Artemis and Diana in Ancient Greece and Italy: At the Crossroads between the Civic and the Wild

This book is a collection of studies about the Greek and Roman goddesses—Artemis and Diana—who ruled creatures of the wild. Although they arose separately in Greek and Roman cultures, they were often treated as equivalent. These goddesses had the power of giving birth, health and death. Diana’s temples were built at places where three roads meet, writes Servius (ad Aen. IV.511), outside the city itself, and so they were common, safe meeting places which belonged to no one but were the sites for federal councils, hosted by the goddess. Artemis was associated in particular with bears, and Diana with deer, but both were generally associated with wild animals, as well as with the different phases of life. This volume will be useful not only for researchers on this subject, but also for courses in Greek and Roman studies, mythology, history, and women’s studies.

Giovanni Casadio is Professor of History of Religions at the University of Salerno, Italy. He is associate editor of the second edition of Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion (2005), and served as Co-Director of Symposia Cumana (2002-2012). His publications include the books Storia del culto di Dioniso in Argolide (1994); Vie gnostiche all’immortalità (1997); Il vino dell’anima (1999); Ugo Bianchi: Una vita per la storia delle religioni (2002); Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (2009); and Lo sciamanesimo prima e dopo Mircea Eliade (2014).

Patricia A. Johnston is Professor of Classics at Brandeis University, USA. Her publications include Hera and Juno (2017); The Age of Augustus (2016); The Role of Animals in Ancient Religion and Myth (2016); Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (2009); Cultural Responses to the Volcanic Landscape (2005); Vergil, Philodemus and the Augustans (2004); Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language and Its Influence (1988, 1999, 2013); and Vergil’s Agricultural Golden Age: A Study of the Georgics (1980).

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