Temple of Diana (Nemi)

Worship of Diana at Nemi may have flourished from at least the 6th century BC.[3]

The sanctuary was held by the Latin cities in common (the Latin League) and presided over by the Rex Nemorensis.[4] It was in the territory of the nearby town of Aricia which led to the town's development as an influential and affluent centre of healing and medicine.

The temple of Diana Nemorensis was preceded by the sacred grove of Aricia[5] in which there stood a carved cult image which survived until as late as 43 BC when it was reflected in coinage.[6] The Italic type of the triform cult image of Diana Nemorensis was shown in a sequence of later Republican period coins connected with a gens from Aricia.[7]

A three-day festival to Diana, the Nemoralia, was held yearly on the Ides of August from at least the 6th century BC, coinciding with the traditional founding date.[8] Records from the 1st century BC describe worshippers traveling to the sanctuary carrying torches and garlands.[9] Diana's festival eventually became widely celebrated throughout Italy, including at the Temple of Diana on the Aventine Hill in Rome.

The temple was built in about 300 BC and was noted by Vitruvius as being archaic and "Etruscan" in its form.[10] It continued in use until the late Roman Empire period when it was abandoned with the imposition of Christianity. Portions of its marbles and decorations were removed and the area of the temple was gradually covered by forest and generally left undisturbed for centuries.

Amateur, often foreign, archaeological excavations of the site began in the 1600s.[11][12] As a result, statues of splendid workmanship are now found scattered in many museums such as the University of Pennsylvania,[13] the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) or in European museums such as the Nottingham Castle museum and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

A number of diminutive bronze statues of draped women and men, each holding libation bowls and incense boxes were found here, four of which are now in the British Museum's collection.[14]

Two examples of the denarius (RRC 486/1) depicting the head of Diana Nemorensis and her triple cult statue[15]

The sanctuary was built on a terrace of perimeter 200 x 175 m which was supported downhill by triangular substructures while uphill was a massive wall with semicircular niches which supported an upper terrace and in which were probably statues.[16] On the terrace ran two porticoes of the Doric order, one with red plastered columns, the other with dark gray peperino columns. The sanctuary included baths, theatre and a nymphaeum. There were also rooms for priests, lodgings for pilgrims and donation cells.

• Giovanni Argoli, Epistola ad Jacobum Philippum Tomasinum de templo Dianae Nemorensis, in: Jacopo Filippo Tomasini, De donariis ac tabellis votivis liber singularis, Padova, 1654 in-4 pp. 13 ff.; reprinted in: Johann Georg Graevius, ed. (1699). Thesaurus antiquitatum romanarum. Vol. XII. pp. 751 ff.
• G. Ghini, Il Museo delle navi romane e Il Santuario di Diana di Nemi, Roma 1992.
• G. Ghini, F. Diosono, Il Santuario di Diana a Nemi: recenti acquisizioni dai nuovi scavi, in E. Marroni (ed.), Sacra Nominis Latini. I santuari del Lazio arcaico e repubblicano. Atti del Convegno, Roma 2009, Ostraka n.s. 2012, I, pp. 119–137.
• F. Coarelli, G. Ghini, F. Diosono, P. Braconi Il Santuario di Diana a Nemi. Le terrazze e il ninfeo. Scavi 1989-2009, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2014, ISBN 978-88-913-0491-9.
• Sculpture from the Sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis at Lake Nemi. In: Irene Bald Romano (ed.): Classical sculpture: catalogue of the Cypriot, Greek, and Roman stone sculpture in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. University of Pennsylvania 2006, pp. 73–159.
• Giulia D'Angelo - Alberto Martín Esquivel, P. Accoleius - Lariscolus (RRC 486/1) in Annali dell'Istituto Italiano di Numismatica, 58 (2012), pp. 139–160.