All About Roman Goddess Diana/Tana
Names: Diana, Dea Jana, Tana, Lady of Light, Queen of the Sacred Wood, Lady of the Sacred Trees, Queen of the Woodlands,
Light especially during nighttime
The poor and the marginalized
Herbs and other vegetation that are medicinal.
Oak tree and leaves and acorns
Owls (not traditionally associated with her but I do since in Italian folklore Strix which are witches that are able to transform into terrible birds) Strix may have been a bat or owl but described giving terrible screeching sound at night and seen as a ill omen if sighted and Ovid described the Strix being extremely malevolent especially towards children. Whether the case I associate owls with Diana.
Cats, cats are associated with Artemis and witchcraft and magic. But also protection against evil, symbols of fertility. Influenced from Egyptian goddess Bastset the feline goddess which the ancient Greeks merged her with Artemis.
Mati, cornicello, Mano corna amulets that protect from the Evil Eye or Malocchio
Moonstone, selenite, any crystal associated with moon or water
Wine or any alcoholic beverage
Incense that smells like woods or oak trees
Silver anything, sterling silver as well, jewelry, silverware, crafting things using silver, mirrors and coins. You can find silver decorations as well. Silver candles.
Wolves or dogs (doesn’t have to be real items can be pictures, toys, also donations to helping wolf populations)
Donations to persevering forests, national parks, and to combat climate change
Donations and advocacy for marginalized groups and communities
Rue incense or mugwort (be careful with mugwort if pregnant)
Colors: White, Blue, and Yellow
Traditional Midwife practices (herbs like pennyroyal, tools that they would use, etc.)
Divination and other magical practices
Nemoralia is on August 13th it’s a festive day of celebrating Diana and Hekate, a rest day for slaves and hanging and tying sacred tokens, prayer ribbons on bodies of water and trees like oak trees. A very popular holiday for the ancient Romans which the Catholic Church had trouble erasing and stopping people from taking part so they changed it Day of Assumption. It was also called Festival of Torches and taken place at her sacred temple at Lake Nemi
Diana Caelus (Heavenly Diana)
Diana Lucifera (Diana the Light Bringer)
Diana Luciana (Diana of Light) in reference to guiding the fetus out of the birth canal to the light of the world.
Diana Nemorensis (Diana of the Wood, of Nemi)
Diana Trivia (Diana of The Crossroads)
Diana Triformis (Three formed which can be of moon, hunt, and underworld, or the crossroads)
Diana Aventine (Diana on the Aventine in Rome)
Diana Abnoba (Patroness of the Hunt)
Diana Venerable (Venerable Diana)
Diana Tifatina (Diana’s temple on Mount Tifatina in Campania Italy)
Omnivaga “wandering everywhere”
Before human representation in Roman religion of the gods they were specific items pertaining to their Numina, Mars would’ve been a spear or piece of iron. Diana would’ve been worshipped as a log.
Any Artemis depictions can work as a image of Diana since they are interchangeable regarding to their representation. For me I see Diana with white and light colored hair whilst Artemis more brunette but any image can work.
Diana is also depicted as naked as well as in a short chiton dress like Artemis
Diana’s name means light essentially, derived from Latin dium meaning “sky” and dius (Daylight) from proto-italic dīwī meaning “divine and heavenly”. Connection to moonlight and shine from the moon. According to Cicero (De Natura Deorum or “The Nature of the Gods) that her name derives from the fact she turns darkness into daylight.
Diana is considered to be a indigenous to Italy Etruscan or Latin meaning she was worshipped and had a native and pre existing cult before the hellenization of Italy from the Ancient Greeks. For instance Lake Nemi is a good example of Diana’s worship and archaic practices and just as old as Rome itself. Diana may have not at all been a virgin goddess since her consorts Virbius who was a woodland god and a partner to Diana a arician ritual took place with the two deities to promote life and fertility. Also Janus, Jana is another name for Diana and being wife to Janus. She was a common goddess worshipped among the Latin tribes and had a presence in early Rome, King Titus Tatius promised to build a shrine for Diana Luciana along with Luna being separate deities, during those times her cult accepted those who were guilty of incest as punishment. According to Plutarch men and women worshipped Diana and allowed in her temples except one which is Vicus Patricius, where men are forbidden to enter Plutarch mentions a legend where a man assaulted a woman where he then was eaten by a pack of dogs the story may have been inspired by Artemis and Acteon story but nonetheless only one temple was forbidden for men to enter. Diana had many shrines and temples all over Italy one Mount Tifatina in Campania Italy and near Anagni a sacred grove. But she was worshipped in Gaul which is now France, St Etienne Cathedral was built over her temple in Mete, France. But she had a temple and a large cult in Évora, Portugal.
