 A votive inscription of the time of Nerva indicates that Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth, home, and family, was also venerated in the grove at Nemi.Sir James George Frazer writes of this sacred grove in the often-quoted opening of "The Golden Bough", basing his interpretation on brief remarks in Strabo (5.3.12), Pausanias (2,27.24) and Servius' commentary on the "Aeneid" (6.136) Legend tells of a tree that stands in the center of the grove and is guarded heavily.No one was to break off its limbs, with the exception of a runaway slave, who was allowed, if he could, to break off one of the boughs.