Carin Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia
(Cambridge, 2006)

When asked what qualities I and others on the committee look for in deciding on this book award, my short answer is a solid work of detailed research that also sheds interesting light on larger issues. The very title of this year’s winner, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, suggests these qualities. First, though little is known about this cult of Diana, the author has painstakingly gathered all the evidence we have for it -- archaeological, literary, iconographic, and historical -- and has carefully and clearly presented it for the reader’s consideration. She then draws on her wide-ranging strengths in philology, history, religion, comparative anthropology, and mythology to fill out the picture of this specific cult and to relate it to larger trends in Roman religion.

With all this, the author provides readers with a vivid picture of the sanctuary itself, which rested in a spectacular physical space dominated by a crater that seems to have been densely populated by wildlife. Elements of the cult point to both a lunar goddess and a huntress, reflecting the stark contrasts of this physical environment. Other interesting aspects of the cult include its role in the rivalry between Rome and Aricia, the position of the priest -- the rex nemorensis -- selected in a peculiar hunting ritual in which a fugitive slave is required to hunt down and slay his predecessor, and the fact that slaves played a crucial part in the cult. By working through the detailed accounts of these different elements, we are led to understand better what cults like this meant for local populations, but we also see what the shrine meant to emperors and others who visited it, whether for healing or other sorts of worship.

More broadly, the author’s insistence on Aricia as a Latin, not Roman, cult provides insight into the interaction between Latin religion and imported Greek myth and iconography against the backdrop of Roman and Latin cultural relationships. In the conclusion the author cites Varro’s comments about the decline of Roman religion in the late Republic and then contrasts the situation he seems to describe in Rome with the vibrancy of the Arician cult.  This effectively confirms the author’s contention that one must appreciate the distinction between Roman and Latin religion.

In sum, in Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, Carin Green has written a book that has much to offer both specialists and the average reader. I am pleased to present her with the 2009 CAMWS Book Award.

--Michael Gagarin, Chair, Subcommittee on the Outstanding Publication Award