Cirrus@Austlit

Epigraph: ... to the left of the way as you go up from Aricia lies the grove of Diana called Nemi ... a barbaric and Scythian element predominates the sacred usages for the people set up as a priest merely a runaway slave who has slain with his own hand the man previously consecrated to that office: accordingly the priest is always armed with a sword, looking around for attacks and ready to defend himself. The temple is in a sacred grove and in front of it is a lake which resembles the open sea. - Strabo, Geography, 5:3:12-13.

Epigraph: From where the Witch's Fortress / O'erhangs the dark-blue seas; / From the still glassy lake that sleeps / Beneath Aricia's trees - / Those trees in whose dim shadow / The ghastly priest doth reign, / The priest who slew the slayer, / And shall himself be slain; - Macaulay, The Battle of the Lake Regillus X II. 17-24.