ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

penetrated Etruscan religion as Aritimi or Arturnes, goddess of hunting and fertility, alongside Tuir, the Etruscan deification of the Moon. 19The statue of Artemis at Ephesus wasalso copied for extra-urban shrines to Artemis in Greek colonies, such as Masillia.These are cults that partook in the Mediterranean-wide worship of Diana. It was thestatue of the Ephesian Artemis that was placed in the shrine of Diana, outside thepomerium on the Aventine Hill in the sixth century BCE.Not only was Rome's cult of Diana inspired by the Ephesian cult, but it was alsoin direct response to the prominence of the extra-urban Latin cult of Diana Nemorensisnear Aricia.The cult of Diana at Nemi is one of the most prominent sources of theLatin conception of Diana's ideology. The Latin Diana was a moon goddess andhuntress, a fertility goddess and guardian of childbirth. As Green illustrates in her 2007work on Diana at Aricia, the most important function of the cult of Diana Nemorensiswas the guarantee of "security for peaceful meetings of rival communities," includingLatins and their neighbors, the Etruscans. 23It was this very function that the Roman cultof Diana on the Aventine unsuccessfully attempted to subsume under Roman control.Unfortunately for Rome, the shrine of Diana at Aricia remained the region's primary cultto this goddess as well as a symbol of Latinitas. 24Finally, the Artemis Persica or potniatheron, mistress of the animals, appears in terracotta architectural features across Italy,19 Turfa (2006), pp. 63-66.20 Green (2007), p. 85.21 Ibid.22 See Livy 1.45.1 -3 for the Servian origins of the cult of Diana on the Aventine as a rival for Diana atAricia.23 Green (2007), p. 90.24 Cornell (1995), p. 295.201