 Section 0. Preface to the Golden Bow, Volume 1, Part 1, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, Volume 1, by James Fraser. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recorded by Leon Harvey. Preface When I originally conceived the idea of the work of which the first part is now laid before the public in a third and a large edition, my intention merely was to explain the strange role of the priesthood or sacred kinship of Nemi, and with it the legend of the Golden Bow, immortalised by Virgil, which the voice of antiquity associated with the priesthood. The explanation was suggested to me by some similar rules formally imposed when kings in southern India, and at first I thought that it might be adequately set forth within the compass of a small volume. But I soon found that in attempting to settle one question I had raised many more, wider and wider prospects open now before me, and thus step by step I was lured on into far spreading fields of primitive thought, which had been but little explored by my predecessors. Thus the book grew in my hands, and soon the project at essay became in first a ponderous treatise, or rather a series of separate dissertations loosely linked together by a slender thread of connection with my original subject. With each successive edition, these desertions have grown in number and swollen in bulk by the accreditation of fresh materials till the thread on which they are strung at last threatened to snap under their weight. Accordingly, following the hint of a friendly critic, I decided to resolve my overgrown book into its elements, and to publish separately the various disquisitions for which it is composed. The present volumes form in the first part of the whole container preliminary enquiry into the principles of magic, and the evolution of the sacred kingship in general. They will be followed shortly by a volume which discusses the principles of taboo and their special application to sacred or priestly kings. The remainder of the work will be mainly devoted to the myth and ritual of the dying god, and as the subject is large and fruitful, my discussion of it will for the sake of convenience be divided into several parts, of which one, dealing with some dying god's vantiquity in Egypt and Western Asia, has already been published under the title of Adonis Attis Mociitis. But while I have thus sought to dispose my book in its proper form as a collection of essays on a variety of distinct though related topics, I have at the same time preserved its unity as far as possible by retaining the original title for the whole series of volumes, and by pointing out from time to time the bearing of my general conclusions on the particular problem which finished the starting point of the enquiry. It seemed to me that this mode of presenting the subject off with some advantages which outweighed certain obvious drawbacks, by discarding the austere form without I hope sacrificing the solid substance of a scientific treatise, I thought to cast my materials into a more artistic mould, and so perhaps to attract readers who might have been repelled by more strictly logical and systematic arrangement of the facts. Thus I brought the mysterious priest to Nimmi, so to say in the forefront of the picture, grouping the other somber figures of the same sort behind him in the background, not certainly because I deem them of less moment, but because a picturesque natural surroundings of the priest to Nimmi among the wooded hills of Italy, a very mystery which enshrouds him, and at least the haunting magic of Virgil's verse, all combined to shed a glamour on a tragic figure with a golden bell, which fits him to stand as a centre of a gloomy canvas. By a trust that the higher leaf into which he has been thrown in my pages will not lead my readers either to overrate his historical importance by comparison with that of some other figures which stand behind him in the shadow, or to attribute to my theory of the part he played a greater degree of probability than it deserves. Even if it should appear that this ancient Italian priest must after all be struck out on the long roll of men who have masqueraded his gods, the singular mission would not sensibly invalidate the demonstration which I believe I have given, that human pretenders to divinity have been far commoner and their credulous worshippers far more numerous than had been hithers suspected. Similarly, should my whole theory of this particular priesthood collapse, and I fully acknowledge the slenderness of the foundations of which it rests, four would hardly shake my general conclusions as the evolution of primitive religion and society which I have found on large collections of entirely independent and well authenticated facts. Friends versed in German philosophy has pointed out to me that my views of magic and religion and their relations to each other in history agree to some extent with those of Hegel. The agreement is quite independent and to me unexpected, for I have never studied the philosopher's writings nor attended to his speculations. As, however, we have arrived at some results by very different roads. The partial coincidence of our conclusions may perhaps be taken to furnish a certain presumption in favor of their truth. To enable my readers to judge over the extent of the coincidence, I have given in at a penance some extracts from Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of religion. The curious may compare them with my chapter on magic and religion which was written in English on the views of my illustrious predecessor. With regard to the history of the sacred kingship which I have outlined in these volumes, I desire to repeat a warning which I have given in the text. While I have shown reason to think that in many communities sacred kings have been developed out of magicians, I am far from supposing that this has been universally true. The causes which have determined the establishment of monarchy have no doubt varied greatly in different countries and at different times. I make no pretense to discuss or even enumerate them all. I have merely selected one particular cause that was aboard directly on my special inquiry. And I have laid emphasis on it because it seems to have been overlooked by writers on the origin of political institutions who themselves, sober and rational according to modern standards, not reconciled visionally with the enormous influence which supposition has exerted in shaping the human past. But I have no wish to exaggerate the importance of this particular cause or the expense of others which may have been equally or even more influential. No one can be more sensible than I am of the risk of stretching random authors too far of crowding a multitude of incrogious particulars under one narrow formula. Overdosing the vast, now inconceivable complexity of nature and history to a delusive appearance of theoretical simplicity, it may well be that I have heard in the direction of gain and gain, but at least I have been well aware of the danger of error and have striven to guard myself and my readers against it. How far I have succeeded in that and the other objects I have set before me in writing this work, I must leave to the candle or the pellet to determine. J. G. Fraser, Cambridge, 5th December, 1910 Pre-paced the first edition of The Golden Power For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my attention was a Heathrow unexplained rule of the African priesthood. The late spring had happened that in the course of my reading I came across some facts which, combined with those I had noted before, suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of primitive religion, I resolved to develop it fully and detaching it from my general work to issue it as a separate study. This spoke as a result. Now that the theory which necessarily presented itself to me at first in outline has been worked out in detail, I cannot but feel that in some places I may have pushed it too far. If this should prove to have been the case, I will readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon as it is brought home to me. Meantime, my SMA serves its purpose as a first attempt to solve a difficult problem and to bring a variety of scattered facts into some sort of ordering system. A justification is perhaps needed of the length of which I have dwelt upon the popular festivals observed by European peasants in spring at mid-summer and at harvest. It can hardly be too often repeated since it is not yet generally recognised that in spite of their fragmentary character, the popular superstitions and customs of the peasantry are by far the fullest and most trustworthy evidence we possess as to the primitive religion of the audience. Indeed, the primitive variant, in all that regards his mental fibre and texture, is not extinct. He is almost up to this day. The great intellectual and moral focus which have revolutionised the educated world have scarcely affected the peasant. In his inmost beliefs is what his forefathers were in the days when forestry still grew and squirrels played on the ground where Rome and London now stand. Hence, every inquiry into the primitive religion of the audience should either start from the superstitious belief and observances of the peasantry or should at least be constantly checked and controlled by references to them. Compared with the evidence afforded by living tradition, the testimony of ancient books on the subject of early religion is worth very little. For literature accelerates the advance of thought at a rate which leaves the slow progress of opinion by word of mouth at an immeasurable distance behind. Two or three generations of literature may do more to change thought than two or three thousand years of traditional life. But the mass of the people who do not read books remain unaffected by the mental revolution wrought by literature and so it has come about that in Europe at the present day the superstitious beliefs and practices which have been handed down by word of mouth are generally of a far more archaic type than the religion depicted in the most ancient literature of the Aryan race. It is on these grounds that in discussing the meaning and origin of the ancient Italian priesthood I have devoted so much attention to the popular customs and superstitions of modern Europe. In this part of my subject I have made great use of the works of the late W. Manhardt without which indeed my book and scarcely have been written fully recognising the truth of the principles which I have imperfectly stated Manhardt set himself systematically to collect, compare and explain the living superstitions of the peasantry. On this wild field the special department which he marked out for himself was the religion of the wood man and the farmer. In other words the superstitious beliefs and rights connected with trees and cultivator plants by oral inquiry and by pretty questions scattered broadcast over Europe as well as by ransacking the literature of folklore he collected a mass of evidence part of which he published a series of admirable works but his health or his fable broke down before he could complete the comprehensive and really vast game which he had planned and at his too early death much of his precious materials remained unpublished. His manuscripts are now deposited in the university library at Berlin and in the interest of the study to which he diverted his life he is greatly to be desired that they should be examined and that such portions of them as he has not utilised in his books should be given to the world. Of his published works the most important are first two tracks Roggenwulf and Roggenhund, Danzig 1865 second edition Danzig 1866 and Dichorne Dominon Berlin 1868 these little works were put forth by him tentatively in the hope of exciting interest in his inquiries and thereby securing the help of others in pursuing them but except from a few learned societies they met with very little attention undeterred by the cold reception accorded to his efforts he worked steadily on and in 1875 published his chief work Der Bornkultus der Germanen und Eichernachbarstamm this is followed in 1877 by Anteik Welbdann Feldkult his mythologische Forschung a posthumous work appeared in 1884 much as I owe to Mannhard I owe still more to my friend Professor W. Robertson Smith my interest in the early history of society was first excited by the works of Dr. E. B. Taylor which opened up a mental vista undreamed by me before but is a long step from a lively interest and a subject