Diana[a] is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon.

Historically, Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.

[10] The ancient Latin writers Varro and Cicero considered the etymology of Dīāna as allied to that of dies and connected to the shine of the Moon, noting that one of her titles is Diana Lucifera ("light-bearer").

Later, in the Hellenistic period, Diana came to be equally or more revered as a goddess not of the wild woodland but of the "tame" countryside, or villa rustica, the idealization of which was common in Greek thought and poetry.

[13] By the 3rd century CE, after Greek influence had a profound impact on Roman religion, Diana had been almost fully combined with Artemis and took on many of her attributes, both in her spiritual domains and in the description of her appearance.

Its location is remarkable as the Aventine is situated outside the pomerium, i.e. original territory of the city, in order to comply with the tradition that Diana was a goddess common to all Latins and not exclusively of the Romans.

Being placed on the Aventine, and thus outside the pomerium, meant that Diana's cult essentially remained a foreign one, like that of Bacchus; she was never officially transferred to Rome as Juno was after the sack of Veii.

[43] Sir James George Frazer wrote of this sacred grove in The Golden Bough, basing his interpretation on brief remarks in Strabo (5.3.12), Pausanias (2,27.24) and Servius' commentary on the Aeneid (6.136).

Evidence suggests that a confrontation occurred between two groups of Etruscans who fought for supremacy, those from Tarquinia, Vulci and Caere (allied with the Greeks of Capua) and those of Clusium.

[63] Hesiod[64] and Stesichorus[65] tell the story according to which after her death Iphigenia was divinised under the name of Hecate, a fact which would support the assumption that Artemis Tauropolos had a real ancient alliance with the heroine, who was her priestess in Taurid and her human paragon.

Legend has it that Servius Tullius was impressed with this act of massive political and economic cooperation, and convinced the cities of the Latin League to work with the Romans to build their own temple to the goddess.

My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea-winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name.

[76][77][78] Based on the earlier writings of Plato, the Neoplatonist philosophers of late antiquity united the various major gods of Hellenic tradition into a series of monads containing within them triads, with some creating the world, some animating it or bringing it to life, and others harmonizing it.

[79] In his commentary on Proclus, the 19th century Platonist scholar Thomas Taylor expanded upon the theology of the classical philosophers, further interpreting the nature and roles of the gods in light of the whole body of Neoplatonist philosophy.

Diana embodies virginity because she generates but precedes active fertility (within Neoplatonism, an important maxim is that "every productive cause is superior to the nature of the produced effect").

[79] Using the ancient Neoplatonists as a basis, Taylor also commented on the triadic nature of Diana and related goddesses, and the ways in which they subsist within one another, partaking unevenly in each other's powers and attributes.

[81] The 6th century bishop Gregory of Tours reported meeting with a deacon named Vulfilaic (also known as Saint Wulflaicus or Walfroy the Stylite), who founded a hermitage on a hill in what is now Margut, France.

According to Vulfilaic, this incident was quickly followed by an outbreak of pimples or sores that covered his entire body, which he attributed to demonic activity and similarly cured via what he described as a miracle.

[82] Additional evidence for surviving pagan practices in the Low Countries region comes from the Vita Eligii, or "Life of Saint Eligius", written by Audoin in the 7th century.

... [Do not] make vetulas, little deer or iotticos or set tables at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks... No Christian... performs solestitia or dancing or leaping or diabolical chants.

[85] Local clergy complained that women believed they were following Diana or Herodias, riding out on appointed nights to join the processions or carry out instructions from the goddess.

[86] It is likely that the clergy of this time used the identification of the procession's leader as Diana or Herodias in order to fit an older folk belief into a Biblical framework, as both are featured and demonized in the New Testament.

Herodias was often conflated with her daughter Salome in legend, which also holds that, upon being presented with the severed head of John the Baptist, she was blown into the air by wind from the saint's mouth, through which she continued to wander for eternity.

[86] In his wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, The Golden Bough, anthropologist James George Frazer drew on various lines of evidence to re-interpret the legendary rituals associated with Diana at Nemi, particularly that of the rex Nemorensis.

In Frazer's theory, Diana functioned as a goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, assisted by the sacred king, ritually returned life to the land in spring.

While The Golden Bough achieved wide "popular appeal" and exerted a "disproportionate" influence "on so many [20th century] creative writers", Frazer's ideas played "a much smaller part" in the history of academic social anthropology.

[89][86] Leland's claim that Aradia represented an authentic tradition from an underground witch-cult, which had secretly worshiped Diana since ancient times has been dismissed by most scholars of folklore, religion, and medieval history.

The Feri Tradition founded by Anderson continues to recognize Tana/Diana as an aspect of the Star Goddess related to the element of fire, and representing "the fiery womb that gives birth to and transforms all matter.

The first, founded during the early 1970s in the United States by Morgan McFarland and Mark Roberts, has a feminist theology and only occasionally accepts male participants, and leadership is limited to female priestesses.

In the 16th century, Diana's image figured prominently at the châteaus of Fontainebleau, Chenonceau, and at Anet, in deference to Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri of France.