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Rex Nemorensis
The rex Nemorensis (Latin, "king of Nemi") was a priest of the goddess Diana at Aricia in Italy, by the shores of Lake Nemi, where she was known as Diana Nemorensis.
The priest was king of the sacred 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.
The priesthood played a major role in the mythography of James George Frazer in The Golden Bough; his interpretation has exerted a lasting influence.
The tale of the rex Nemorensis appears in a number of ancient sources. Ovid gives a poetic account of the priesthood of Nemi 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."
The Latin name of the priesthood is given by Suetonius: "He [Caligula] caused the rex Nemorensis, who had held his priesthood for many years, to be supplanted by a stronger adversary." That same passage indicates that by the time of the early Principate, the custom of succession in the office by combat had become subject to outside control.
The Greek geographer Strabo also mentions the institution: "and in fact a barbaric, and Scythian, 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."
Pausanias gives an etiological myth on the founding of the shrine:
The Aricians tell a tale ... that when Hippolytus (the son of Theseus) 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 to Artemis, 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 to slaves who had run away from their masters."
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Rex Nemorensis
The rex Nemorensis (Latin, "king of Nemi") was a priest of the goddess Diana at Aricia in Italy, by the shores of Lake Nemi, where she was known as Diana Nemorensis.
The priest was king of the sacred 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.
The priesthood played a major role in the mythography of James George Frazer in The Golden Bough; his interpretation has exerted a lasting influence.
The tale of the rex Nemorensis appears in a number of ancient sources. Ovid gives a poetic account of the priesthood of Nemi 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."
The Latin name of the priesthood is given by Suetonius: "He [Caligula] caused the rex Nemorensis, who had held his priesthood for many years, to be supplanted by a stronger adversary." That same passage indicates that by the time of the early Principate, the custom of succession in the office by combat had become subject to outside control.
The Greek geographer Strabo also mentions the institution: "and in fact a barbaric, and Scythian, 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."
Pausanias gives an etiological myth on the founding of the shrine:
The Aricians tell a tale ... that when Hippolytus (the son of Theseus) 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 to Artemis, 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 to slaves who had run away from their masters."