BĬDENTAL, the name given to a place where any one had been struck by lightning, or where any one had been killed by lightning and buried. Such a place was considered sacred. Priests, who were called _bidentales_, collected the earth which had been torn up by lightning, and every thing that had been scorched, and burnt it in the ground with a sorrowful murmur. The officiating priest was said _condere fulgur_; he further consecrated the spot by sacrificing a two-year-old sheep (_bidens_), whence the name of the place and of the priest, and he also erected an altar, and surrounded it with a wall or fence. To move the bounds of a bidental, or in any way to violate its sacred precincts, was considered as sacrilege. BIDIAEI (βιδιαῖοι), magistrates in Sparta, whose business was to inspect the gymnastic exercises. They were either five or six in number. BĪGA or BĪGAE. [CURRUS.] BĪGĀTUS. [DENARIUS.] BĬPENNIS. [SECURIS.] BĬRĒMIS. (1.) A ship with two banks of oars. [NAVIS.] Such ships were called _dicrota_ by the Greeks, which term is also used by Cicero.--(2.) A boat rowed by two oars. BISSEXTUS ANNUS. [CALENDARIUM, ROMAN.] BŎĒDRŎMĬA (βοηδρόμια), a festival celebrated at Athens on the seventh day of the month Boëdromion, in honour of Apollo Boëdromius. The name Boëdromius, by which Apollo was called in Boeotia and many other parts of Greece, seems to indicate that by this festival he was honoured as a martial god, who, either by his actual presence or by his oracles, afforded assistance in the dangers of war. BOEŌTARCHĒS (βοιωτάρχης, or βοιωτάρχος), the name of the chief magistrates of the Boeotian confederacy, chosen by the different states. Their duties were chiefly of a military character. Each state of the confederacy elected one boeotarch, the Thebans two. The total number from the whole confederacy varied with the number of the independent states, but at the time of the Peloponnesian war they appear to have been ten or twelve. The boeotarchs, when engaged in military service, formed a council of war, the decisions of which were determined by a majority of votes, the president being one of the two Theban boeotarchs, who commanded alternately. Their period of service was a year, beginning about the winter solstice; and whoever continued in office longer than his time was punishable with death, both at Thebes and in other cities.