The sanctuary dedicated to Diana at Aricia flourished from the Bronze age to the second century CE. From its archaic beginnings in the wooded crater beside the lake known as the 'mirror of Dianea' it grew into a grand Hellenistic-style complex that attracted crowds of pilgrims and the sick. Diana was also believed to confer power on leaders. This book examines the history of Diana's cult and healing sanctuary, which remained a significant and wealthy religious center for more than a thousand years. It sheds new light on Diana herself, on the use of rational as well as ritual healing in the sanctuary, on the subtle distinctions between Latin religious sensibility and the more austere Roman practice, and on the interpenetration of cult and politics in Latin and Roman history.

___________________ AN EXPLORATION OF LOVE, LUST AND BETRAYAL Part novel, part expose, Diana is a stirring portrait of a passionate affair amid the cultural chaos of the 1960s and 1970s. The central character is Diana Soren, an elegy for a decade that refused to die. She is a predator set on self-destruction, and a casualty of her own times and beauty. Mexico's pre-eminent novelist presents a poignant story of bittersweet love that was a huge success in his native country.