Part 1 — CHAPTER I—The King of the Wood

“Jamque dies aderat, profugis cum regibus aptum

Fumat Aricinum Triviae nemus”;

Ovid, Fasti, iii. 271 sq.—

“Regna tenent fortesque manu, pedibusque fugaces;

Et perit exemplo postmodo quisque suo”;

id., Ars am. i. 259 sq.—

“Ecce suburbanae templum nemorale Dianae,

Partaque per gladios regna nocente manu”;

Valerius Flaccus, Argon. ii. 304 sq.—

“Jam nemus Egeriae, jam te ciet altus ab alba

Juppiter et soli non mitis Aricia regi.”

An archaic Greek relief, found in 1791 near the outlet of the lake, in the Vallericcia, has been sometimes thought to portray the combat between a priest and a candidate for the office. But the subject is rather the murder of Aegisthus by Orestes in presence of Clytaemnestra and Electra. See Sir W. Gell, Topography of Rome, ii. 116 sq.; O. Jahn, in Archäologische Zeitung, vii. (1849) coll. 113–118; Baumeister’s Denkmäler, p. 1112; O. Rossbach, op. cit. pp. 148 sq.; R. Lanciani, New Tales of Old Rome, p. 204.

“Hoc nemus inde colo de disque minoribus unus

Nomine sub dominae lateo atque accenseor illi.”