to a systematic study of it and that I took this step is due to the influence of my friend W. Robertson Smith the depth which I owe to the vast stores of his knowledge the abundance and fertility of his ideas and his unwirried kindness can scarcely be overestimated those who know his writings may from some though a very inadequate conception of the extent to which I have been influenced by him the views of sacrifice set forth in his article Sacrifice in the Encyclopedia Britannica and further developed in his recent work The Religion of the Semites mark a new departure in the historical study of religion an ample trace of them will be found in this book indeed the central idea of my essay The Conception of the Slaying God is derived directly I believe from my friend but is due to him to add that he is in no way responsible for the general explanation which I have offered of the customer slaying the God he is where the greater part of the proofs of circumstances which enhance the kindness and has made many valuable suggestions which I have usually adopted but except where he is cited by name or where the views expressed coincide with those of his published works he is not to be regarded as necessarily assenting to any of the theories propounded in this book the works of Professor G. A. Wilken of Leiden have been of great service and directly made to the best original authorities on the Dutch East Indies a very important field to the ethnologist to the courtesy of the Reverend Walter Gregor MA of PitsLogo I indebted for some interesting communications which will be found acknowledged in their proper places Mr. Francis Darwin has kindly allowed me to consult him on some botanical questions the many script authorities to which I occasionally refer are answers to a list of ethnological questions which I am circulating most of them will I hope be published in the journal of the Anthropological Institute the drawing of the golden bow which adorns the cover is from the pencil of my friend Professor J. H. Middleton a constant interest in sympathy which he has shown in the progress of the book have been a great help and encouragement to me in writing it the index has been called by Mr. A. Rogers of the University Library Cambridge J. G. Fraser Trinity College Cambridge 8th of March 1890 Previous to the second edition of the Golden Bow The kind reception accorded by critics and the public to the first edition of the Golden Bow has encouraged me to spare no pains to render the new one more worthy of their approbation while the original book remains almost entire it has been greatly expanded by the insertion of much fresh illustrative matter drawn chiefly from further reading but in part also from previous collections which I had made and still hope to use for another work Friends and Correspondents some of them personally unknown to me have kindly aided me in various ways especially by indicating facts or sources which I had overlooked and by correcting mistakes into which I had fallen I thank them all for their help of which I have often availed myself their contributions will be found acknowledged in their proper places but I owe a special acknowledgement to my friends the Reverend Laura Marifaisan and the Reverend John Roscoe who have sent me valuable notes on the Fijian and Wakanda customs respectively most of Mr. Faisan's notes I believe are incorporated in my book of Mr. Roscoe's only a small selection has been given that whole series embracing a general account of the customs and beliefs of the Wakanda will be published I hope in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute further I ought to add that Miss Mary E. B. Howard has kindly allowed me to make some extracts from a work by her on Australian folklore and legends which I was privileged to read in manuscript I have seen no reason to withdraw the explanation of the priesthood of Africa which forms a central theme of my book on the contrary the probability of that explanation appears to me to be greatly strengthened by some important evidence which has come to light since my theory was put forward Readers of the first edition may remember that I explained the priest of Africa the king of the wood as an embodiment of a tree spirit the inferred from a variety of considerations that at an earlier period one of the priests had probably been slain every year in his character of an incarnate deity but for an undoubted parallel to such a custom of killing a human god annually they had to go as far as ancient Mexico now from the metrodome of Saint Dacius unearthed and published a few years ago it is also Franz Goumont of Ghent an elector Boiland Diana vol. 16, 1897 it is practically certain that in ancient Italy itself a human representative of Saturn the old god of the seed was put to death every year at his festival of the Saturnalia and that though in Rome itself the custom had probably fallen into disuse before the classical era is still lingered on in remote places to the 4th century after Christ I cannot but regard this discovery as a confirmation as welcome as it was unlooked for of the theory of the Orisian priesthood which I had been led independently to propound further the general interpretation which following W. Mannhard I had given of the ceremonies observed by our European peasantry in spring at mid-summer and at harvest has also been corroborated by fresh and striking analogies the right these ceremonies were originally magical rights designed to cause plants to grow cattle to thrive, rain to fall and the sun to shine now the remarkable researchers are Professor Baldwin Spenzo and Mr. F. J. Gillan among the native tribes of Central Australia have proved that these savages regularly perform magical ceremonies for the express purpose of bringing down rain and multiplying the plants and animals on which they subsist and further that these ceremonies are most commonly observed at the approach of the rainy season which in Central Australia answers to our spring hence then at the other side of the world we find an exact counterpart of those spring and mid-summer rights which are rude forefathers in Europe probably performed with the full consciousness of their meaning and which many of their descendants still keep up though the original intention of the rights has been to a great extent but by no means altogether forgotten the harvest customs of our European peasantry have naturally no close analogy among the practices of the Australian Aborigines since these savages do not till the ground but what we should look for in vain among the Australians we find to hand among the Malays for recent inquiries notably of Mr. J. L. Vendor Thorn in Sumatra and of Mr. W. W. Skeet in the Malay Peninsula have supplied us with close parallels of the harvest customs of Europe as these letter were interpreted by the genius of mankind occupying a lower plane of culture than ourselves the Malays have retained a keen sense of the significance of rights which in Europe have sunk to the level of more or less meaningless survivals thus on the whole I cannot but think that the course of subsequent investigation has tended to confirm the general principles followed and the particular conclusions reached in this book at the same time I am as sensible as ever of the hypothetical nature of much that is advanced in it it has been my wish and intention to draw as sharply as possible the line of demarcation between my facts and the hypothesis by which I have attempted to collocate them hypotheses are necessary but often temporary bridges are built to connect to isolated facts if my light bridges should sooner or later break down and are superseded by more solid structures I hope that my book may still have its utility and its interest as a repertory of facts but while my views tentative and provisional as they probably are thus remain much what they were there is one subject on which they have undergone a certain amount of change unless intended it might be more exact to say that I seem to see clearly now what before was hazy a relation of magic to religion when I first wrote this book I felt perhaps inexcusably to define even to myself my notion of religion hence was disposed to class magic loosely under it as one of its lower forms I have now sought to remedy this defect by framing as clear a definition of religion as a difficult nature of the subject and my apprehension of it allowed hence I have come to agree with Sir A.C. Lyall through F.B. Jeffens in recognising a fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle between magic and religion more than that I believe that in the evolution of thought magic is representing a lower intellectual stratum as probably everywhere preceded religion I do not claim any originality for this letter view as been already plainly suggested it not definitively formulated by Professor H. Oldenburg in his Able book and for ought I know it may have been explicitly stated by many others before and since him I have not collected the opinions of the learned on the subject but have striven to form my own directly from the facts and the facts which bespeak the priority of magic over religion are many and weedy some of them the reader will find stated in the following pages but the full force of the evidence can only be appreciated by those who have made a long and patient study of this distinction I venture to think that those who submit to this drudgery will come more and more to the opinion I have indicated that all my readers should agree either with my definition of religion or with the inferences I have drawn from it is not to be expected but I would ask those who dissent from my conclusions to make sure that they mean the same thing by religion that I do for otherwise the difference between us is more apparent than real as the scope and purpose of my book have been seriously misconceived by some courtier's critics I desire to repeat a more explicit language what I vaguely thought I had made quite clear in my original preface that this is not a general treatise on primitive superstition but merely the investigation of one particular and narrowly limited problem to it the rule of the Oresian priesthood and accordingly only such general principles are explained and illustrated in the course of it as seems to me to throw light on that special problem if I had said little or nothing of other principles of equal even greater importance it is assuredly not because I undervalued them in comparison with those which I have expounded at some length but simply because it appeared to me that they did not directly bear on the question I had set myself to answer no one can well be more sensible than I am of the immense variety and complexity of the forces which have gone towards the building up of religion no one can recognise more frankly the futility and inherited absurdity of any attempt to explain the whole vast autism as a product of any one simple factor if I had hithero touched I am quite aware only the fringe of a great subject fingered only a few of the countless threads that compose the mighty web is merely because neither my time nor my knowledge has hithero without me to do more should I live to complete the works for which I have collected and in collecting materials I dare to think that they will clear me of any suspicion of treating the early history of religion from a single narrow point of view but the future is necessarily uncertain and at the best many years muscle-lapse before I can execute the full and plan which I have traced out for myself meanwhile I am unwilling to be keeping silence to some more of my readers an impression that my outlook on so larger subjects does not reach beyond the bounds of the present inquiry this is my reason for noticing the misconceptions to which I have referred I take clear to add that some part of my larger plan would probably have been completed before now were it not that out of the ten years which I have passed since this book was first published nearly eight have been spent by me in work of a different kind there is a misunderstanding of another sword which I feel constraint is a right but I do so with great reluctance because it compels me to express a measure of descent from the revered friend and master to whom I am under the deepest obligations and it was passed beyond the reach of controversy in an elaborate and learned essay on Sacrifice Hélène sociologique duxéme année 1897 1898 a series H. Hubert and M. Morse have represented my theory of the slaying God as intended to supplement and complete