According to Plutarch her temples and shrines had stag antlers hung but her temple on Aventine Hill was hung Bull antlers instead.
When Romans started to syncretize Diana and Artemis, it’s speculated that Diana’s association with the moon came later on after being merged with Artemis. But it is hard to separate the two at times. Another goddess she was merged was Hekate, whom the Romans called Trivia which is Enodia, the crossroads but also an Chthonic aspect to Diana as well and Diana also appears three formed as well. She can be seen as a guide from living and the dead and of course magic as Hekate was associated as well.
Saint Paul of Tarsus kept the most surviving information on Diana and her cult rituals as being extremely popular and preaching against Diana’s worship causing a mob and him being drag through the streets whilst shouting praises for Diana the mob that riot was mostly of silversmiths which led him to being arrested and exiled.
She is also known as patroness of families and on Aventine hill she was paired with Janus and Jupiter. There is a speculation she may have been a ruler of night, a spirit of ecstasy, and independence that was associated with slaves and immigrants.
I believe when we’re talking about Diana we should talk a lot about Lake Nemi. Lake Nemi is a small circular volcanic lake in the Alban Hills of Italy south of Rome in the Lazio region, which is called “Diana’s mirror” formed by an extinct volcano. In the past a certain fascist in the in 1920s drained the lake and found ships dating back to Emperor Caligula but were destroyed in a fire caused by Allied forces firing shells striking the museum where the Germans decided that it was the best place to hold the line before retreating to Rome, it caught the museum on fire but luckily drawings survived and replicas can be made. Among other things found in the Lake were artifacts like bronze hands and other small copper, lead, bronze artifacts that were found by fishermen who knew the presence of these artifacts and shipwrecks and sold the pieces to tourists 😐😑😐 I get it a man needs to earn money but man those pieces be really good gapes to fill. But essentially Caligula and Tiberius used the site for summer vacation reasons.
But it was an archaic sacred site of Diana it was more of a open space worship site before they built temples and shrines to Diana. Before human representations of deities introduced by the Ancient Greeks, her cult would worship Diana as a oak log. Her sacred grove is of oak trees. Here she was worshipped along with her midwife servant a water nymph named Egeria, her woodland consort Veribius.
Her temple was not only a sacred place of worship but a asylum and refuge for outlaws and more importantly slaves. Her priest Rex Nemorensis (King of the wood) was a former slave and in a ritual combat a slave must kill the current priest in order to become the new priest. Here she is known and worshipped as Diana Nemorensis, it’s also said that Veribius was her first priest. Ariccia was the ancient name for the area before Alban Hills and Lazio, the Arician rituals took place for fertility and flourishing life honoring both Virbius and Diana as consorts.
Nemoralia is taken place at Lake Nemi on August 13th and a rest day for slaves. She is known as the matron for slaves and protects them.
On August 15 women would go to the Arician woods to offer thanks and pray to Diana for future blessings and accompanied by crowned hunting dogs and leashed for it’s a day of no hunting and not killing any of Diana’s sacred wildlife.
So there isn’t much indigenous mythology regarding Diana she adopted mostly what Artemis’s myths are so like Artemis and Orion, Apollo’s sister, daughter of Jupiter and Latona (Zeus and Leto), Artemis and Acteon, Even Diana and Endymion taking the role instead of Selene/Lune but what we do have is Italian folklore which can be quite shady and take with grain of salt when it’s referring towards Raven Grimassi and Charles Leland.
