Diana Nemorensis

Adapted from an article by Pia Guldager Bilde: "By Torch-light: The Cult in the Sanctuary".

So far we talked a bit about the Lake Nemi and it's surroundings. Now we shall look into the cult of the goddess that was worshipped ther: Diana Nemorensis.

Diana is traditionally described as the goddess of the hunt. And as such, there could hardly be a better place than Nemi, because the Alban hills would have been a paradise for hunters in ancient times. But this is only one of her aspects. It is always difficult to describe a deity with few words, because they have different description in different times and cultures, even if they have the same name. And goddesses with different names may be similar.

Thus at Nemi, we find votive gifts in bronze and terracotta showing Diana in a short chiton, a small cloak, boots and with a bow in her hands. This Diana is the gallant and chaste goddess and sister of Apollo, ie. identical to the greek Artemis.

But then we also find votive gifts in the form of parts of the body, particularly the hands, feet or eyes. But there are also replicas of the wombs and the penis, which shows that the desire for children was strong. The votives demonstrates that Diana had power over health and sickness. Wether medical healing was practised at Nemi is not known, but varoius doctor instruments are found. It is also possible that the bathing facilities at the Sanctuary in Nemi had a therapeutic purpose.

However, Diana's most common appelation is Trivia (sometimes she is also called Diana Triformis), which means the place where three roads meet, or more general, a cross road. At such liminal regions - meeting points between two worlds - dangerous forces are at work. It was particularly Hekate who reigned there, and it was important for travellers to offer correct sacrifices for her. Trivia also alludes to the three faces of Diana. Virgil Servius explains that she rules over three spheres: the underworld, the earth and heaven. This means that she has power over birth, life and death. Servius also says that the three faces of Diana represent the three faces of the moon, the waxing, the full and the waning. (Thus he describes Diana as a triple goddess or moon goddess).

It was in her aspect as Hekate, Goddess of the underworld that this dark goddess was worshipped. Literary sources tell about women, who wished her to answer their prayers, wandering from Aricia to the Sanctuary in the black night, carrying a torch, and with wreaths of flowers in their hair. (Sometimes the Goddess was called Diana Lucifera, and it is not difficult to find similarities with Lucina, Luna (Selene), and even the Sancta Lucia celebrations)

Her darker side also comes to the fore in the myth concerning the founding of the Sanctuary, according to which the original cult is an offshoot of the cult of the Taurian or Scythian Artemis, and Diana Nemorensis is sometimes called Scythian Diana. This cult-image demanded human blood, and any strangers who sailed past the point where the temple of Artemis was situated, were sacrified to her.

This myth may explain a bloody ritual of the Sanctuary, namely the succesion of its priesthood where the Priest-King, Rex Nemorensis had to fight a duel to the death with a challenger, who was a runaway slave, like himself. This duel may be a ritualisation of an ancient practise, where the worship of the goddess included human sacrifice, just like the worship of many other deities of the ancient world.

The universal character of Diana Nemorensis meant that she was venerated in the same sancturay together with the Egyptian goddess Isis with whose identity she became partly assimilated. Here we recognize the all-powerful Goddess whose origin is lost in the remotes stirrings of the religious consciousness of the Mediterranean lands. Linguistic evidence indicates that Diana was a very old Italic goddess, and historical evidence shows that she had a cult at Nemi as far back as the sixt century B.C.E. The Rex Nemorensis, indicates that the cult is in fact far older than that.

LINKS

Diana (Wikipedia) Artemis

C.M.C.Green: Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, READ ONLINE

A meditation

This is just a fantasy - nothing is known to have happened exactly like this. But maybe it has?

I am sitting on a wagon, behind a huge white horse. The wagon is heavy and we are going slow. So the horse turns his head back to me, as if to say, "come and sit on my back, that's more comfortable". So I do, and at the same time the wagon is released and the horse is free. Now we are going much faster. I suddenly realise that he also has wings. How come I haven't noticed before? He increases the speed and suddendly makes a big jump up in the air, and out into the clear, black night. We are flying out from land. Above us glittering stars, below the black ocean. I can see the full moon reflected in the sea.