Robertson Smith's theory of the derivation of animal sacrifice in general from a totem sacrament. On this I have to say that the two theories are quite independent of each other I never ascended to my friend's theory and so far as I can remember he never gave me a hint that he ascended to mine. My reason for suspending my judgment in regard to his theory was a simple one at the time when the theory was propounded and for many years afterwards I knew of no single indubitable case of a total sacrament that is of a customer of killing and eating the totem animal as a solemn right. It is true that in my totemism and again in the present work I noted a few cases for an all of someone killing a sacred animal which following Robertson Smith I regard as properly a totem but none even of these four cases included the eating of the sacred animal by the worshippers which was an essential part of my friend's theory and regard to all of them it was not possibly known that the slaying animal was a totem. Hence as time went on and still no certain case of a totem sacrament was reported I became more and more doubtful of the existence of such a practice at all and my doubts are almost heightened into incredulity when the long looked for right was discovered by Miserys Spencer and Gillon in full force among the aborigines of central Australia. Oh my for one must consider to be the most primitive totem tribes as yet known to us this discovery I welcomed as a very striking proof of the suggestity of my brilliant friend his rapid genius had outstripped as slower methods and anticipated what it was reserved for subsequent research positively to ascertain thus from being little more than a genius hypothesis the totem sacrament has become at least in my opinion a well authenticated fact but from the practice of the right by a single set of tribes it is still a long step to the universal practice of it by all totem tribes and from that again it is still a longer stride to the deduction, their form of animal sacrifice in general these two steps I have not yet prepared to take no one will welcome further evidence of the wide revalence of a totem sacrament more warmly than I shall but until it is forthcoming shall continue to agree with Professor E. B. Tyler that is unsafe to make the custom the base of fire-riching speculations to conclude this subject I will add that the doctrine of the universality of totemism which Mr. Hubert and Morse have implicitly attributed to me is one which I have never enunciated or assumed and that as far as my knowledge and opinion go the worship of trees and cereals which occupy so large a space in these volumes is neither identical with nor derived from a system of totemism it is possible that further require may lead me to regard as probable the universality of totemism and their derivation from it of sacrifice and the whole worship both the plants and animals I hold myself ready to follow the evidence wherever it may lead by the present stage of our knowledge I consider that to accept these conclusions would be not to follow the evidence but very seriously to outrun it and thinking I am happy to be at one with Mr. Hubert and Morse what I am on this theme I may as well say that I am by no means prepared to stand by everything in my little apprentice work totemism that book was a rough piece of pioneering in the field that till then has been by little explored and some inferences in it were almost certainly too hasty in particular there was a Tennessee perhaps not unnatural in the circumstances to treat as totems or as connected with totemism things which probably were neither the one nor the other if I ever republished a volume as I hope one day to do I shall have to be treasured in some directions as well as to enlarge it in others such as it is with all its limitations which I have tried to and decayed clearly although its defects which I leave to the critics to discover I offer my book in its new form as a contribution to that still useful science which seeks to trace the growth of human thought and institutions in its dark ages which lie beyond the range of history the progress of that science must need to be slow and painful for the evidence though clear and abundant on some sides is lamentably obscure in scanting others so that the cautious inquiries every now and then brought up sharp on the edge of some yawning chasm across which he may be quite unable to find a way all you can do in such a case is to mark the pitfall plainly on his chart and to hope that others in time may be able to fill it up or bridge it over in the very difficult of the investigation covered with the extent of the intellectual prospect which suddenly opens up before us whenever the mist rises and falls the far horizon constitute no small part of its charm the position of the anthropologist of today resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning to these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation disclosing to their wandering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world such as the cloistered student to the middle ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minister and within the side of its solemn bells to us moderns are still wider vistas, much saved a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice the hopes and the ideas not of two highly gifted races only but of all mankind and thus at enabling us to follow the long march the slow and twelfth innocent of humanity from savagery to civilization and as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides from buried cities of remoteness and antiquity as well as from the rooters of the desert and the jungle we of today must recognise a new province of knowledge which will toss the energies of generations of students to master the study is still in its rudiments and what we do now will have to be done over again and done better with fuller knowledge and deeper insight by those who came after us to occur to a metaphor which I have already made use of we of this age are only pioneers hearing lanes and clearing in the forest where others will hear after sell and reap but the comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind is fitted to be much more than a means of satisfying and enlightened curiosity and of furnishing materials for the researchers of the learned well handled it may become a powerful instrument to expedite progress if it lays bare certain weak spots in the foundations on which modern society is built if it shoes that much which we are wont to regard as solid rests on the sands of superstition rather than on the rock of nature it is indeed a melancholy and in some respects thankless task to strike at the foundations our beliefs in which as in a strong tower lobes in aspirations of humanity through long ages have sought a refuge from the storm and stress of life yet sooner or later it is inevitable that the battery of the comparative method should breach these venerable walls mantled over with the ivium mosses and wildflowers of a thousand tenor and sacred associations at present we are only dragging the guns into position they have hardly yet begun to speak the task of building up into fairer and more enduring forms the old structures so really shattered is reserved for other hands perhaps for other than happier ages we cannot foresee we can hardly even guess the new forms into which thought and society will run in the future it is uncertainly ought not to induce us from any consideration of expediency or regard for antiquity to spare the ancient moles however beautiful when these are proved to be outworn whatever comes of it however it leads us we must follow truth alone it is our only guiding star oxygno vinces to a passage in my book has been objected by a distinguished scholar that the church bells of Rome cannot be heard even in the stills weather on the shores of the lake of Demi in acknowledging my blunder and leaving it uncorrected may I plead an extenuation of my obduracy an example of an ill-stressed writer in old mortality we read how I hunted covenanto fleeing before cleven houses dragoons here is a sullen boom of the kettle drums of the pursuing cavalry born to him on the night wind when scott was taken to task for this description because the drums are not beaten by cavalry at night he replied in effect they like to hear the drums sounding there and they would let them sound on so long as his book might last in the same spirit I must bold to say that by the lake of Demi I'd love to hear if it be only in imagination the distant chiming of the bells of Rome and I would fain believe that their airy music may ring in the ears of my readers after it is ceased to vibrate to my own J. G. Fraser Cambridge 18th of September 1900 End of Section Zero Preface Gordon Bowell Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings from the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Leon Harvey Chapter 1 The King of the Wood The still glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Odysseus trees There's trees in Hoo's dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign The priest who slew the slayer himself be slain Macaulay 1. Diana and Verbius The Lake of Demi Who does not know Turner's picture of the golden bow? The scenes are fused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine mind of Turner steeped and transfigured even the fairest natural landscape is a dreamlike vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi Diana's mirror, as it was called by the ancients No one who has seen that calm water lapped in a green hollow of the Albin Hills can ever forget it The two characteristic Italian villagers which slumber on its banks and the equally Italian palace whose terrorist guidance descends steeply to the lake hardly break the stillness and even the solitariness of the scene Diana herself might still linger by this lonely shore still haunt these woodlands wild It's tragic memories In antiquity this Sylvan landscape was the scene of a strange and recurring tragedy In order to understand it to write we must try to form in our minds an accurate picture of the place where it happened For, as we shall see later on a subtle link subsisted between the natural beauty of the spot and the dark crimes which under the Moscow religion were often perpetrated there Crimes which after the lapse of so many ages still led a touch of melancholy to these quiet woods like a chill breath of autumn on one of those bright September days while not a leaf seems faded The Albin Hills The Albin Hills are a fine bold group of volcanic mountains which rise abruptly from the Campagna in full view of Rome, forming a last spur set out by the Apennines towards the sea Two of the extinct craters are now filled by two beautiful waters The Albin Lake and Celesis at the Lake of Nemi are far below the monastery crown top of Monte Caval the somewhat of the range but yet so high above the plain that standing on the rim of the larger crater at Castel Gandolfo where the popes head their summer palace yulk down on the one hand into the Albin Lake and on the other across the Campagna to where on the western horizon the sea flashes like a board sheet of burnished gold in the sun The sanctuary of Diana The Lake of Nemi is still as of old and bowered in woods where in spring the wildflowers blow as fresh as no doubt they did 2000 springs ago It lies so deep down in the old crater that the calm surface of its clear water is sealed and muffled by the wind On all sides by one the banks thickly mantled with luxuriant vegetation descends steeply to the water's edge Only on the north a stretch of flat ground intervenes between the lake and the foot of the hills This was the scene of the tragedy Here in the very heart of the wooded hills under the above declivity now encrested by the village of Nemi the Sylvan goddess Diana had an old and famous sanctuary the result of pilgrims from all parts of Latium It was known as the sacred grove of Diana Nymorensis that is Diana of the Wood or perhaps more exactly Diana of the Woodland Glade Sometimes the lake and grove record after the nearest town the lake and grove Arisia By the town the modern Arachia lay three miles away at the foot of the mountains and separated from the lake by a long and steep descent A spacious terrace or platform containing the sanctuary On the north the kneester was bounded by great retaining walls which cut into the hillsides and served to support them Semi-circular niches sunk in the walls and faced with columns formed a series of chapels