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Diana Nemorensis, in Roman mythology, an
old Italian goddess, in later times identified with the Greek Artemis,
was the daughter of Jupiter and Latona,
twin sister of Apollo, and a goddess of many faces.
Goddess of the Moon. The virgin Goddess and protector of women. Goddess
of the woodlands, her sanctuaries were commonly in groves, indeed every
grove was sacred to her. She was chief hunter to the gods also the
goddess of nature, and of the harvest, the guardian of springs and
streams and the protector of wild animals. In earlier times, she was the
mother Goddess of Nature. She was a goddess of healing powers and
perhaps also of oracles. Her main epiclesis was Trivia, literally “of
the crossroads”, referring to one of her more sinister sides as a deity
of the Underworld. The poet Virgil tells how when Aeneas escaped from
Troy to Italy, the Sibyl told him that the only means of entering and
returning safely from the underworld was to carry the fruit of the
golden bough. In accordance with the cult of the goddess Diana at Nemi,
it is likely that the golden bough was an apple - branch.
Diana is associated with the constellation of Ursa Major. She is also
associated with fire festivals, her title Vesta, indicates a perpetual
holy fire in her sanctuary. During her annual festival held on August
13th, in the middle of summer, when the sun is at its hottest, she is
invoked to protect the harvest from autumn storms
She was especially revered by women, and was believed to grant an easy
childbirth to her favourites. Almost countless clay models of the uterus
have been found near her shrine, together with the torch, the symbol of
midwives and of the Mater Matuta, who in the early hours of the morning
opened the uterus and bade the baby come forth.
Diana was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens and
slaves. Slaves could receive asylum in her temples.
The sanctuary of Nemi at
Ariccia remained an important center of goddess veneration under the
empire. It welcomed the votaries of Isis. A relief found at the site
depicts African women dancing in bliss.
Diana remains an important figure in some modern mythologies. In
Freemasonry, she is considered a symbol of imagination, sensibility, and
the creative insanity of poets and artists. Those who believe that
prehistoric peoples lived in matriarchal societies consider Diana to
have originated in a mother goddess worshipped at that time, and she is
still worshiped today by women practicing the religion known as Dianic
Wicca.
In art she was depicted as a huntress in a long or a short dress with a
bow, a spear or a torch, but she is never seen engaged in actual
killing.
Her temple at Lake Nemi was in a sacred grove and was guarded by her
priest, the Rex Nemorensis, the King of the Wood. Entitled to food,
sanctuary and honour, he was always an escaped slave who has slain with
his own hand the man previously consecrated to that office (whereupon he
becomes the High Priest/Husband/Lover of the Goddess) - until he himself
is slain by a more craftier or stronger challenger, a remainder of the
Birth, Death, Rebirth cycle of nature; accordingly the priest is always
armed with a sword, looking around for the attacks, and ready to defend
himself.
The reason for calling the Sanctuary of Diana “barbarian and Scythian”
was due to the practice of the ritualized human sacrifice, namely the
duel between the reigning priest, the Rex Nemorensis and his challenger.
The Sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, that is “Diana of the Sacred Grove”,
is situated by Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills, just 25 km southeast of
Rome.
It was one of Italy’s most important sanctuaries - and certainly one of
the largest and richest. Here she was worshipped
side by side with a male
deity Virbius, a god of the forest and the chase. This Virbius was
subsequently identified with Hippolytus, the favourite of Artemis, who
was said to have been brought to life by Aesculapius and conducted by
Diana to Ariccia. |
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The sanctuary was administered by the nearby town of Ariccia. Caesar,
who possessed a palatial villa in Diana’s sacred wood by Lake NemI
was favourably disposed to the local cult at Nemi.
The lake at Nemi was called the Mirror of Diana, because the reflection
of the moon upon Lake Nemi could be perfectly viewed from the temple.
It was fed by the spring of Egeria, who was also worshipped there. Women
came to Egeria’s sanctuary to pray for children and easy birth: “Almost
countless clay models of the uterus have been found near her shrine,
together with the torch, the symbol of midwives and of the Mater Matuta,
who in the early hours of the morning opened the uterus and bade the
baby come forth.” The sanctuary of Nemi at Aricia remained an important
center of goddess veneration under the empire. It welcomed the votaries
of Isis. A relief found at the site depicts African women dancing in
bliss. |
Mappa Tempio Diana |
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The Sanctuary of Diana by Lake Nemi might have been very old indeed - at
least, the ritualized human sacrifice reflected in the duel between the
Rex Nemorensis and his challenger might well have had very ancient
roots. However, the oldest literary and archaeological sources for cult
activity in the sanctuary are no older than 500 BC. The sanctuary was
founded as an open-air sanctuary by clearing a sacred space, the lucus,
in the woods. It is not until 300 BC that the earliest temple was built.
However, its main period of flourishing was in the late Republican
period, in the late 2nd century BC, when the sanctuary was completely
rebuilt on a grand scale in Hellenistic style on vast artificial
terraces and with immense porticoes and probably a new temple.
The Romans could have encountered the representations of a deer-killing
eity in either Chersonesos, Delos or in the Pontic Kingdom.
Around 100 BC, three or four iconographically identical statue groups of
a deer-killing female deity were created.
With the overthrow of Paganism at the hand of the Christians, magical
practices and Dianic cults such as that of the King of the Woods at Nemi
were outlawed. Priestesses of Diana took refuge in isolated villages
near Lake Nemi and the temple of Diana fell into ruins or the
sanctuary was a place of worship until it was destroyed by a natural
catastrophe in the second half of the 2nd century AD. |
