Diāna

, was the godde of hunting. According to Cicero, there were three of this name; a daughter of Jupiter and Proser pine, who became mother of Cupid; a daughter of Jupiter and Latona; and a daughter of Upis and Glauce. The second is the most celebrated, and to her all the ancients allude. She was born at the same birth as Apollo; and the pains which she saw her mother suffer during her labour, gave her such an aversion to marriage, that she obtained from her father the permi ion to live in perpetual celibacy, and to preside over the travails of women. To shun the society of men, she devoted herself to hunting, and obtained the permi ion of Jupiter to have for her attendants 60 of the Oceanides, and 20 other nymphs, all of whom, like herself, abjured the use of marriage. She is represented with a bent bow and quiver, and attended with dogs, and sometimes drawn in a chariot by two white stags. Sometimes she appears with wings, holding a lion in one hand and a panther in the other, with a chariot drawn by two heifers, or two horses of different colours. She is represented taller by the head than her attendant nymphs, her face has something manly, her legs are bare, well-shaped, and strong, and her feet are covered with a buskin, worn by huntre es among the ancients. Diana received many surnames, particularly from the places where her worship was established, and from the functions over which she presided. She was called Lucina, Ilythia, or Juno Pronuba, when invoked by women in child-bed, and Trivia when worshipped in the cro -ways, where her statues were generally erected. She was supposed to be the same as the moon, and Proser pine or Hecate, and from that circumstance she was called Triform is; and some of her statues represented her with three heads, that of a horse, a dog, and a boar. Her power and functions under these three characters have been beautifully expre ed in these two verses: Terret, lustrat, agit, Proser pin a, Luna, Diana, Ima, suprema, fer as, sceptro, fulgore, sagittâ. She was also called Agrotera, Orthia, Tauric a, Delia, Cynthia, Aricia, . She was supposed to be the same as the Isis of the Egyptians, whose worship was introduced into Greece with that of Osiris under the name of Apollo. When Typhon waged war against the gods, Diana is said to have metamorphosed herself into a cat, to avoid his fury. The godde is generally known in the figures that represent her, by the crescent on her head, by the dogs which attend her, and by her hunting habit. The most famous of her temples was that of Ephesus, which was one of the seven wonders of the world. See: Ephesus . She was there represented with a great number of breasts, and other symbols which signified the earth, or Cybele. Though she was the patrone of chastity, yet she forgot her dignity to enjoy the company of Endymion, and the very familiar favours which, according to mythology, she granted to Pan and Orion are well known. See: Endymion , Pan , Orion . The inhabitants of Tauric a were particularly attached to the worship of this godde , and they cruelly offered on her altar all the strangers that were shipwrecked on their coasts. Her temple in Aricia was served by a priest who had always murdered his predece or, and the Lacedæmonians yearly offered her human victims till the age of Lycurgus, who changed this barbarous custom for the sacrifice of flagellation. The A then i ans generally offered her goats, and others a white kid, and sometimes a boar pig, or an ox. Among plants the poppy and the dita my were sacred to her. She, as well as her brother Apollo, had some oracles, among which those of Egypt, Cilicia, and Ephesus are the most known. Ovid , Fasti , bk. 2 , li. 155 ; Metamorphoses , bk. 3 , li. 156 ; bk. 7 , lis. 94 & 194, . — Cicero , de Natura Deorum , bk. 3 .— Horace , bk. 3 , ode 22.— Virgil , Georgics , bk. 3 , li. 302 ; Æneid , bk. 1 , li. 505 .— Homer , Ody ey , bk. 5 .— Pausanias , bk. 8 , chs. 31 & 37.— Catullus. — Statius , bk. 3 , Sylvæ , poem 1, li. 57 .— Apollo dor us bk. 1 , ch. 4 , . ; bk. 3 , ch. 5 , .