which in modern times reached harvests of votive offerings On the side of the lake the terrace rested on a mighty wall over 700 feet long by 30 feet high built in triangular buttresses like those which we see in front of the piers or bridges to break floating ice At present this terrace wall stands back some hundred yards from the lake In other days its buttresses may have been lapped by the water compared with the extent of the sacred prison The temple itself was not large but its remains proved to have been neatly and slightly built of massive blocks of peperino and adorned with dauric columns of the same material Elaborated cornices of marble and freezes of terracotta contributed to the old splendor of the edifice which appears to have been further enhanced by tiles of gilt bronze The wealth and popularity of the shrine The great wealth and popularity of the sanctuary antiquity are attested by ancient writers as well as by the remains which have come to light in modern times In the Civil War its sacred treasures went to replenish the empty coffers of Octavian who well understood the useful art of thus securing the divine assistance if not the divine blessing for the furtherance of his ends But we are not told that he trade Diana on this occasion as civilly as his divine uncle Julius Caesar once traded Capitoline Jupiter himself Bowing 3,000 pounds of gold from the god and scrupulously paying him back in the same weight of gilt copper However the sanctuary at Nemi recovered from this drain on its resources for two centuries later it was still reputed one of the riches in Italy Ovid has described the walls hung with fillets and commemorative tablets and the abundance of cheap votive offerings and copper coins which the site has yielded in our own day speaks volumes for the pt and numbers did not for the opulence and liberality of the worshipers Swarms of beggos used to stream forth daily from the slums of Erika and take their stand on the long slope up which the laboring horses dragged well to do pilgrims to the shrine and according to the response which their wines and importunities met with they blew kisses or his curses after the carriage as they swept rapidly downhill again Even peoples and potentates of the east did homage to the lady of the lake by setting up monuments in her sanctuary and within the precinct stood shrines of the Egyptian goddess Isis and bullbusters with a store of gorgeous jewellery Roman villas at Nemi The retirement of the spot and the beauty of the landscape naturally tempered some of the luxurious Roman nobles to fix their summer residences by the lake Here Julius Caesar had a house to which on a day in early summer only two months after the murder of his illustrious namesake he invited Cicero to meet the assassin brooders The emperors themselves appear to have been partial to a retreat where they could find repose from the carers of state and the bustle of the great city in the fresh air of the lake and the stillness of the woods Here Julius Caesar built himself a cosy villa but pulled it down because it was not to his mind Here Caligula had two magnificent barges or rather floating palaces launched for him on the lake and it was while dallying in the woods of Nemi that the slugrid of Bantelius made the tidings of revolt which woke him from his dream of pleasure and called him to arms Vespasian had a monument dedicated to his honour in the grove by the senate and peoples of Erika Trajan consented to fill the chief magistrate of the town and Hedrin indulged his taste for architecture by restoring a structure which had been erected in the precinct by a prince of the royal health of Parthia Diana is the mistress of wild animals such then was a sanctuary of Diana at Nemi a fitting home for the mistress of mountains and forest green and lonely glades and surrounding rivers as Catalyst calls her multitudes of her statutes are properly clad in a short two-naked high buskin of a huntress with the quiver slung over her shoulder had been found on the spot some of them represent her with her bow and her hand or her hound at her side since her own spears and images of stags and hinds discovered within the precinct they have been offerings of huntsmen to the huntress goddess for success in the chase similarly the bronze tridons which have also come to light at Nemi were perhaps presented by fishermen who had spewed fish in the lake or maybe by hunters who had stabbed boars in the forest the wild boar was still hunted in Italy down to the end of the first century of our era for the younger Pliny tells us how with his usual charming affection he sat meditating and reading by the nets while three fine boys fell into them indeed some 1400 years later boar hunting was a favourite pastime of Pope Leo X a freeze of painted reliefs in Terracotta which was found in the sanctuary at Nemi and may have adorned Diana's temple portrays a goddess in the character of what is called the Asiatic Artemis with wings sprouting from her waist and a lion resting as paws on each of her shoulders a few rude images of cows oxen horses and pigs dug up on the site may perhaps indicate that Diana was here worshipped as a patroness of domestic animals as well as the wild creatures of the wood Diana as a patroness of cattle in like manner her Greek counterpart Artemis was a goddess not only of game but of herds that's a sanctuary in the highlands of northwest Ocadia between Clotor and Santhe own sacred cattle which were driven off by Italian free booters on one of their forays when Xenophon returned from the wars and settled on his estate among the wooded hills and green meadows of the rich valley through which the alpheus flows past Olympia he dedicated to Artemis a little temple on the model of a great temple at Ephesus surrounded it with a grove of all kinds of fruit trees and doubted not only with a chase but also with a sacred pasture the chase abounded in fish in game of all sorts and the pasture suffices to rear swine goats, oxen and horses and on her yearly festival the pious soldiers sacrificed to the goddess a tithe boat of the cattle from the sacred pasture and of the game from the sacred chase again the people of highend polis in focus worshipped Artemis and thought that no cattle throw like those which they dedicated to her perhaps the images of cattle found in Diana's present at Nemi were offered to her by herdsmen for her blessing on their herds analogy of St. Leonard in Germany In Catholic Germany at the present time the great patron of cattle, horses and pigs is St. Leonard and models of cattle, horses and pigs are dedicated to him sometimes in order to ensure the health and increase of the flocks and herds through the coming year sometimes in order to obtain the recovery of sick animals and curiously enough Laudana of Arica St. Leonard is also expected to help women travel and to bless barren wives of offspring nor do these points exhaust the analogy between St. Leonard and Diana of Arica for like the goddess the St. Hills are sick he's a patron of prisoners as she was of runaway slaves and his shrines like hers enjoy the ride of asylum Nemi, an image of Italy in the olden time so to the last in spite of a few villas peeping out here and there from among the trees have remained in some sense an image of what Italy had been in the far off days when the land was still sparsely peopled and tribes of savage hunters or wandering herdsmen when the beech woods and oak woods with their dissidious foliage ridden in the autumn and barren winter had not yet begun under the hand of man to yield to the evergreens of the south the laurel, the olive the cypress and the oleander still less to those intruders of a latter age nowadays we are apt to think of as characteristically Italian the lemon and the orange rule of succession to the priesthood amma at Nui however it was not merely in its natural surroundings that this ancient shrine of the sylvan goddess continued to be a type or a miniature of the past down to the decline of Rome a custom was observed there which seems to transport us at once from civilization to savagery in the sacred grove there grew a certain tree around which at any time of the day and probably far into the night a grim figure might be seen to prowl in his hand he carried a drawn sword and he kept appearing warily about him as if at every instant he expected to be set upon by an enemy he was a priest and a murderer and the man for whom he looked was soon or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in his stead such was the rule of the century a candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to help us by slaying the priest and having slain him he retained office till he was himself slain by a stronger aura craftier the priesthood slew the slayer the post which he held by his precarious tenure carried with it the title of king by surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier always visited by more evil dreams than his for year in, year out in summer and winter and fair weather and unfail he had to keep his lonely watch and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was the peril of his life the least relaxation of his vigilance the smallest abatement of his strength of limb or skill offence for him in jeopardy gray hairs might seal his death warrant his eyes probably acquired that restless watchful look which among the Eskimos bearing straight is still to betray infallibility the shedder of blood for with that papal revenge is a sacred duty and the manslayer carries his life in his hand to gentle empires pilgrims at the shrine the sight of him might well seem to darken the fair landscape as when a cloud suddenly blots the sun on a bright day the dreamy blue of Italian skies the dappled shade of summer woods and the sparkle of waves in the sun can have accorded but ill with the stern and sinister figure rather we picture to ourselves a scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer or one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling thick and the wind seem to sing the dirge of the dying year it is a somber picture set to melancholy music the background of farsh showing black and jagged against a laring and stormy sky the sight of the wind in the branches rustle the withered leaves underfoot the lapping of the cold water on the shore and the foreground pacing to and fro now in twilight now in gloom a dark figure with a glitter steel at the shoulder whenever the pale moon right in clear of the cloud rack appears down at him through the matted bowels possibility of explaining the rule of succession by the comparative method the strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in classical antiquity it cannot be explained from it defied an explanation and we must go farther afield no one will probably deny that such a custom savers of a barbarous age and surviving into imperial times stands out in striking isolation from a polished Italian society of the day like a primeval rock rising from a smooth shaven lawn it is a very rudeness and barbarity of the custom which allows us a hope of explaining it for recent researchers into the early history of man have revealed the essential similarity with which, under many superficial differences the human mind has elaborated its first crude philosophy of life accordingly we can show that a barbarous custom like that of the priesthood of Nemi has existed elsewhere and we can detect the motives which led to its institution and we can prove that these motives have operated widely perhaps universally in human society producing in a variety of circumstances a variety of institutions specifically different but generally alike we can show lastly that these very motives with some of their derivative institutions were actually at work in classical antiquity that we may fairly infer that at our motor age the same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi such an inference and default direct evidence as to how the priesthood did actually arise can never amount to demonstration but it will be more or less probable according to the degree of completeness with which it fills the conditions I have indicated the object of this book is by meeting these conditions to offer a fairly probable explanation the priesthood of Nemi legend of the origin of the Nemi worship Orestes and the Tauric Dino I begin by setting forth the few facts and legends which have come down to us on the subject according to one story the worship of Dino and Nemi was instituted by Orestes who after killing Theos king of the