Domain: Hunt, moon, wilderness, childbirth, crossroads Symbol: Bow and arrow, deer, crescent moon, torch Greek Equivalent: Artemis
Overview
Diana is the Roman goddess of the hunt, the moon, and the wild — a virgin goddess who ranges the forests and mountains among the beasts, bow in hand, yet also watches over women in childbirth and presides over crossroads and magic. Like her Greek counterpart Artemis she is a huntress and a protector of the untamed places, but Roman thought drew out her lunar and nocturnal sides more strongly, and she came to be understood as a triple goddess whose power spanned three realms.
That triple nature is the heart of her Roman character: Diana upon the earth as the huntress, Luna in the heavens as the moon, and Hecate in the underworld as the goddess of magic and the crossroads. Her cult-titles map the same range — Diana Nemorensis, "of the Grove," at her great forest sanctuary; Diana Lucina, "of the Light," who brings infants into the light of birth; and Diana Trivia, "of the three ways," who haunts the crossroads where the roads and the worlds meet. She carries the bow and arrow and the hunting torch, and the deer runs at her side.
Her chief cult center was the sanctuary at Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills, the sacred grove of Diana Nemorensis. There a strange and famous rite held sway: the priest of the grove, the rex Nemorensis, was a runaway slave who had won his office by slaying his predecessor, and who held it only until another challenger killed him in turn. The grove served as a refuge, and the goddess was especially honored on August 13th, her festival of torches, when torchlit processions of women wound around the lake by night.
Against the aristocratic Artemis, Diana was a goddess of the people. She absorbed Hecate's dominion over magic and the crossroads, deepened her association with the moon, and drew a devoted following among the lower classes and slaves — for whom her grove offered sanctuary — making her one of the more broadly accessible deities of the Roman world.
Related
- Artemis - Greek equivalent
- The Moon - The Major Arcana card of the moon, crossroads, and the hidden magical night
- Roman Mythology Index