Eighteenth Car, of Diana.
In the eighteenth and incredibly beautiful car, drawn by two white stags, there was seen coming, with the gilded bow and gilded quiver, the huntress Diana, who was shown seated with infinite grace and loveliness upon two other stags, which with their hindquarters made for her, as it were, a most fanciful seat; the rest of the car being rendered strangely gracious, lovely, and ornate by nine of her most pleasing fables. For the first of these was seen how, moved by pity for the flying Arethusa, who was seen pursued by the enamoured Alpheus, the Goddess converted her into a fountain; even as for the second she was seen praying Æsculapius that he should consent to restore to life for her the dead but innocent Hippolytus; which being accomplished, she was then seen in the third ordaining him guardian of her temple and her sacred wood in Aricia. For the fourth she was seen chasing Cynthia, violated by Jove, from the pure waters where she used to bathe with her other virgin Nymphs; and for the fifth was seen the deceit practised by her on the above-named Alpheus, when, seeking presumptuously to obtain her as his wife, he was taken by her to see her dance, and there, having smeared her face with mire in company with the other Nymphs, she constrained him, not being able to recognize her in that guise, to depart all derided and scorned. For the sixth, then, she was seen in company with her brother Apollo, chastising proud Niobe and slaying her with all her children; and for the seventh she was seen sending the great and savage boar into the Calydonian forest, which laid all Ætolia waste, having been moved to just and righteous wrath against that people because they had discontinued her sacrifices. Even as for the eighth she was seen not less wrathfully converting the unhappy Actæon into a stag; but in the ninth and last, moved on the contrary by pity, she was seen transforming Egeria, weeping for the death of her husband, Numa Pompilius, into a fountain. At the foot of the car, then, were seen coming eight of her huntress Nymphs, with their bows and quivers, dressed in graceful, pleasing, loose, and easy garments, composed of skins of various animals as it were slain by them; and with them, as the last, concluding the small but gracious company, was young Virbius, crowned with spotted-leaf myrtle, and holding in one hand a little broken chariot, and in the other a bunch of tresses virginal and blonde.