The cult of the Dea Dia was tended by the Arval Brethren, an ancient college of priests whose rites are among the more mysterious survivals from archaic Rome. What remains of this Augustan-era temple now lies beneath a restaurant in the Magliana Vecchia neighbourhood, subterranean, inaccessible to visitors, and all but invisible to the city above. It is a curious fate for a sanctuary once central to agricultural propitiation, its rituals of fertility and renewal enacted in open fields. The site is not unique in this: many Roman temples, particularly those dedicated to older, chthonic deities, were built on or below ground level, their architecture reflecting a deliberate proximity to the earth. Here, the restaurant’s patrons dine unknowingly above a buried cult space, the only trace of the Dea Dia now the quiet weight of soil and memory.
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