On the worship of Diana in the Doric and other states.

1. We now proceed to consider the worship of Diana; a subject which need not be so fully examined as that of Apollo, as it does not, like the worship of that god, every where present the same fundamental notions, and therefore cannot, in all its first beginnings, be derived from the religion of the Dorians. But as in general the Grecian mythology adopted the most various and inconsistent religious views and ideas, so in the name of the single goddess Diana were united almost opposite branches of ancient worship, which we must attempt to separate. Lest, however, it should be supposed that we are unable to trace the association of ideas, which saw a simple character in the “various forms of that great goddess, who, having her origin in the interior of Asia, passed from thence into Greece, and was worshipped as the moon, the goddess of the woods, the huntress, the nurse of children, and a nurse of the universe, as well by the choruses of the virgins of Caryæ, as in the dances of the temples;” we will endeavour to ascertain some historical criterion, which may distinguish the worship of Diana from that of any other deity, and which must not be one of the ideas or symbols of the worship itself, since it is concerning the possibility or impossibility of their connexion that we are to inquire.