ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

Regina in Luna was clearly a Roman goddess with the patronage of a preeminent Romangeneral. From the diversity of the cults of Juno, it is clear that there was not a single,colonial package of cults for each new foundation. Rather the religious system of eachcolony developed according to the needs and choices of the colonists.DianaLike the cults of Juno throughout Italy, worship of Diana also incorporated a wide varietyof sources. In particular Diana's cults partook of aspects of her Mediterranean, Italic, andlocal customs. This section addresses the variety of cults of Artemis or Diana foundthroughout the Mediterranean, the architectural and epigraphic evidence for Diana aspotnia theron in Italy, and finally, Diana as Luna in the colony of Luna. These examplesdemonstrate that the worship of Diana in third and second century Italy employed theLatin conception of Diana as enabler of peaceable meeting of the local and colonialcommunities. At the same time, the cult iconography also employed Mediterranean-widedepictions of the Artemis or Diana figure, as at Luna.The Diana or Artemis or potnia theron figure enjoyed wide-spread reverencethroughout the Mediterranean leading up to the mid-Republican period. According to thecontext, we may conceptualize Diana as a Mediterranean goddess, a Latin goddess, aRoman or local goddess, or a combination of these geographical designations. The mostprominent shrine of Artemis in the Greek world was the great extra-urban sanctuary ofArtemis at Ephesus. By the sixth century BCE, Greek Artemis and her myths had18 For commentary on Italian towns selecting parts of Roman culture and rejecting others, see in generalLomas (2004), pp. 199-210.200