34. Some of your learned men783    Cf. Servius ad Virg., Georg., i. 5: “The Stoics say that Luna, Diana, Ceres, Juno, and Proserpina are one; following whom, Virgil invoked Liber and Ceres for Sol and Luna”—men, too, who do not chatter merely because their humour leads them—maintain that Diana, Ceres, Luna, are but one deity in triple union;784    Triviali—“common,” “vulgar,” seems to be here used for triplici. and that there are not three distinct persons, as there are three different names; that in all these Luna is invoked, and that the others are a series of surnames added to her name. But if this is sure, if this is certain, and the facts of the case show it to be so, again is Ceres but an empty name, and Diana: and thus the discussion is brought to this issue, that you lead and advise us to believe that she whom you maintain to be the discoverer of the earth’s fruits has no existence, and Apollo is robbed of his sister, whom once the horned hunter785    Actæon. gazed upon as she washed her limbs from impurity in a pool, and paid the penalty of his curiosity.

0986A XXXIV. Non indocti apud vos viri, neque quod induxerit libido garrientes, Dianam, Cererem, Lunam, caput esse unius Dei triviali germanitate pronuntiant: neque, ut sunt trinae dissimilitudines nominum, personarum differentias tres esse: Lunam in his omnibus vocari, atque in ejus vocamen reliquorum seriem coacervatam esse cognominum. Quod si exploratum, si fixum est, atque ita si esse rei veritas monstrat, cassum iterum nomen est Cereris, cassum Dianae: atque ita perducitur res eo, ut et illa frugum, sicut perhibetis, inventrix, vobis ducibus atque auctoribus nulla sit, et exspolietur Apollo germana, quam quondam puris in fontibus abluentem membrorum sordes corniger ille venator inspexit, et poenam curiositatis invenit.