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Here, too, if you trust some of the antiquaries, once stood the temple of Diana Nemorensis, where human sacrifices were offered, and whose chief-priest, called Rex Nemorensis, obtained his office by slaying his predecessor, and reigned over these groves by force of his personal arm.

How could they be accused of rebellion or wrong-doing because they wanted to keep the water running in the channel which it had made for itself in the very beginning of the world? The Edera was ancient as its neighbours, the Fiumicino which heard the voice of Cæsar, or the Marecchia which was bridged by Augustus; ancient as the fountain of Arethusa, as the lake of Diana Nemorensis.

Thus there came into the league, alongside of the old Juppiter Latiaris of the Alban Mount, the new Diana Nemorensis of Aricia, and sacrifices to her formed a part of the solemn ritual of the united towns of Latium.

The historical aspect of Christianity, as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed Rex Nemorensis, and whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.

And again, on a never-to-be-forgotten evening on the Nemi lake, when, on descending from Genzano to the strawberry-farm that now holds the site of the famous temple of Diana Nemorensis, we found a beautiful youth at the fattoria, who for a few pence undertook to show us the fragments that remain. Mr. James asked his name.

Diana herself might still linger by this lonely shore, still haunt these woodlands wild. In antiquity this sylvan landscape was the scene of a strange and recurring tragedy. On the northern shore of the lake, right under the precipitous cliffs on which the modern village of Nemi is perched, stood the sacred grove and sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, or Diana of the Wood.

There was no man of so abject or mean condition, whose excellency in any kind he did not envy. The Rex Nemorensis having many years enjoyed the honour of the priesthood, he procured a still stronger antagonist to oppose him.