BĒMA (βῆμα). [ECCLESIA.] BENDĬDEIA (βενδίδεια), a Thracian festival in honour of the goddess Bendis, who is said to be identical with the Grecian Artemis and with the Roman Diana. The festival was of a bacchanalian character. From Thrace it was brought to Athens, where it was celebrated in the Peiraeeus, on the 19th or 20th of the month Thargelion, before the Panathenaea Minora. The temple of Bendis was called Bendideion. BĔNĔFĬCĬUM, BĔNĔFĬCĬĀRĬUS. The term _beneficium_ is of frequent occurrence in the Roman law, in the sense of some special privilege or favour granted to a person in respect of age, sex, or condition. But the word was also used in other senses. In the time of Cicero it was usual for a general, or a governor of a province, to report to the treasury the names of those under his command who had done good service to the state: those who were included in such report were said _in beneficiis ad aerarium deferri_. _In beneficiis_ in these passages may mean that the persons so reported were considered as persons who had deserved well of the state; and so the word _beneficium_ may have reference to the services of the individuals; but as the object for which their services were reported was the benefit of the individuals, it seems that the term had reference also to the reward, immediate or remote, obtained for their services. The honours and offices of the Roman state, in the republican period, were called the _beneficia_ of the Populus Romanus. Beneficium also signified any promotion conferred on or grant made to soldiers, who were thence called _beneficiarii_. BESTIĀRĬI (θηριομάχοι), persons who fought with wild beasts in the games of the circus. They were either persons who fought for the sake of pay (_auctoramentum_), and who were allowed arms, or they were criminals, who were usually permitted to have no means of defence against the wild beasts. BIBLĬŎPŌLA (βιβλιοπώλης), also called _librarius_, a bookseller. The shop was called _apotheca_ or _taberna libraria_, or merely _libraria_. The Romans had their Paternoster-row; for the bibliopolae or librarii lived mostly in one street, called Argiletum. Another favourite quarter of the booksellers was the Vicus Sandalarius. There seems also to have been a sort of bookstalls by the temples of Vertumnus and Janus.