On the plateau at the east end of the lake, to our left of Nemi, his
excellency Sir John Savile Lumley, the British ambassador, has
recently made some most interesting excavations--uncovering the vast
area of the Temple of Diana at Nemi, and at the same time discovering
numerous objects of interest, which proved without doubt to whom the
shrine was dedicated.
The front of the temple was formed with a portico of fluted columns,
and its rear was towards the lake, so the temple faced east. The whole
Artemisium shows traces of many restorations, not the least
interesting being that made by Marcus Servilius Quartus, consul A.D.
3, whose tomb is on the Via Appia (Tacitus, "A." ii. 48; iii. 22).
When Iphigenia, priestess of the Temple of Diana at Tauris in the
Crimea, fled with her brother Orestes, they carried off the statue of
Diana, to whom all strangers cast on the coast were sacrificed, and
founded a temple near the Lake of Diana, now Nemi, on the Alban Hills
(Ovid, "Ep." iii. 2; "Met." xv. 485). "The temple is in a grove, and
before it is a lake of considerable size. The temple and water are
surrounded by abrupt and lofty precipices, so that they seem to be
situated in a deep and lofty ravine" (Strabo, v. 3, 12).