Genzano. On the precipitous crag high above
our heads stands a more ancient village, with fortress tower, unoccupied
castle, crumbling gates, and the walls and roofs of dwellings huddled
around them. That is Nemi, the village of the sacred wood.

Except where the rock is too steep for growth, the slopes of the deep
hollow are covered with trees and bushes on every side. But the trees
are thickest where the slope falls most gently--so gently that from the
foot of the crater to the water's edge the ground for a few hundred
yards might almost be called a bit of plain. Under the trees there the
best strawberries grow, and there stood the temple of mysterious and
blood-stained rites. Prowling continually round and round one of the
trees, the ghastly priest was for centuries there to be seen:

"The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain."

No one can tell in what prehistoric age the succession of murdering and
murdered priests first began that vigil for their lives. It continued
with recurrent slaughter through Rome's greatest years. About the time
when Virgil was still alive, or perhaps just after Christ himself was
born, the geographer Strabo appears actually to have seen that living
assassin and victim lurking in the wood; for he vividly describes him
"with sword always drawn, turning his eyes on every side, ready to
defend himself against an onslaught." Possibly the priest suspected
Strabo himself for his outlandish look and tongue, for only a runaway
slave might murder and succeed him. Possibly it was that self-same
priest whom Caligula, a few years after Christ's death, hired a stalwart
ruffian to finish off, because he was growing old and decrepit, having
defended himself from onslaughts too long. Upon the lake the Emperor
constructed two fine house-boats, devoted to the habits that
house-boats generally induce (you may still fish up bits of their
splendour from the bottom, if you have luck), and very likely it was
annoying to watch the old man still doddering round his tree with drawn
sword. One would like to ask whether the crazy tyrant was aware how well
he was fulfilling the ancient rite by ordaining the slaughter of
decrepitude. And one would like to ask also whether the stalwart ruffian
himself took up the line of consecrated and ghastly succession. Someone,
at all events, took it up; for in the bland age of the Antonines the
priest was still there, pacing with drawn sword, turning his eyes