Diana reigned over the sacred grove at Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills, where the mirror-still waters reflected her moonlit sanctuary. A fugitive slave who broke a branch from her tree could challenge the reigning priest-king to mortal combat for the right to serve as Rex Nemorensis — Diana's guardian who held his office only until the next man killed him.
After Numa died, the nymph Egeria fled Rome and withdrew to the dense woods around Lake Nemi, where her ceaseless weeping so disturbed Diana's rites that the goddess transformed her into a cool spring flowing through the sacred grove.
Diana hid the resurrected Hippolytus in her grove at Lake Nemi under the new name Virbius, where horses were forever banned because they had dragged him to his death in his former life.
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