DIANA. – Goddess of ancient Roman and Italic religion. Most scholars believe that she was originally an Italic deity who was later assimilated with Artemis under Greek influence; others argue that DIANA was from the outset nothing more than the Greek goddess received into Italy. In the public cult of Apollo, DIANA already plays a part in the 5th century B.C.; yet her Italic cult also displays distinctive features lacking a close analogy with the Greek cult of Artemis.
The name of the goddess is probably to be explained from a root conveying the meaning of “luminosity” (div., Dius, Diviana).
She was especially venerated in groves: her place of worship in the ager Tusculanus and that at the compitum Anagninum is called a lucus, that on Mons Aligidus and that in the Arician valley a nemus, and that at Tibur a silva.
The most important cult sites of DIANA outside Rome are: 1) Mount Tifata near Capua (where the sanctuary now stands beneath S. Angelo in Formis); 2) the Arician valley, with the Nemus Dianae and the lake (now called Lago di Nemi) also known as the “speculum Dianae.” While the remains of the Tifatine sanctuary do indeed attest its antiquity (dating back to the 6th century B.C.), they provide only vague indications of the nature of the cult. Tradition, however, preserves the singular characteristics of the equally ancient cult at Nemi. The minister of the cult was called the rex Nemorensis and had to be a fugitive slave who, to succeed to the office, had to kill the incumbent priest in a ritual duel. Within the sacred precinct of DIANA Nemorensis two other deities were venerated: Egeria, a goddess invoked by women in childbirth, and Virbius, who, according to myth, was Hippolytus hidden in Italy by Artemis. Of the cult of this god it is known only that no horses were allowed in his precinct and that his cult image was not to be touched. The cult had a federal character for the Latin peoples. It cannot be determined with certainty whether this character belonged to the cult from its very beginning or whether the cult pre-existed; nor is the position of the dictator Egerius Laevinus and the eight “populares” who fled in the fragment attributed to Cato clear. Yet the existence of a political dimension is undeniable and is particularly significant in that it is also found in the Roman cult of the goddess. The festival of DIANA Nemorensis fell on August 13 (the day of the full moon). The ex-votos from the sanctuary, though largely dating only from imperial times, document various aspects of the goddess: goddess of the hunt, lunar goddess, goddess of fertility.
At Rome, the name of DIANA does not appear in the most ancient calendar; tradition attributes the founding of her temple on the Aventine to Servius Tullius. The Aventine cult displays several analogies with that at Nemi: its festival is likewise on August 13; the cult has a federal character, the temple is “communis Latinorum,” yet under Roman hegemony, as is particularly evident from the cult legend of its foundation. And if the figure of the rex Nemorensis has no parallel at Rome, neither is the goddess here without connections to slaves: her temple is an asylum for them, and her festival is a “servorum dies festus.”
Politically, the cult of DIANA on the Aventine centers around the religious interests of the plebs. The cult image of the goddess was of the Artemis type, brought, according to tradition, by Greek colonists from Massilia. In August, women celebrated the festival with particular care for their beauty and hair. Besides the Aventine temple, whose antiquity is also attested by the fact that its written law later served as a perpetual model for other temples, DIANA had other sanctuaries in Rome of indeterminate but undoubtedly ancient date: among these, that on the Vicus Patricius, reserved exclusively for women.
From the beginning of the public Roman cult of Apollo, DIANA appears conceived, in accordance with the Greek mythological schema, as his sister. In literary testimonies her archaic traits tend to disappear behind the Hellenistic form of Artemis; only her associations with hunting and, pushed to the point of identification, with the moon are mentioned. Beneath the literary veneer, however, the original complexity and importance of the divine figure continue to survive, as is evident from various cases of “Roman interpretation” in provincial religions (e.g., in Illyricum), where the name of DIANA is given to great deities who certainly cannot be reduced to the traits of a hunting and lunar goddess.