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The real
value of such tales is that they serve to illustrate the nature of
the worship by providing a standard with which to compare it; and
further, that they bear witness indirectly to its venerable age by
showing that the true origin was lost in the mists of a fabulous
antiquity. In the latter respect these Nemi legends are probably
more to be trusted than the apparently historical tradition, vouched
for by Cato the Elder, that the sacred grove was dedicated to Diana
by a certain Egerius Baebius or Laevius of Tusculum, a Latin
dictator, on behalf of the peoples of Tusculum, Aricia, Lanuvium,
Laurentum, Cora, Tibur, Pometia, and Ardea. This tradition indeed
speaks for the great age of the sanctuary, since it seems to date
its foundation sometime before 495 B.C., the year in which Pometia
was sacked by the Romans and disappears from history. But we cannot
suppose that so barbarous a rule as that of the Arician priesthood
was deliberately instituted by a league of civilised communities,
such as the Latin cities undoubtedly were.


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