. Worse, the place of the alleged offense was the state property lent to every pontifex maximus for his tenure of office.[26] It was a high profile, much commented case. The rites remained officially secret, but many details emerged during and after the trial, and remained permanently in the public domain. They fueled theological speculation, as in Plutarch and Macrobius: and they fed the prurient male imagination – given their innate moral weakness, what might women do when given wine and left to their own devices? Such anxieties were nothing new, and underpinned Rome's traditional strictures against female autonomy. In the political and social turmoil of the Late Republic, Rome's misfortunes were taken as signs of divine anger against the personal ambition, religious negligence and outright impiety of her leading politicians.
Clodius' prosecution was at least partly driven by politics. In an otherwise seemingly thorough account, Cicero makes no mention of Bona Dea's May festival, and claims the goddess' cult as an aristocratic privilege from the first; the impeccably patrician Clodius, Cicero's social superior by birth, is presented as an innately impious, low-class oaf, and his popularist policies as threats to Rome's moral and religious security. After two years of legal wrangling, Clodius was acquitted – which Cicero put down to jury-fixing and other backroom dealings – but his reputation was damaged.[27] The scandalous revelations at the trial also undermined the sacred dignity and authority of the Vestals, the festival, the goddess, office of the pontifex maximus and, by association, Caesar and Rome itself. Some fifty years later, Caesar's heir Octavian, later the princeps Augustus, had to deal with its repercussions.[28]"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_Dea#Clodius_and_the_Bona_Dea_scandal
"The Winter rites of 62 BC were hosted by Pompeia, wife of Julius Caesar, senior magistrate in residence and pontifex maximus. Publius Clodius Pulcher, a popularist politician and ally of Caesar, was said to have intruded, dressed as a woman and intent on the hostess's seduction. As the rites had been vitiated, the Vestals were obliged to repeat them, and after further inquiry by the senate and pontifices, Clodius was charged with desecration, which carried a death sentence. Cicero, whose wife Terentia had hosted the previous year's rites, testified for the prosecution.[24]
Caesar publicly distanced himself from the affair as much as possible – and certainly from Pompeia, whom he divorced because "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion".[25] He had been correctly absent from the rites but as a paterfamilias he was responsible for their piety. As pontifex maximus, he was responsible for the ritual purity and piety of public and private religion. He had the responsibility to ensure that the Vestals had acted correctly, then chair the inquiry into what were essentially his own household affairs. Worse, the place of the alleged offense was the state property lent to every pontifex maximus for his tenure of office.[26] It was a high profile, much commented case. The rites remained officially secret, but many details emerged during and after the trial, and remained permanently in the public domain. They fueled theological speculation, as in Plutarch and Macrobius: and they fed the prurient male imagination – given their innate moral weakness, what might women do when given wine and left to their own devices? Such anxieties were nothing new, and underpinned Rome's traditional strictures against female autonomy. In the political and social turmoil of the Late Republic, Rome's misfortunes were taken as signs of divine anger against the personal ambition, religious negligence and outright impiety of her leading politicians.
Clodius' prosecution was at least partly driven by politics. In an otherwise seemingly thorough account, Cicero makes no mention of Bona Dea's May festival, and claims the goddess' cult as an aristocratic privilege from the first; the impeccably patrician Clodius, Cicero's social superior by birth, is presented as an innately impious, low-class oaf, and his popularist policies as threats to Rome's moral and religious security. After two years of legal wrangling, Clodius was acquitted – which Cicero put down to jury-fixing and other backroom dealings – but his reputation was damaged.[27] The scandalous revelations at the trial also undermined the sacred dignity and authority of the Vestals, the festival, the goddess, office of the pontifex maximus and, by association, Caesar and Rome itself. Some fifty years later, Caesar's heir Octavian, later the princeps Augustus, had to deal with its repercussions.[28]"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_Dea#Clodius_and_the_Bona_Dea_scandal
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