After a long journey we are approaching land again, but from far, far above, and now I recognize the "foot" of Italy. We are getting lower, and below I see a lake that looks like a little eye in the forest, or a glittering mirror - the Mirror of Diana. We are circling around it and from a certain angle I can see the moon-eye looking up at us again as we get nearer. It looks like we are going to land on the shore of the lake. As we go down in a sort of valley, the horison is suddenly much higher and we are surrounded by hills in every direction.We land on a green, grassy clearing in the wood, and I fall to sleep.

When I wake up, it seems like I have slept a whole year. And when I look aroud I recognize the place at once. It is Nemi! And somehow I know that we have gone back in time, some two and a half, maybe three millenia. I am lying on my back in the grass, looking up on the starry sky down in crater, and beside me is the sacred tree. I know this is an asherah guarded by an ex slave, called the King of Nemi, Rex Nemorensis. This is long before the Temple of Diana is erected here, and the sanctuary at Nemi is like a woodehenge, a natural cathedral in the forest, surrounded by wooden pillars. The rumours say that terrible things happen down here. The Rex Nemorensis can only rule as long as he is the strongest - as long as he can defend himself. But eventually there comes another man, stronger than him, who will slay him and become the new King!

The full moon crawles slowly over the ridge of the crater, and fills Nemi with a pale light. On the other side of the crater, almost like a reflection, a silver droplet appears. Then the one becomes two, then three, and soon a whole river of silver is running down the crater slope. As it gets nearer I can see that the silver light comes from torches, and I am beginning to hear voices - women singing and chanting and laughing. As they came nearer to me, I can see that they all are in white linen, with flowers around their heads and they all have bare feet. And now I remember why they are here, and where they come from. They are women of Alba Longa, the capital of the Latins. They are coming to worship their Goddess and to ask her to bring them children This tratition is later to be transferred to Aricia, at a time when the Romans takes over control, and when the steep road has become Via Virbia, a side track to Via Appia from Rome..

Now the women are all down. They gather around me in silence and put the torches into the ground. Then appears a tall, strong figure in the outskirst of the circle of light. He looks frightening. Is this the Rex? But he seems to be just a regular slave, because he is instructed to gather all the womens clothes as they go down to the water. They are going for a bathe in the lake, probably a healing ritual. Before they return I can see that candles are lit and set out floating on the water. They get back to me where I sit under the tree of Diana. This is the center of her cult. This is her sanctuary, but there is no one here to guard it? I stand by watching while each of them bring the Goddess a present wrapped in red clothe, and hangs it from a thread in the tree. And each of them whispers her wish to Diana. When this ceremony is over, they perform a ring dance evoking Diana, Luna, Artemis, Isis and Hekate. She is all of these, she that is called Nemetona, the goddess of this grove - this Nemus.

But it is not ower, the best part is yet to come. The slave steps forward. He brakes a bow from the tree and goes slowly towards me! Why? What is happening? Does he think I am ...? I want to run away, but the only thing I can do is to stand paralyzed. Then he speaks to me. - Just pretend, O King, he whispers, - just act your part! Then he smiles to me! So we don't fight at all, we perform a ritual. We dance! And I remember my part and know what I have to do, and it is a relief to do it. He rises the golden bow high, and dances towards me with strength, but stops right before the bow reaches my head. He has defeated me. The King is dead, long live the King! And while I am carried away, the former slave, innstalls himself below the Asherah as the new Rex Nemorerensis.

It is over. I have fulfilled my duty. I am free! We all gather our things and start walking the steep slope up from Nemi. And when my winged horse returns to collect me I take a final look down at the Mirror of Diana. I see the King of Nemi going down to the sea. The moonshine is now glittering in the midst of the water. Then i see something in between the rays. It looks like a woman rising from the water. It must be the lady of the lake, and I know that the Rex is going to meet her. Because I remember what happened last year. Oh yes, this is the best part!