#aricia

aberrant blues are a relatively common thing. this one is probably one of the same Polyommatus or Aricia species that are common around here, but it's missing about 10 spots from its wings. other common mutations include merged spots, even fewer spots, or no spots at all, but more importantly they all make identification even more bullshit than it already is for a normal individual

Lars Porsenna

Lars Porsenna was the semi-legendary Etruscan king of Chiusi who famously attacked and probably occupied Rome c. 508 BCE when the city had just exiled its last king and was moving towards becoming a republic. His extravagant tomb is described by Pliny but has never been found.

Details of the early life of Lars Porsenna (also spelt Larth Porsina), his accession, and even the dates of his reign are all lacking. This is perhaps not surprising for a figure who is more legend than fact. He sprang into history only via the records of Greek and Roman historians writing centuries after his lifetime and who were only concerned with his infamous siege of Rome. More is known of his kingdom Chiusi, Etruscan name Clevsin and Clusium to the Romans, which was a powerful city in central Italy and a prominent member of the Etruscan League. The growth and prosperity of Chiusi in precisely the period of Porsenna's reign is attested by archaeological evidence.

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the 'Proud') was a member of the Etruscan Tarquinii clan from Tarquinia. He was Rome's seventh, and in the event, last king. Following his tyrannical reign and the rape of the Roman noblewoman Lucretia by Tarquinius' son Sextus and her subsequent suicide, the aristocrats of Rome, led by Lucius Iunius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, persuaded the assembly to exile their king in 510 BCE. Brutus and Collatinus declared themselves Rome's first consuls, and the Roman Republic was born. However, Tarquinius was actually away laying siege to Ardea at the time of his exile vote and so was still both willing and able to make a serious attempt to retake his throne. Tarquinius first joined forces with the Etruscan cities of Cerveteri, Tarquinia, and Veii. A combined force attacked Rome but was defeated at the battle of Silva Arsia. Undeterred Tarquinius then convinced Lars Porsenna, to lay siege to Rome c. 508 BCE.

“The lake of Nemi is still as of old embowered in woods, where in spring the wild flowers blow as fresh as no doubt they did two thousand springs ago.... Here, in the very heart of the wooded hills, under the abrupt declivity now crested by the village of Nemi, the sylvan goddess Diana had an old and famous sanctuary, the resort of pilgrims from all parts of Latium. It was known as the sacred grove of Diana Nemorensis, that is, Diana of the Wood, or, perhaps more exactly, Diana of the Woodland Glade. Sometimes the lake and grove were called, after the nearest town, the lake and grove of Aricia.... In the sacred grove there grew a certain tree round which at any time of the day, and probably far into the night, a grim figure might be seen to prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn sword, and he kept peering warily about him as if at every instant he expected to be set upon by an enemy. He was a priest and a murderer; and the man for whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in his stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying the priest, and having slain him, he retained office till he was himself slain by a stronger or a craftier.

Lake Nemi, depicted in a 1776 painting by Jacob Philipp Hackert. (Source: Jacob Philipp Hackert, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

“The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried with it the title of king; but surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier, or was visited by more evil dreams, than his. For year in year out, in summer and winter, in fair weather and in foul, he had to keep his lonely watch, and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was at the peril of his life.... The dreamy blue of Italian skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have accorded but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying year. It is a sombre picture, set to melancholy music—the background of forest shewing black and jagged against a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under foot, the lapping of the cold water on the shore, and in the foreground, pacing to and fro, now in twilight and now in gloom, a dark figure with a glitter of steel at the shoulder whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers down at him through the matted boughs.

The Golden Bough, by J.M.W. Turner (1834).

(Source: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

“Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off if he could, one of its boughs. Success in the attempt entitled him to fight the priest in single combat, and if he slew him he reigned in his stead with the title of King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis). According to the public opinion of the ancients the fateful branch was that Golden Bough which, at the Sibyl’s bidding, Aeneas plucked before he essayed the perilous journey to the world of the dead. The flight of the slave represented, it was said, the flight of Orestes; his combat with the priest was a reminiscence of the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana. This rule of succession by the sword was observed down to the imperial times; for amongst his other freaks Caligula, thinking that the priest of Nemi had held office too long, hired a more stalwart ruffian to slay him; and a Greek traveller, who visited Italy in the age of the Antonines, remarks that down to his time the priesthood was still the prize of victory in a single combat.”

—J. G. Frazer, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, part 1 (The Golden Bough, vol. I, 1911, pp. 2-11.)

Bust of Diana from the Sanctuary of Nemi, 150-100 BCE, marble.

March 27, 2023: Suzette