Goddess of the hunt
Abode: Mount Olympus
Symbol: Deer
Parents: Jupiter and Latona
Siblings: Apollo
Children: None. She made a vow to stay chaste
Diana (lt. "heavenly" or "divine") was the goddess of the hunt, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon in Roman mythology. In literature she was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult beliefs she was Italic, not Greek, in origin. Diana was worshiped in ancient Roman religion and is currently revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Dianic Wicca, a largely feminist form of the practice, is named for her. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess and looked after virgins and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.
Along with her main attributes, Diana was an emblem of chastity. Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.
Etymology
Diana (pronounced with long 'i' and a') is an adjectival form developed from an ancient *divios, corresponding to later 'divus', 'dius', as in Dius Fidius, Dea Dia and in the neuter form dium meaning the sky. It is rooted in Indoeuropean *d(e)y(e)w meaning bright sky or daylight, from which also derived the name of Vedic god Dyaus and the Latin deus (god), dies (day, daylight)
Theology
The image of Diana is complex and shows various archaic features. According to Dumezil it presents the character of a uranic god of a peculiar nature, referred to in history of religions as 'frame god'. Such gods, while keeping the original features of uranic gods, i.e. transcendent heavenly power and abstention from direct rule on worldly matters, did not face the fate of other uranic gods in Indoeuropean religions of becoming dei otiosi, as they did preserve a peculiar sort of influence over the world and mankind.
The uranic character of Diana is well reflected in her connexion to light, inaccessibility, virginity, dwelling on high mountains and in sacred woods. Diana is thus the representation of the heavenly world (dium) in its character of sovereignty, supremacy, impassibility, indifference towards secular matters as the fate of men and states, while at the same time ensuring the succession of kings and the preservation of mankind through the protection of childbirth.
These functions are apparent in the traditional institutions and cults related to the goddess. 1) The institution of the rex Nemorensis, Diana's sacerdos in the Arician wood, who held its position til somebody else challenged and killed him in a duel, after breaking a branch from a certain tree of the wood. This ever totally open succession reveals the character and mission of the goddess as a guarantee of the continuity of the kingly status through successive generations. The same meaning implying her function of bestower of regality is testified by the story related by Livy of the prediction of empire to the land of origin of the person who would offer her a particularly beautiful cow. 2) Diana was also worshipped by women who sought pregnancy or asked for an easy delivery. This kind of worship is testified by archeological finds of votive statuettes in her sanctuary in the nemus Aricinum as well as by ancient sources, e.g. Ovid.
According to Dumezil the function of frame god is to be traced in an Indian epic hero who is the image of Vedic god Dyaus: having renounced the world, i.e. the role of father and king, he has attained the condititon of an immortal being, although he keeps the duty of ensuring that in his dynasty there are always children and one king for each generation. The Scandinavian god Heimdallr performs an analogous function: he is born first and will die last. He too gives origin to kingship and the first king, bestowing on him regal prerogatives. Diana is a female god but has exactly the same functions, preserving mankind through childbirth and king succession.
Dumezil's interpretation appears to ignore deliberately James G. Frazer's, who connects Diana in her regal function with male god Janus as a divine couple, whereas his description of the type of the frame god would fit his own interpretation of Italic god Janus equally well. Frazer, however, gives a very different interpretation of the couple Diana-Janus: he identifies it with the supreme heavenly couple Juppiter-Juno and connects these figures to the religious Indoeuropean complex tieing regality to the cult of trees, particularly oaks. In this interpretative line the institution of the Rex Nemorensis and his ritual should be related to the theme of the dying god and the kings of May.
Physical Description
Diana often showed as a young girl, age around 13 to 19. It was believed that she had a fair face like Aphrodite with tall body, slim, small hips, and tall forehead. As a goddess of hunting, she wore a very short tunic so she could hunt and run easily and often portrayed holding a bow, carrying a quiver on her shoulder, with a deer or hunting dog, sometimes also her hunting result. But as a goddess of moon, Diana wore a long robe, sometimes a veil covered her head. Both as goddess of hunting and goddess of moon often portrayed wearing a moon crown.
