Sunday, May 25, 2008

Goddess of the Week: Diana


Diana was a Roman goddess, the twin sister of Apollo and daughter of Zeus and Leto, she was the goddess of the hunt. She was associated with wild animals and nature, and later the moon, and was most similar to the Greek goddess Artemis. Her worship was established on the Avertine Hill in the mid sixth-century BCE by the King Servius Tullius, and never formally transferred to Rome. Therefore, she remained a 'foreign goddess'.


There are several statues of Diana, most of which show her with some sort of bow and arrow and emphasize her athleticism. I took this picture in the Louvre sculpture garden and it is a somewhat generic image. She was the goddess of wild spaces, oak groves, athleticism and hunting, and I think the sculpture captures all of that.

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