Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1925)

4J.8

Diana's tree at Nemi

and I was formerly disposed to question its validity1. I still
hold that the evidence is incomplete; but I believe that I am in a
position to strengthen it by sundry fresh facts of local significance.

Some years ago in looking through an old book on the Campagna
I came across an etching of the Lake at Nemi, published in 1805
(fig. 324)2. The accompanying text by Miss Ellis Cornelia Knight3,

Fig- 324.

who lived in Italy from 1776 to 1799, describes the lake-side and
incidentally remarks :

' There is a tree which tradition reports to be near two thousand years old,
but some of the inhabitants content themselves with saying, that it was planted
by Augustus ; its spreading branches hang over the lake, and produce a noble
effect.'

It occurred to me at once that the tree in question might be the
successor of the tree guarded by the rex Nemorensis, the obscure

with oak-leaves {Golden Bo2iglii: The Magic Art i. 41 f.). (5) Egeria, perhaps a local
form of Diana {Golden Bough?: The Magic Art ii. 171 ff., 267, 380), was described as an
oak-nymph [id. ii. 172, 267, 380). Val. Max. 1. 2. 1 speaks of her as dea Aegeria, which
may mean ' the Oak Goddess'" [id. i. 22 n. 5, ii. 172 n. 3).

1 Class. Rev. 1902 xvi. 371, 374, 37811. 4 (but see id. 1904 xviii. 369 f.), Folk-Lore
1906 xvii. 445 f.

2 Description of Latium; or, La Campagna di Roma London 1805 p. 85 k pi. 6
( = my fig. 324).'

3 My friend Prof. R. C. Bosanquet informed me that the anonymous author of the
Description of Latium was Miss E. C. Knight, on whom see Dr R. Gamett's article in
the Dictionary of National Biography ed. by S. Lee London 1892 xxxi. 249 f.