Diana (mythology) facts for kids

Diana of Versailles is a statue of Diana that is now in the Louvre in Paris. This statue dates from the first or second century. It may have been modelled on an older statue of the Greek period.

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of hunting, and in later times, the moon and chastity. Cypress trees were sacred to her. She was the daughter of Jupiter and the Titan Latona (or Leto). In Greek mythology, Diana was called Artemis. She is also associated with fertility and nature. Artemis is her Greek equivalent.

According to mythology Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos. Apollo was her only real brother but she had many half brothers and sisters from her father. Her half-siblings were Vulcan, Minerva, Mercury, Bacchus, Mars, and Proserpine. Diana made a group of three with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and midwife helper; and Virbius, the god of the woods. Diana is a maiden goddess which means she can't marry.

Images for kids

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  Statue of Diana-Artemis, fresco from Pompeii, 50-1 BCE

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  Diana by Renato Torres (Portalegre), is one of the best and most representative tapestries of the European and Portuguese tapestries of the 20th century.

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  Diana Hunting, Guillaume Seignac

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  Diana as Personification of the Night. Anton Raphael Mengs, c. 1765.

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  Mosaic depicting Diana and her nymph surprised by Actaeon. Ruins of Volubilis, 2nd century CE.

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  An ancient Fourth-Pompeian-Style Roman wall painting depicting a scene of sacrifice in honor of the goddess Diana; she is seen here accompanied by a deer. The fresco was discovered in the triclinium of House of the Vettii in Pompeii, Italy.

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  An 18th-century depiction of Lake Nemi as painted by John Robert Cozens

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  A Roman fresco depicting Diana hunting, 4th century AD, from the Via Livenza hypogeum in Rome.

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  Diana of Versailles, a 2nd-century Roman version in the Greek tradition of iconography (Louvre Museum, Paris).

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  Diana and her hound, c.1720

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  Wooden statue of Diana Abnoba, Museum for Prehistory in Thuringia

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  Gallo-Roman bronze statuette of Diana (latter 1st century)

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  J. M. W. Turner's painting of the Golden Bough incident in the Aeneid

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  4th century BC Praxitelean bronze head of a goddess wearing a lunate crown, found at Issa (Vis, Croatia)

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  Fuente de la Diana Cazadora (1938-1942) in bronze at Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City.

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  Pomona (left, symbolizing agriculture), and Diana (symbolizing commerce) as building decoration

See also

In Spanish: Diana (mitología) para niños