For instance James George Frazer a painter and anthropologist said that the rituals at lake Nemi were similar to other dying and revival god most likely a solar deity, which he correlated with Diana and Virbius as a fertility rite. That these death and rebirth motifs were important and central to all known religions and cultures but it was heavily criticized by other anthropologists during his time that compare to more creative writing than actual historical evidence. Which okay eat him up ig
During the Spanish Inquisition where the witch hunts were very prominent where a “Society of Diana” kept appearing was basically a night gathering a secret society for women to gather at night to do witchcraft rituals and spirits quite a folk legend that inspired a lot of modern day practice of Diana.
Gospel of Witches- Charles Godfrey Leland now this is the most common and well known supposed folklore of Diana. Essentially Diana is a creator goddess, separating darkness and light her the darkness and the light her brother Lucifer, together they had Aradia who helped to teach and lead witches on earth during perilous times. That’s a very condense summarized version but as much I would love to believe wholeheartedly about Charles’s story and how he obtained these stories coming from an underworld witch cult called the “Old religion” . But there is reason to strongly doubt his work, one he met a witch named Maddalena who was supposedly descent of Etruscans and known of ancient rituals and was the main source for his Italian folk stories, however it sounds pseudo-history and no evidence of a secret religion of Aradia however there was existence of genuine Italian folklore like Diana being moon goddess and the witch Herodias but according Ronald Hutton a famous well known historian claims that Leland either forged the entire story or lied by a fortune teller, since Aradia has no existence in historical texts in medieval literature and the lack of evidence of the Old Religion even existing. Plus Gospel of Witches is filled with mistakes in Italian language certain words and grammar are incorrect Hutton proposed three possibilities one Leland is correct with everything he was writing and stating, two Maddalena never existed and her stories to Leland, and third Leland created a fraud story. For me I think it’s a good story to read but take it with a grain of salt there may be truth laying in it but because there is no historical evidence that says these cults existed and religion and even Italians saying that this story is not an actual representation of Italian folklore, so just use discernment, I recommend reading Craig Spencer’s Charles Godfrey Leland Gospel of Witches he is a Italian speaker and breaks down what Charles is saying and fixes his translations. But the Gospel has being used as heavily inspiration in a lot of neo-pagan groups like Wicca and Raven Grimassi’s Stergaheria
-Today Diana has been seen as a witch goddess which she can definitely be seen as especially her pairing with Hekate. Wicca has really made her and Aradia extremely popular but misconstrued what Diana is in some groups like Dianic Wicca who believe that only women can worship Diana and have their own coven with no men allowed, this is very disingenuous because Diana has never been a women only goddess as I mentioned she had male followers and priests this what we call cultural appropriation from Wiccans. Diana accepts all people not just to cis women, I don’t know if they get confused with Bona Dea who was only worshipped by women but Diana is open to all period.
-But other than Wiccan groups Diana is popular in of course Italian folk magic! Or modern day Roman and Italian polytheism. Many people have Diana and Mother Mary together, even using mother mary’s image for Diana, Diana is great for protecting and casting the malocchio, healing magic and rituals, helping pregnant women and childbirth and children. Blessings of fertility and connecting with nature and help empower oneself of independence. She has been adapted into modern day Italian folk magic and polytheism that its easy for you to work and worship her!
-Also outside of Italian polytheism and folk magic, again she is adaptable into many different traditions, she was wasn’t just worked and worshipped by the Romans.
-Protecting animals and even domestic animals
-Great for justice work and helping marginalized and minorities in the communities. Protection and justice for them.
-Baneful Magic also is a great way as well
-I mention in tokens and offerings to help against climate change, preservation of our forests and national parks, Lakes and wildlife
-Have her protection while traveling, hiking, and camping even hunting or fishing. Connecting to water spirits as well. Traveling whilst at night. Helping with spirit work as well and protection from harmful spirits.
-Divination: Using water scrying, tarot, any other kinds of divination like casting acorns that can be useful.
-Oak Trees: you can dedicate a oak tree for Diana as a worship site, representation or both. Even hang things on the trees like they did in Nemoralia, MAKE SURE ITS BIODEGRADABLE MATERIALS so no polyester or any synthetic materials. Also DONT CRAVE INTO LIVING TREES this will cause serious damage allowing harmful bacteria to enter the tree. No different having a cut and getting infected it’s extremely important for people to take care of our trees. If there is a fallen branch or log that’s perfectly fine!
