Biography of Diana

Diana – drevneitaliyskaya goddess of light and the moon (the original – the female half of the god of light and sun, Janus), sacred to the different Italian nations, the most famous shrines of it were: the sacred grove at Lake Nemi, where next to her worship the demon Verba), and the temple-based Survey Tullius on the Aventine hill,.

Like other Italic gods, Diana was identified with the Greek deity – Artemis, the cult which, together with the cult of her brother Apollo, soon found his access to Rome. Artemis, the usual legend, the daughter of Zeus and years, was originally the goddess of light and the moon, why she, like all the gods of light, given the attributes of a bow and arrows, but as the goddess of night – a torch. As the embodiment of a barren moon, Artemis was considered a virgin. In some parts of Greece – in Arcadia Aetolia – she was considered the goddess of forests, rivers and streams. Companion nymphs, are severely punished any insult modesty, the patroness of hunters, D., however, and the patroness of game.

In alliance with Apollo, it is karatelnitsey pride and conceit of people leaving the boundaries specified deity. Like Apollo, she kills people with arrows, especially women and children, and sends the disease in humans and animals. Artemis, or depicted in the long women's apparel, or elevated, for the convenience of hunting tunic. Usually, her shoulders quiver and a bow or a torch.

Often, about AD is a deer, as, for example. At a certain image of the so-called. Versailles D. (perhaps it is – a work of Greek:. artworks made in the last years of the republic in Rome, found at Hadrian's Villa, currently in the Louvre Museum). Some images of the goddess is sitting on a deer, on the other it goes along with Apollo in a chariot drawn lanyami. First, from the Greek Artemis was different, and later merged it with the Taurus and Artemis of Ephesus – Asian goddess personifying the killing and regenerating force of nature. The first, which was the birthplace of Cappadocia and Pontus, represented hostile living side of nature. She was worshiped in some parts of Attica (which, according to legend, Iphigenia brought her the image of the Tauride Chersonese), in Sparta, in southern Italy, everywhere – with the rituals have preserved traces of ancient human sacrifice. Ephesus Artemis, which served as priests, eunuchs, had founded the temple of the Amazons one of the most famous shrines in M. Asia, and its image as the mummy indicative of great antiquity, and represented the goddess of fertility, with many breasts.