Tauric Chosenes the Crimea fed with his sister to Italy bring with him the image of the Tauric Dino hidden in a faggative sticks after his death his bones were transported from Erika to Rome to the southern on the Cavitelline slope beside the temple of Concord the bloody ritual which a legend described to the Tauric Dino is familiar to classical readers it is said that every stranger who landed on the shore was sacrificed in her altar by transport to Italy the writer soon to mold reform the king of the wood within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken only a runaway slave was allowed to break off the bowers success in the attempt entitle him to fight the priest and single combat and if he slew him he reigned in his stead with the title of king of the wood Rex Nemborensis according to the public opinion of the ancients the faithful branch was the golden bow which at the sable's bidding Aeneas plucked before he assayed the perilous journey to the world of the dead the flight of the slave represented it was said the flight of Orestes his combat with the priest was a remniscence of the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Dino this rule of succession by the sword was observed down on imperial times for amongst his other freaks Caligula thinking that the priest of Nemi had held off us too long he had a more stalwart ruffian to sleigh him and the Greek traveler visited Italy in the age of the Antonines remarks that down to his time the priesthood was still the prize of victory in a single combat she features the worship of Diana and Nemi of the worship of Diana at Nemi some standing features can still be made out from the votive authorings which have been found on the site it appears that she was conceived of especially as a huntress and further is blessing men and women with offspring and granting expected mothers an easy delivery importance of fire in her ritual again fire seems to have played a foremost part in her ritual for doing her annual festival held on the 13th of August at the hottest time of the year her grove shone with a multitude of torches whose ready glare was reflected by the lake and throughout the length and breadth of Italy the day was kept with holy light set every domestic earth bronze statutes found no present represent the goddess herself holding a torch in her raised right hand and women whose prayers have been heard by her can ground with wreaths and bury in lighted torches to the sanctuary in fulfillment of their vows some one unknown dedicated a perpetually burning lamp in a little shrine in Nemi for the safety of the emperor Claudius and his family the terracotta lamps which have been discovered in the grove may perhaps have served like a purpose for humbler persons if so the analogy of the custom to the catholic practice of dedicating holy candles in churches is obvious Diana as Vesta further the title of Vesta born by Diana and Nemi points clearly to the maintenance of a perpetual holy fire in her sanctuary a large circular basement at the north east corner of the temple raised on three steps and burying traces of a mosaic pavement probably supported a round temple of Diana in her character of Vesta like the round temple of Vesta in the Roman form here the sacred fire which seemed to have been tainted by Vestal Virgins for the head of a Vestal in terracotta was found on the spot and the worship of a perpetual fire cared for by holy maidens and peers to have been common in Latin from the earliest to the latest times thus we know that among the ruins of Alba the Vesta fire was kept burning by Vestal Virgins bound to strict chastity until the end of the fourth century of our era there were Vestals at Tiber and doubtless also at Lavinium the consuls, predators and dictators had to sacrifice to Vesta at the ancient city where they entered on or laid down their office Diana's festival on August 13 converted by the Christian church into the festival of the assumption of the virgin on August 15 at her annual festival which as we have just seen was celebrated all over Italy on the 13th of August hunting dogs were crowned and wild beasts were not molested through a peri-factory ceremony in her honour wine was brought forth and the feast consisted of a kid cakes served piping hot on plates of leaves and apples still hanging in clusters on the bowels the Christian church appears to have sanctified this great festival of the virgin goddess by adroitly converting it to the festival of the assumption of the bliss version on the 15th of August the discrepancy of two days between the dates of the festivals is not a fatal argument against their adivy for a similar displacement of two days occurs in the case of St. George's festival on the 23rd of April which is probably identical in the ancient Roman festival of the Parilla on April 21 on the reasons which prompted this conversion of the festival of the virgin Diana into the festival of the virgin Mary some light is thrown by a passage in the syric text of the departure of my lady Mary from this world which runs thus and the apostles also ordered that there should be a commemoration of the blessed one on the 13th of Ab that is August another Agnes reads the 15th of Ab on account of the vines bearing bunches of grapes and on account of the trees bearing fruit and clouds of hail bearing stones of wrath why not come and the trees be broken and their fruits and the vines with their clusters the virgin Mary seems to have succeeded Artemis and Diana as a patroness of the ripening fruits here the festival of the assumption of the virgin is definitively said to have been fixed on the 13th or 15th of August for the sake of protecting the ripening grapes and other fruits similarly in the Arabic text of the apocryphal work on the passing of the blessed virgin Mary which is attributed to the apostle John that occurs the following passage also a festival in her honor was instituted on the 15th day of the month of Ab that is August which is the day of her passing from this world the day on which the miracles were formed and the time when the fruits and trees are ripening further in the calendars of the Syrian church the 15th of August is repeatedly designated as a festival by the mother of God for the vines and at this day in Greece the ripening grapes and other fruits are brought to the churches to be blessed by the priests on the 15th of August now we hear of vineyards and plantations dedicated to Artemis fruit software and a temple standing in the orchard hence we may conjecture that her Italian sister Diana revered as a patroness of vines and fruit trees and that on the 13th of August the owners of the vineyards and orchards paid their respects of her at Nemi along with other classes of the community we have just seen that wine and apples still hanging on the bowels formed part of the festival cheer on that day in an ancient Frisco founded at Ostea a statue of Diana is depicted in company with a procession of children some of them bear clusters of grapes and in a series of gems the goddess is represented with a branch of fruit in one hand and a cup which is sometimes full of fruit on the other Catalyst 2 tells us that Diana filled the husband's man's barns with a bounteous harvest Survival of Diana's festival in Italy Sicily and Scandinavia in some parts of Italy and Sicily the day of the assumption of the virgin is still celebrated the day of old bonfires in many Sicilian parishes the corn is then brought in the sacs to the churches to be blessed and many persons who have a favor to ask of the virgin vowed to abstain from one or more kinds of fruit during the first 15 days of August even in Scandinavia a relic of the worship of Diana survived in the custom of blessing the fruits of the earth of every sort which in Catholic times was annually observed on the festival of the assumption of the virgin the virgin Mary and the goddess and natus there is no intrinsic improbability in the view that for the sake of edification the church may have converted a real heathen festival into a normal christian one similarly in the Armedian church according to the express evidence of the Armedian fathers of the year 700 later the day of the virgin was placed on September 15th because that was the day of anite the magnificence of whose feast the christian doctors hoped thereby to transfer to Mary this anite or natus as a greeks called her the Armedian predecessor of the virgin Mary was a great oriental goddess whose worship was exceedingly popular not only in Armenia but in the adjoining countries the loose character of her rights is plainly indicated by Strabo himself a native of these regions the 13th of August was the harvest festival among the kilts of Gaul among the ancient kilts of Gaul who were to judge by their speech were new kinsmen of the ancient latins the 13th of August appears to have been the day when the harvest was dedicated to the harvest god Rivas if that was so we may conjecture that the choice of a day in mid-August for the solemn celebration of the harvest home dates from the remote time when the ancestors of the Celtic and Italian peoples having renounced the wandering life of the huntsmen and huntsmen had settled down together in some land of fertile soil and tempered climate where harvest fell neither so late as after the cool rainy summers of the north nor so early as before the torrid and rainless summers of southern Europe Iguiria, water nymphs and wife of Numa but Diana did not reign alone in a grove in Nemae two lesser divinities shared her forest sanctuary one was Iguiria the nymph of the clear water which, bubbling from the basaltic rocks used to fall in graceful cascades into the lake at the place called Limoel because here were established the mills of the modern village of Nemae the purling of the stream as it ran over the pebbles is mentioned by Orvid who tells us that he had often drunk of its water women and child used to sacrifice to Iguiria so as she was believed by Diana to be able to grant them an easy delivery tradition ran that the nymph had been the wife or mistress of the wise king Numa that he had consorted with her in the sanctuary of the sacred grove and had the laws which he gave the Romans had been inspired by communion with her divinity Pluto compares a legend with other tales of loves of goddesses from mortal men such as a lover Sybel and the moon for the fair use that is an edymian according to some the tristene place the lovers was not in the woods of Nemae but in a grove outside the dripping water capina at Rome where another sacred spring of Iguiria gushed from a dark cavern every day the Roman vestals fetched water from this spring to wash the temple of Vesta carrying it in earthenware pictures on their heads in Gervanel's time the natural rock had been encased in marble and the hollow spot was profaned by gangs of poor Jews who were suffered to squat like gypsies in the grove we may suppose that the spring which fell into the lake of Nemae was a true original Iguiria and that when the first settlers moved down from the Alban hills to the banks of the Taipur they brought the nymph with them and found a new home for her in a grove outside the gates the remains of baths which had been discovered within the sacred prison together with many terracotta models of various parts of the human body suggest the waters of Iguiria were used to heal the sick who may have signified their hopes or testified their gratitude by dedicating likenesses of the diseased members to the goddess in a course with a custom which is still observed in many parts of Europe to this day it was seen that the spring retains medicinal virtues Verbius, the male companion of Diana the other of the minor deities in Nemae was Verbius legend had it that Verbius was a young Greek hero, Hippolytus chased him fair who learned the art of venery from the center of Chiron and spent all these days in the greenwood chasing wild beasts with the virgin huntress Artemis the Greek counterpart of Diana for his only comrade proud of her divine society he's burned the love of women and this proved his pain for Aphrodite, stung by his scorn inspired his stepmother, Fidra with love of him accused him to his father, Thesius this lander was believed and Thesius prayed to his side Poseidon to avenge the imagined wrong so while Hippolytus drove in a chariot by the shore of the Sauron Gulf the sea god sent a fierce bull force from the waves the terrified horses bolted through Hippolytus from the chariot and dragged him at their hoots to death but Diana, for