The town of Die, _Dea Vocontiorum_, lies in a broad part of the valley. It claims to be not _Dea Vocontiorum_ only, but also _Augusta Vocontiorum_, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, near Crest, of the earliest form of its name. Die is possessed of old walls, and has four gates with towers. The great goddess from whose worship it derives its name was Cybele, notwithstanding the vehement assertions of the official in the Poste-bureau in favour of Ceres; and three different Tauroboles have been discovered here, one of which is in excellent repair, and shows a Roman inscription surmounted by three bulls' heads. The ceremony of the Taurobolium was new to me, and appears to have been conducted as follows:--A small cave was hollowed out, with a thin roof formed by the outer surface of the earth; and immediately above this a bull was sacrificed, so that the blood ran through the earth and dropped on to a priest who was placed in full robes in the cave. The priest and the blood-stained garments were thenceforth specially sacred, the garments retaining their sanctity for twenty years. The inscription on the Tauroboles which have been found in and near Die record the names of the priest, the dendrophore, the person who provided the victim, and the emperor for whose safety the sacrifice was offered. The people of Die have been quarrelsome from the earliest times. A century before the estates of the Dauphins of the Viennois were known as Dauphiné,[92] the chronic contests between the Bishops and the Counts of Die had come to such a crisis, that the Dauphin Guiges André intervened, and produced a certain amount of peace; but, twenty years after, the people killed Bishop Humbert before the gate which thence received its name of _Porte Rouge_. When the Counts of Valentinois had succeeded to the fiefs of the Counts of Die, Gregory X. became so weary of the constant wars, that he suppressed the bishopric, and united it to Valence in 1275; but the canons, who were not suppressed, raised a mercenary army and carried on the struggle. Eventually, the canons and the people made common cause, and joined the Pope during the Seventy Years; but when he left Avignon they came to terms with Charles VI. of France, and so the Diois was united to Dauphiné in 1404. Louis XIV. restored the separate bishopric, but ruined the town by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.