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Therex Nemorensis (Latin, "king of Nemi") was apriest of thegoddess Diana atAricia inItaly, by the shores ofLake Nemi, where she was known asDiana Nemorensis.
The priest was king of thesacred grove by the lake. No one was to break off any branch of a certain sacred oak, except that if a runaway slave did so, he could engage the Rex Nemorensis in mortal combat. If the slave prevailed, he became the next king for as long as he could, in turn, defeat challengers.[1][2][3]
The priesthood played a major role in themythography ofJames George Frazer inThe Golden Bough; his interpretation has exerted a lasting influence.
The tale of therex Nemorensis appears in a number of ancient sources.Ovid gives a poetic account of the priesthood of Nemi[4] noting that the lake of Nemi was "sacred to antique religion"; its priest "holds his reign by strong hands and fleet feet, and dies according to the example he set himself."[5]
The Latin name of the priesthood is given bySuetonius: "He [Caligula] caused therex Nemorensis, who had held his priesthood for many years, to be supplanted by a stronger adversary."[6][7] That same passage indicates that by the time of the earlyPrincipate, the custom of succession in the office by combat had become subject to outside control.
The Greek geographerStrabo also mentions the institution: "and in fact a barbaric, andScythian, element predominates in the sacred usages, for the people set up as priest merely a run-away 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 the attacks, and ready to defend himself."[8]
Pausanias gives anetiologicalmyth on the founding of the shrine:
The Aricians tell a tale ... that whenHippolytus (the son ofTheseus) was killed, owing to the curses of Theseus,Asclepius raised him from the dead. On coming to life again he refused to forgive his father; rejecting his prayers, he went to the Aricians in Italy. There he became king and devoted a precinct toArtemis, where down to my time the prize for the victor in single combat was the priesthood of the goddess. The contest was open to no freeman, but only toslaves who had run away from their masters."[10]
InRoman mythology, Hippolytus was deified as the godVirbius;Artemis was theGreek name of the goddess identified with the RomanDiana. A possible allusion to the origins of the priesthood at Nemi is contained inVergil'sAeneid, as Virgil places Hippolytus at the grove of Aricia.[11]
An alternative story has the worship of Diana at Nemi instituted byOrestes; the flight of the slave represents the flight of Orestes into exile.[12]
Surviving lore concerning therex Nemorensis indicates that this priest or king held a very uneasy position.Macaulay's quatrain on the institution of therex Nemorensis states:
This is, in a nutshell, the surviving legend of therex Nemorensis: the priesthood of Diana at Nemi was held by a person who obtained that honour by slaying the prior incumbent in atrial by combat, and who could remain at the post only so long as he successfully defended his position against all challengers. However, a successful candidate had first to test his mettle by plucking a golden bough from one of the trees in thesacred grove.
Thehuman sacrifice conducted at Nemi was thought to be highly unusual by the ancients. Suetonius mentions it as an example of the moral failings ofCaligula. Strabo calls itScythian, implying that he found itbarbaric. The violent character of this singular institution could barely be justified by reference to its great antiquity and mythological sanctity. The ancient sources also appear to concur that an escaped slave who seeks refuge in this uneasy office is likely to be a desperate man.[13]
James George Frazer, in his seminal workThe Golden Bough, argued that the tale of the priesthood of Nemi was an instance of a worldwide myth of asacred king who must periodically die as part of a regularfertility rite.
In 1990, a radio programme entitled "The Priest of Nemi" was produced by Michael Bakewell and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. This programme was based onthe 1990 bookThe Making of the Golden Bough by Robert Fraser, which was written to mark the centenary of the first edition of Frazer's book.
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