the love she bore Hippolytus persuaded the leech to bring her very young hunter back to life by his symbols Jupiter indignant that a mortal man should return from the gates of death thrust down the manly leech himself to Heads but Diana did her favourite from the angry god in a thick cloud disguised his features by adding years to his life and then brought him far away to the deal, to the devils of Nemai where she entrusted him to the nymph Egeria to live there, unknown and solitary under the name of Virbius in the depth of the Italian forest there he reigned a king and there he dedicated a precinct to Diana he had a comely son, Virbius who, undaunted by his father's fate drove a team of fiery steers to join the latins in the war against Aeneas and the Trojans Virbius was worshipped as a god not only in Nemai but elsewhere for in Campania we hear of a special priest devoted to his service excluded from the Eritrean grove and sanctuary because horses had killed Hippolytus it was unlawful to touch his image some thought he was the son but the truth is, says Servius that he is a dirty associate with Diana as that is his associate with the mother of the gods and Eric Thonius with Minerva and Adonis with Venus what the nature of that association was we shall inquire presently it is worth observing that he is longing for the sacred career this mythical personage has displayed a remarkable tenacity of life for we can highly doubt that the saint Hippolytus of the Roman calendar who was dragged by horses to death on the 13th of August during his own day is no other than the Greek hero of the same name who after dying twice over as a heathen sinner has been happily resuscitated as a Christian saint the legends of Nemai invented to explain the ritual it needs no elaborate demonstration to convince us that the story is told to account for Diana's worship in Nemai are unhistorical clearly they belong to their large class of myths which are made up to explain the origin of a religious ritual and have no other foundation than the resemblance, real or imaginary which may be traced between it and some foreign ritual the incongruity of these Nemai myths is indeed transparent since the foundation of the worship is traced now to Oristus and now to Hippolytus recording is this or that feature of the ritual as to be accounted for the real value of such tales is that they serve to illustrate the nature of the worship by providing a standard with which to compare it and further that they bear witness indirectly to its venerable age by showing that the true origin was lost in the myths of a fabulous antiquity tradition that the grove in Nemai was dedicated by a Latin dictator in the latter respect these Nemai legends are probably more to be entrusted than the apparently historical tradition vouched for by Cato Theodor that the sacred grove was dedicated to Diana via a certain Icarus Babius or a Leavius of Tusculum a Latin dictator on behalf of the peoples of Tusculum Erika, Lanovium, Larentium Cora, Tiber, Pometia and Ardia this tradition indeed sparks for the great age of the sanctuary since it seems to date its foundation sometime before 495 BC the year in which Pometia was sacked by the Romans and disappears from history but we cannot suppose that so Babius of Rul as that of the Arisian priesthood was deliberately instituted by a league of civilised communities such as the Latin cities and doubly were it must have been handed down from a time beyond the memory of man when Italy was still in a far-rooted state than any known to us in the historical period. The credit of the tradition is rather shaken, they're confirmed by another story which ascribes the foundation of the sanctuary to a certain Manius Icarus who gave rise to the saying, there are many manai in Arichia. This proverb some explained by alleging that Manius Icarus was the ancestor of a long and distinguished line whereas others sort of meant that there were many ugly and devoured people at Arichia and they derived the name Manius from Mania a bogey or bugbear to fight in children. A Roman satirist uses the name Manius as typical of the beggars who lay in wait for pilgrims on the Arisian slopes. These differences of opinion together with the discrepancy between Manius Icarus of Arisia and Icarus Slevius of Tusculum as well as the resemblance of both names to the myth called Icaria excite our suspicion. Yet the tradition recorded by Cato seems to be circumstantial and it's sponsor do respectful to allow us to dismiss it as an idol fiction. Rather we may suppose that it refers to some ancient restoration or reconstruction of the sanctuary which was actually carried out by the confederate states at any rate it testifies to a belief that the Grove had been from early times a common place of worship for many of the oldest cities of the country if not for the whole Latin confederacy. Evidence of the antiquity of the Grove. Another argument of antiquity may be drawn from some of the votive offerings found on the spot such as a sacrificial ladle of bronze bearing Dina's name in archaic Greek letters and pieces of the oldest kind of Italian money being merely shapeless bits of copper, unstamped and valued by weight. But as a use of such old fashioned money survived in offerings to the gods long after it vanished from daily life the great stress can be laid on its currents at Nimai's evidence of the age of the shrine. Origin of the Arcadian myths of Orestas and Hippolytus. Part 2 Our team is in Hippolytus I have said that the Orisian legends of Orestas and Hippolytus though worthless as history have a certain value in so far as they may help us to understand worship at Nimai better than comparing it with the ritual myths of other sanctuaries. We must ask ourselves why do the authors of these legends pitch upon Oristas and Hippolytus in order to explain Herbius and the king of the wood? In regard to Oristas the answer is obvious. In the image of the Tauric Diana which could only be appeased with human blood were dragged in to render intelligible the murderous rule succession to the Orisian priesthood. In regard to Hippolytus that case is not so plain. The manner of his death suggest readily enough reason for the exclusion of horses from the grove. At this point itself seems hardly enough to account for the identification. We must try to probe deeper by examining the worship as well as the legendary myth of Hippolytus. Worship of Hippolytus at Troenzin He had a famous sanctuary at his ancestral home of Troenzin situated on the beautiful almost land-locked bay with groves of oranges and lemons with tall cypresses soaring like dark spires above the garden of the Hesperides. Now clothed the strip of fertile shore at the foot of the rugged mountains across the blue water of the tranquil bay which had shelled us from the open sea rises Poseidon's sacred island its peaks failed in the somber green of the pines. On this fair coast Hippolytus was worshipped within his centuries to the temple with an ancient image. His service was performed by a priest who held office for life. Every year a sacrificial festival was held in his honor and this untimely fate was yearly mourned with weeping and dullful chants by unwedded maids who also dedicated locks their hair in his temple before marriage. Hippolytus a mythical being of the Adonis type. His grave existed of Troenzin though the people would not show it. It has been suggested with great plausibility that in the handsome Hippolytus cut off Finis Youthful Prime they are usually mourned by damsels but one of those mortal levels of a goddess who appears to often in ancient religion and affirm Adonis is the most familiar type. The rivalry of our Temus and Phaedra for the affection of Hippolytus reproduces it is said under different names the rivalry of Aphrodite and Prosopae for the love of Adonis for Phaedra is merely a double of Aphrodite. Certainly in the Hippolytus the tragedy of the hero's death is traced directly to the anger of Aphrodite and his contempt for her power and Phaedra is nothing but a tool of the goddess. Moreover within the precent of Hippolytus and Troenzin there stood a temple of peeping Aphrodite which was so named we are told because from this spot the amorous Phaedra used to watch Hippolytus at his manly sports. Clearly the name would be still more appropriate but it was Aphrodite who self-repeaped inside this temple of Aphrodite grew a mortal tree with pierced leaves which the hapless Phaedra in a pangs of love had pricked with her bodkin. Now the mortal with his glossy evergreen leaves is red in white blossom as fragrant perfume was Aphrodite's own tree the legend associated with the birth of Adonis. Adonis also Hippolytus was intimately associated with Aphrodite for on the south side of the acropolis and towards Troenzin his memory was shown and beside it stood a temple of Aphrodite said to be founded by Phaedra which bore the name of the temple of Aphrodite at Hippolytus. The conjunction both in Troenzin and Athens of his grave with the temple of the goddess of love is significant. Later on we shall meet with Malons in which the lovers of the great Asiatic goddess were said to lie buried. The divine mistresses of Hippolytus associated with Elks In this view the relation of Hippolytus to Artemis and Aphrodite is right it is somewhat remarkable that both his divine mistresses appeared to have been associated at Troenzin with Elks. Aphrodite was here worshipped under the title of Ascuria that is she of the fruitless oak and Hippolytus was said to have met his death not far from the sanctuary of Saronin Artemis that is Artemis of the Holowoke for here the wild olive tree was shown in which the brains of his chariot became entangled and so brought him to the ground. Orestes at Troenzin It may not be without significance that Orestes the other mythical hero of Nemi also appears in the legendary history of Troenzin. For at Troenzin there was a temple of Wolfish Artemis said to have been dedicated by Hippolytus and in front of the temple stood a sacred stone upon which nine men according to the legend had cleansed Orestes from the guilt of each mother's murder. In the solemn rite they made use of water drawn from the horses fountain and as late as the 2nd century of our era their descendants dined together on certain set days in a building called the Booth of Orestes. Before the building there grew a laurel tree which was said to have sprung on the spot where the things used for purifying the matricide were buried. The old traveller poor Samus to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of ancient Greece could not learn why Hippolytus dedicated a temple to Wolfish Artemis but he conjectured that it might have been because he extirpated the packs of walls that used to scour the country. Hippolytus in relation to horses and wolves Another point in the myth of Hippolytus which deserves attention is the frequent recurrence of horses in it. His name signifies either horse loosed or horse looser. He consecrated 20 horses to Ace Calipaeus at Epidaeus. He was killed by horses. The horses fountain probably flowed not far from the temple which he built for Wolfish Artemis and the horses were sacred to his grand sire Poseidon who had an ancient sanctuary in the wooded island across the bay where the ruins of it may still be seen in the pine forest. Lastly Hippolytus sanctuary at Trojan is expected to have been founded by a diamede whose mythical connection both with horses and wolves is attested. For the Vanity at the head of the Adriatic were famed for their breed of horses and they had a sacred grove of diamede at the spot where many springs berth forth on the foot of a lofty cliff forming at once the broad and deep river Temevas the modern Temeio which flows with still and tranquil current into the neighbouring sea. Here the Vanity sacrificed a white horse to diamede and associated with his grove were two others sacred to our guy of Hera and Aetolian Artemis. In these groves wild beasts were reported to lose their ferocity and deer to herd with wolves moreover the horses of the district feigned for their speed were said to have been branded with the mark of a wolf. Thus Hippolytus was associated with the horse in many ways and this association may have been used to explain more features of the Eurysean ritual than a mere exclusion of the animal from the sacred grove. To this point we shall return later on whether his relation to wolves was also invoked to account for any other aspect of the worship of Nemi we cannot say since