In a mysterious little poem, Horace consecrates a tree overhanging his villa to Diana and promises her the sacrifice of a boar-pig each year. Quite what the inspiration was is hard to say – as often, there are echoes of Greek literary form – but the detail of the pine tree and its location close to Horace’s country house seems too specific to be imaginary. There may be an association with Horace’s life – we read elsewhere in the Odes of a narrow escape when a falling tree narrowly missed him, and perhaps he is taking precautions against this one doing the same – or the explanation may lie simply in reverence for the Goddess because of her association with the woods and countryside that Horace clearly loved.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.