Worship
Diana was initially just the hunting goddess, associated with wild animals and woodlands. She also later became a moon goddess, supplanting Luna. She also became the goddess of childbirth and ruled over the countryside.
Diana was worshipped at a festival on August 13, when King Servius Tullius, himself born a slave, dedicated her shrine on the Aventine Hill in the mid-sixth century BC. Being placed on the Aventine, and thus outside the pomerium, meant that Diana's cult essentially remained a 'foreign' one, like that of Bacchus; she was never officially 'transferred' to Rome as Juno was after the sack of Veii. It seems that her cult originated in Aricia, where her priest, the Rex Nemorensis remained. There the simple open-air fane was held in common by the Latin tribes, which Rome aspired to weld into a league and direct. Diana of the wood was soon thoroughly Hellenized, "a process which culminated with the appearance of Diana beside Apollo in the first lectisternium at Rome". Diana was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens and slaves; slaves could receive asylum in her temples. This fact is of difficult interpretation. Wissowa proposed the explanation that it might be because the first slaves of the Romans must have been Latins of the neighbouring tribes.
Though some Roman patrons ordered marble replicas of the specifically Anatolian "Diana" of Ephesus, where the Temple of Artemis stood, Diana was usually depicted for educated Romans in her Greek guise. If she is accompanied by a deer, as in the Diana of Versailles this is because Diana was the patroness of hunting. The deer may also offer a covert reference to the myth of Acteon (or Actaeon), who saw her bathing naked. Diana transformed Acteon into a stag and set his own hunting dogs to kill him.
Worship of Diana is mentioned in the Bible. In Acts of the Apostles, Ephesian metal smiths who felt threatened by Saint Paul’s preaching of Christianity, jealously rioted in her defense, shouting “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:28, New English Bible).
Sanctuaries
Diana was an ancient goddess common to all Latin tribes. Therefore many sanctuaries were dedicated to her in the lands inhabited by Latins. The first one is supposed to have been near Alba before the town was destroyed by the Romans.
The Arician wood sanctuary near the lake of Nemi was Latin confederal as testified by the dedicatory epigraph quoted by Cato.
She had a shrine in Rome on the Aventine hill, according to tradition dedicated by king Servius Tullius. Its location is remarkable as the Aventine is situated outside the pomerium, ie original territory of the city, in order to comply with the tradition that Diana was a goddess common to all Latins and not exclusively of the Romans.
Other sanctuaries we know about are listed here below:
Temple of Diana, in Evora, Portugal.
Colle di Corne near Tusculum where she is referred to with the archaic Latin name of deva Cornisca and where existed a collegium of worshippers.
The Algidus Mount, also near Tusculum
At Lavinium
At Tivoli, where she is referred to as Diana Opifera Nemorensis
A sacred wood mentioned by Livy ad computum Anagninum(near Anagni).
On Mount Tifata, near Capua in Campania.
In Ephesus, where she was worshiped as Diana of Ephesus and the temple used to be one of world's seven wonders.
Diana and Her Nymphs
by Willem van Mieris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_(mythology)
Roman mythology and religion
Deities
Apollo · Bacchus (Liber) · Bona Dea · Castor and Pollux · Ceres · Cupid · Diana · Dis Pater · Faunus · Genius · Hercules · Janus · Juno · Jupiter · Lares · Mars · Mercury · Minerva · Orcus · Neptune · Penates · Pluto · Priapus · Proserpina · Quirinus · Saturn · Silvanus · Sol · Venus · Vesta · Vulcan
Abstract deities
Concordia · Fides · Fortuna · Pietas · Spes · Roma · Terra
Legendary founders
Aeneas · Romulus and Remus · Numa Pompilius · Servius Tullius · Ancus Marcius
Texts
Vergil, Aeneid · Ovid, Metamorphoses and Fasti · Propertius, Elegies Book 4 · Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)
Concepts and practices
Religion in ancient Rome · Festivals · interpretatio graeca · Imperial cult · Temples
Lunar goddesses | Hunting goddesses | Nature goddesses | Childhood goddesses | Virgin goddesses | Roman goddesses | Animal goddesses
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