wolf plays no part in the scanty notices of that worship which have come down to us. But Dablas as one of the wild creatures of the wood the beast would be under the special care of Diana. Hera offered before marriage to Hippolytus and others. The custom observed by a Trozanian girls of offering tresses of their hair to Hippolytus before their wedding brings him into a relation with marriage which at first sight seems out of caping with his reputation as a confirmed bachelor. According to Lujian youths as well as maidens at Trozan were forbidden to wed till they had shown their hair in honour of Hippolytus and we gather from the context as their first beard which the young men thus pulled. However we may explain it a custom of this sort appears to have prevailed widely both in Greece and the East. Plutarch tells us that formerly it was the want of boys at puberty to go to Telfi and offer of their hair to Apollo. Theseus, the father Hippolytus complied with the custom which lasted down into historical times. Our give maidens grown to womanhood dedicated their tresses to Athena before marriage on the same occasion. Magyarion girls bought libations and laid clippings of their hair on the tomb of the maiden Ipheno. At the entrance of the temple of Artemis and Delos the grave of two maidens was shown under an olive tree. It was said that long ago they had come as pilgrims from a far northern land with offerings to Apollo and dying in a sacred oil were buried there. The Delian virgins before marriage used to cut off the lock and wind it on a spindle and lay it on the maidens grave. Young men did the same except that they twisted it down of their first beard ran a whisper of grasp or a green shoot. In some places it was Artemis who received the offering of a maidens hair before marriage. Epanomara in Ikera, men dedicated locks their hair in the temple of Zeus. The locks were enclosed in little stone boxes some of them fitted with a marble little shutter and the name of the dedicator was engraved on a square sinking in the stone together with the name of the priest for the time being. Many of these inscribed boxes have been found of late use on the spot. None of them bear the names of women some of them are inscribed by the names of a father and sons or the dedication sought to Zeus alone though Hera was also worshipped with him Epanomara. At Heropolis on the Euphrates youths offered of their beauty pearls of their treasures to the great Syrian goddess and left the shorn here in caskets of gold or silver inscribed with their names and nailed to the walls of the temple. The custom of dedicating the first beard seems to have been common at Rome under the empire thus Nero consecrated his first beard in a golden box started with costly pearls on the capital. Such offerings are tended to communicate strength of fertility Egyptian practice. Some light is perhaps thrown on the meaning of these practices by two engine oriental customs the one Egyptian the other Phoenician. When Egyptian boys and girls had received from sickness their parents used to shave the children's heads weigh their hair against gold or silver and give the precious metal to the keepers of the sacred beasts who bought food with it for the animals according to their tastes. These tastes varied with the nature of the district. Where hawks were worshiped the capers chopped up flesh and corned the birds and a loud voice thundered the goblets up into the air till the hawks stooped and caught them where cats or ignomans or fish were the local deities the capers crumbled bread in milk and set it before them or threw it into the Nile and similarly where the rest of the divided menagerie thus in Egypt the offerings of hair went to feed the worship or animals. In the Sanctuary of the great Phoenician and goddess of Stardew at Biblis the practice was different here at the annual morning for the dead at Dillness the women had to shave their heads and such of them as refused to do so were bound to prostitute themselves to strangers and to sacrifice to the goddess of the wages of their shame the Lucian who mentions the custom does not say so there are some grunts with thinking that the women of Stardew there are some grunts with thinking that the women in question were generally maidens of whom the sect of devotion was required as a preliminary to marriage in any case it is clear that the goddess accepted the sacrifice of chastity as a substitute for the sacrifice of hair why? by many people as we shall afterwards see the hair is regarded as in a special sense the seat of strength and a puberty it might well be thought to contain a double portion of vital energy since at the season is the upward sign and manifestation of the newly acquired power of reproducing the species for that reason we do suppose the beard rather than the hair of the head is offered by males on this occasion thus the substitution permitted at Byblis becomes intelligible the women gave their fecundity to the goddess whether they offered their hair or their chastity but why it may be asked should they make such an offering to a Stardew who was herself the great goddess of love and fertility what need had she to receive fecundity from her worshippers was it not for her to bestow it on them thus put the question over looks an important side of polytheism perhaps we may say of ancient religion in general the gods stood as much in need of their worshippers as the worshippers needed them the benefits conferred were mutual if the gods made the earth to bring forth abundantly the flocks and hers to the team they expected that a portion of their bounty should be returned to them in the shape of tithe or tribute on this tithe indeed they subsisted and without it they would starve their divine bellies had to be filled and their divine reproductive energies to be recruited hence men had to give of their meat and drink to them and to sacrifice for their benefit what is most manly in man and womanly in woman sacrifices of the latter kind have too often been overlooked or misunderstood by the historians of religion the examples of them will meet us in the course of our enquiry at the same time it may well be that the women who offered their hair to a stardate have to benefit through the sympathetic connection which they thus established between themselves and their goddess they may in fact have expected to fecundate themselves by contact with the divine source of fecundity and it is probable that a similar motive underlay the sacrifice of chesty as well as the sacrifice of hair that assorts us of fertility if the sacrifice of hair especially of hair at puberty is sometimes intended to strengthen the divine beings to whom it is offered by feeding or fertilising them we can, the better understood not only the common practice of offering hair to the shadowy dead but also the Greek usage of shearing it for rivers as the Ocadian boys of Vigalia did for the stream that runs in the depths of the tremendous perhaps the rain and sunshine nothing in nature so obviously contributes to fertiliser country as its rivers again this view may set in a clearer light the custom of the Delian youths and maidens who offered their hair on the maidens term under the olive tree Delos and Delphi as centres of fertilisation and of fire Fred Delos as at Delphi one of Apollo's many functions was to make the crops grow and to fill the husband man's barns at the time of harvest tithe offerings poured into him from every side in the form of ripe sheaves or what was perhaps still more acceptable golden models of them which went by the name of the golden summer the festival of which these first fruits were dedicated and 7th of the harvest month though Delian corresponding to the 24th and 25th of May for these were the birthdays of Artemis and Apollo respectively in Hesiod's day the corn reaping began in the morning rising of the flood days which then answered to our 9th of May and increased the wheat is still ripe about that time in return for these offerings the gods sent about a sacred new fire from both his great sanctuaries at Delos and Delphi thus radiant from them as from central suns the divine blessings of heat and light a ship brought the new fire every year from Delos to Lemnos the sacred island of the fire god Hephaestius where all fires were put up before its arrival to be afterwards rekindled at the pure flame the fetching of the new fire from Delphi to Athens appears to have been a ceremony of great solemnity and pomp all the chief Athenian magistrates repaired to Delphi for the purpose the holy fire blazed was smoldered in a sacred tripod born on a chariot and tethered by a woman who was called the firebarrow soldiers both horse and fortress escorted it magistrates priests and heralds accompanied it and the procession moved to the music of trumpet and fife we do not know on what occasion the fire was thus solemnly sent from Delphi to Athens but we may conjecture better was when the both theists at Athens watching from the hearth the lightning Zeus saw lightning flash over Harmar on Mount Pyreneus for then they sent a sacrifice to Delphi and may receive the fire return after the great defeat to the Persians and Palletia the people of that city distinguished all the fires in the country deemed them defiled by the presence of the barbarians having done so they relifted them at a pure new fire fetched by a runner from the altar of the common earth at Delphi the graves of Apollo and Artemis Delos now the maidens on whose gave the Delian youths and damsels laid their shorn locks before marriage were said to have died in the island after bringing the harvest offering wrapped in wheat and straw from the land of the hyperbordians in the far north thus they were in popular opinion the mythical representatives of those bands of worshippers who bore ear by ear the killer sheaves with dance and song to Delos but in fact they had once been much more than this for an examination of their names which are commonly given as her carriage and opus has led modern scholars to conclude with every appearance and probability that these maidens were originally mere duplicates of Artemis herself perhaps indeed we may go a step farther for sometimes one of this pair of hyperbordians appears as a male not a female under the name of fire shooter Ekergos which was a common epithet of Apollo. This suggests that the two were originally the heavenly twins themselves Apollo and Artemis and that the two greys which were shown at Delos one before and the other behind the sanctuary of Artemis they have been at first the tombs of these great deities who were thus laid to their rest on the spot where they had been born. As a one grave received offerings of hair so the other received the ashes of the victims which were burned on the altar both sacrifices if I am right were designed to strengthen and fertilize the divine powers who made the earth to wave with the golden harvest and whose mortal remains but the miracle working burns of saints in the middle ages brought wealth to their fortunate possessors. Ancient Peri was not shocked by the sight of the tomb of a dead god. The grave of Apollo himself was shown at his other great sanctuary of Delphi and this perhaps explains his disappearance at Delos. The priests of the rival shrines may have calculated that one tomb is sufficed even for a god and that two might prove a stubborn block to any by the most robust faith. Hating on this prudent conviction they may have adjusted their respective claims to the possession of the Holy Sepulchre by leaving Apollo to sleep undisturbed at Delphi while his grave at Delos was dexterously converted into a tomb of a blessed version by the easy grammatical change of Hercaragos to Hercaragia. Hippolytus and Artemis But how it may be asked does all this apply to Hippolytus? Why attempt to fertilize the grave of a bachelor who paid all these devotions to a barren virgin? What seed could take root and spring up in so stony a soil? The question implies what notion of Diana or Artemis as a pattern of a straight-laced maiden lady with the taste for hunting? Artemis a goddess of the wild life of nature. No notion could well be further from the truth. To the ancients, on the contrary, she was the ideal and embodiment of the wild life of nature, the life of plants, of animals, and of men in all the exuberant fertility and profusion. As the recent German writer has admirably reported from of old a great goddess of nature was everywhere worshipped in Greece. She was revered on the mountain heights as in the