There, in turn, have dwelt the Colonna, Borgia, Piccolomini, Cenci,
Frangipani, and Braschi, and there the descendants of the last-named
family still pass a few weeks in the summer.[1] Below you, silent and
silvery, lies the lake itself,--and rising around it, like a green
bowl, tower its richly wooded banks, covered with gigantic oaks,
ilexes, and chestnuts. This was the ancient grove dedicated to Diana,
which extended to L'Ariccia; and here are still to be seen the vestiges
of an ancient villa built by Julius Caesar. Here, too, if you trust
some of the antiquaries, once stood the temple of Diana Nemorensis,[2]
where human sacrifices were offered, and whose chief-priest, called
_Rex Nemorensis_, obtained his office by slaying his predecessor, and
reigned over these groves by force of his personal arm. Times have,
indeed, changed since the priesthood was thus won and baptized by
blood; and as you stand there, and look, on the one side, at the site
of this ancient temple, which some of the gigantic chestnut-trees may
almost have seen in their youth, and, on the other side, at the
campanile of the Catholic church at Genzano, with its flower-strewn
pavements, you may have as sharp a contrast between the past and the
present as can easily be found.
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