Among the more savage tribes and in the wilder mountain regions of both Greece and Italy there was worshipped a goddess who had a different name in each country, Artemis in Greece, Diana in Italy, but who was in nature very much the same.  This does not imply that it was the same goddess originally or that the early Artemis of Greece had any influence on the Diana of Italy.  Their similarity was probably caused merely by the similarity of the conditions from which they sprang, the similar needs of the two peoples.  She was a goddess of the woods, and of nature, and especially of wild animals, a patroness of the hunt and the huntsman, but also a goddess of all small animals, of all helpless little ones, and a helper too of those that bore them, hence a goddess of birth, and in the sphere of mankind a goddess of women and of childbirth.  Later in Greece Artemis was absorbed into the sea-cult of Apollo on the island of Delos, where she became Apollo’s sister, like him the child of Latona; but naturally Diana experienced no similar change until in Rome, centuries later, she was artificially identified with Artemis.  In the earliest times there were two places in Italy where the cult of Diana was especially prominent, both, as we should expect, in wooded mountainous regions:  one on Mount Tifata (near Capua), the modern St. Angelo in Formis; the other in Latium, in a grove near Aricia.  It is with this latter cult-centre that we have here to do.  The grove near Aricia became so famous that the goddess worshipped there was known as “Diana of the Grove” (Diana Nemorensis), and the place where she was worshipped was called the “Grove” (nemus), a name which is still retained in the modern “Nemi.”  She was a goddess of the woods, of the animal kingdom, of birth, and so of women; and almost all the dedicatory inscriptions which have been found near her shrine were put up by women.  She was worshipped above all by the people of Aricia, and she seems to have been the patron deity of the town.  When it fell to Aricia’s lot to become the head of the league, her goddess Diana promptly assumed an important position in the league, not because she had by nature any political bearing whatsoever, but merely because she was wedded to Aricia, and experienced all the vicissitudes of her career.  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.  It does not take actually a great many years for a religious custom to acquire sanctity, and before many generations had passed, Diana was felt to be quite as original and essential a part of the worship of the league as Juppiter himself.  During these same centuries Rome was growing in importance and influence in the league, until, instead of being one of its insignificant towns, she was in a fair way to become its president.  Here her diplomacy stepped in to help her.  The league was of course essentially