swampy lowlands in the rustling woods and by the murmuring spring. To the Greek, her hand was everywhere apparent. He saw her gracious blessing in this pretty meadow and a riped-in corn in the helpful vigor of all living things on earth. We have the wild creatures of the wood and the fell or the cattle which man has tamed to his service or man's an offspring in the cradle upward. Her destroying anger he perceived in the blood of vegetation in the inroads of wild beasts on his fields and orchards as well as in the last mysterious end of life in death. No empty persilivocation like the earth conceived as a goddess was this deity for such abstractions are foreign to every primitive religion. She was an all-embracing power of nature everywhere the object of a similar faith. With the place in which she was believed to abide were the emphasis laid on her glirmy or currently spirit or if the particular side of her energy which was specially revered and as the Greek divide everything in animated nature into male and female he could not imagine this female power of nature without her male counterpart. Our team is not originally regarded as a virgin. Hence in a number of her older worshipers we find our team is associated with a god of similar character to have traditionally assigned different names in different places. In Laconia for instance she was mated with the old Peloponnesian god Garniosis in Arcadia more than once were Poseidon I swear with Zeus Apollo, Dionysus and so on. The truth is that the word Parthenos applied to Artemis which we commonly translate virgin means no more than an unmarried woman and in early days the two things were by no means the same with the growth of a pure morality among men a stricter coat of ethics is imposed by them upon their gods the stories of the cruelty to suit and thus for these divine beings are glossed slightly over or flatly rejected as blasphemies and the old Ruffians are set to guard the laws which before they broke. In regard to Artemis even the ambiguous Parthenos seems to have been merely a popular epithet not an official title Artemis a goddess of childbirth As Dr. Final has well pointed out there was no public worship of Artemis the Chaste so far as her sacred titles bear on the relation of the sexes they show that on the contrary she was like Diana in Italy especially concerned with a loss of virginity and with childbearing and that she was not only assisted but encouraged women to be fruitful and multiply. Indeed if we may take Europine's word for it in her capacity of midwife she would not even speak to childless women Further it is highly significant that while her titles and the allusions to her functions mark out her clearly as a patroness of childbirth we find none and recognise her distinctly as a deity of marriage nothing however says the true character of Artemis as a goddess of fecundity though not a word lock in a clearer light than her constant identification with the unmarried but not the Chaste Asiatic goddesses of love and fertility who were worshipped with rites of notorious provocancy at their popular sanctuary The Ephesian Artemis Eddie Feces the most celebrated of all the seats of her worship, her universal motherhood was set forth unmistakably in her sacred image Cobie's avid have come down to us which agree in their main features though they differ from each other in some details they represent the goddess with a multitude of protruding breasts the heads of animals of many kinds both wild and tame spring from the front of her body in a series of bands that extend from the breasts to the feet bees, roses and sometimes butterflies decorate her sides from the hips downward the animals that thus appear to issue from her person vary in the different cobbies of the statue they include lions, bulls, stags, horses, goats and rams moreover lions rest on her upper arms in at least one copy serpents twine round her lower arms her bosom is festooned with a wreath of blossoms and she wears a necklace of acorns in one of the statues the breast of her robe is decorated with two winged male figures who hold sheaves in both hands it would be hard to devise a more expressive symbol of exuberant fertility or probably good maternity than these remarkable images no doubt the Ephesian Artemis with her unique priests and versioned priestesses and oriental, these worship the great colonists took over from the Aborigines but that they should have adopted it and identified the goddess with her own Artemis it is proof enough that the Greek indivinity, like her Asiatic sister was at bottom a personification of the taming life of nature Hippolytus the male consort of Artemis to return now to true as in we shall probably be doing no injustice either to Hippolytus or to Artemis if we suppose that the relation between them was once of a tender nature than appears in classical literature we may conjecture that if you spurn the love of women it was because he enjoyed the love of goddesses on the principles of early religion she who fertilizes nature must herself be fertile and to be that she must necessarily have a male consort if I am right Hippolytus was the consort of Artemis at Trozan and the shorn tresses offered to him by the Trozanian youths and maidens before marriage were designed to strengthen his union with the goddess and so to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of cattle and of mankind it is some confirmation of this view that with the precinct of Hippolytus the Trozan there were worshiped two female powers named Damia and Auxesia whose connection with the fertility of the ground is unquestionable when Hippodorus suffered from a death the people in obedience to an oracle carved images of Damia and Auxesia out of sacred olive wood and no sooner had they done so and set them up the earth bore fruit again moreover a Trozan itself and apparently within the precinct of Hippolytus a curious festival of stone throwing was held in honor of these maidens as the Trozanians called them and it is easy to show that similar customs have been practiced in many lands for the express purpose of ensuring good crops in the story of the tragic death of the youthful Hippolytus we made a certain analogy with similar tales of other fair by mortal use who paid with their lives for the brief rapture of the love of a mortal goddess the hapless lovers were probably not always mere use and the legends which traced their spilt blood on a purple bloom of violet the scarlet stain of the anemone or the crimson flesh the rose were no idle poetic emblems of youth and beauty fleeting as the summer flowers such fables contain a deeper philosophy of the relational of the life of man to the life of nature a sad philosophy which gave birth to a tragic practice what that philosophy and that practice were we shall learn later on three recapitulation verbius the male consort of Diana we can now perhaps understand why the ancients identified Hippolytus the consort of Otemus with verbius who according to Servius stood to Diana as a donus to Venus or attis to the mother of the gods for Diana, like Otemus was a goddess of fertility in general and of childbirth in particular as such she, like a great counterpart needed a male partner that partner, if Servius is right was verbius in his character of the founder of the sacred grove and first king of Nemi verbius is clearly the mythical predecessor or archetype of the line of priests of the wood and who came like him one after the other to a violent end it is natural therefore to conjecture that they stood to the goddess of the grove in the same relation in which verbius stood to her in short that the mortal king of the wood as risk queen the woodland Diana herself in the sacred tree which he guarded with his life was supposed as seems probable to be her special embodiment her priest may not only have worshiped as his goddess but impressed it as his wife there is at least nothing absurd in the supposition since even at the time of Pliny a noble Roman used thus to treat a beautiful beach tree in another sacred grove of Diana on the Alpen Hills he embraced it, he kissed it as he lay under its shadow he poured wine on its trunk apparently he took the tree for the goddess their customer physically marrying men and women to trees is still practiced in India and other parts of the east why should it not have obtained and mentioned Latium the results reviewing the evidence as a whole we may conclude that the worship of Diana in her sacred grove in Nemi was of great importance and minimal antiquity that she was revered as the goddess of woodlands and wild creatures probably also of domestic cattle and of the fruits of the earth that she was believed to bless men and women of offspring and to aid mothers in childbirth that her holy fire attended by chased virgins burned perpetually in a round temple within the prison that associated with her Nymph Egeria who discharged one of Diana's own functions by securing women in travail and who was popularly supposed to have mated with an old Roman king in the sacred grove further that Diana of the wood herself had a male companion Fabius by name who was to her what a donors was Davenus or Addis de Sibel and lastly that this mythical Fabius was represented in historical times by a line of priests known as kings of the wood who regularly perished by the solids of their successors and his lives were in a manner bound up with a certain tree in the grove because so long as that tree was un-injured they were safe from attack the double headed bust at Nemi probably a portrait of the king of the wood and his successor a curious monument of the ill-fated dynasty appears to have come down to us in a double headed bust which was found in the sanctuary at Nemi it represents two men of heavy somewhat coarse features and a grim expression a type of faces similar to both heads but there are marked differences between them for while the one is young and bootless with shut lips and a steadfast gaze the other is a man of middle life with a tossed and matted beard wrinkled brows a wild anxious look in the eyes and an open and grinning mouth but perhaps the most singular thing about the two heads are the leaves with scalped edges which are plastered so to say on the necks of both busts and apparently also under the eyes of the younger figure the leaves have been interpreted as oak leaves and this interpretation which is not free from doubt is confirmed by the resemblance of an oak leaf which the moustache of the older figure clearly presents when viewed in profile various explanations of this remarkable monument have been proposed by the most probable theory appears to be that the older figure represents the priest of Nemi the king of the wood in possession while the other face is out of his youthful adversary and possible successor this theory would explain the cause-heavy type of both faces which is neither Greek nor Roman but apparently barbarian for as the priest of Nemi had always to be a runaway slave it would commonly be a member of an alien and barbarous race further would explain the striking contrast between the stead-determined gaze of the younger man and the haggard scarred look of the other on the one face we seem to read the resolution to kill the other the fear to die lastly it would explain very simply the leaves are clean like sermons to the necks and breasts of both for we shall see later on that the priest was probably regarded as an embodiment of the tree which he guarded human representatives of tree spirits are most naturally draped in the foliage of the tree which they personate hence the leaves on the two heads are indeed oak leaves as they have been thought to be we should have to conclude that the tree which the king of the wood guarded and personated was an oak there are indebted reasons for holding that this was so but the consideration of them must be deferred for the present a wide survey required to solve the problem of Nemi clearly these conclusions do not of themselves suffice to explain the peculiar rule of succession to the priesthood but perhaps the survey of a wider field may lead us to think that they contain in germ the solution of the problem to that wider survey we must now address ourselves it will be long and laborious but may possess something of interest and charm of a voyage of discovery in which we shall visit many strange foreign lands with strange foreign peoples and still stranger customs the wind is in the shrouds we shake ourselves to it and leave the coasts of Italy behind us for a time