In Greek mythology, Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος) was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. She was usually depicted as the maiden goddess of the hunt, bearing a bow and arrows. Later she became associated with the moon, as her brother was with the sun.

She was one of the most widely venerated of the gods and manifestly one of the oldest deities (Burkert 1985:149). In later times she was associated and considered synonymous with the Roman goddess Diana. In Etruscan mythology, she took the form of Artume. Deer and cypress are sacred to her.

Worship

Artemis was worshipped throughout in the Hellenic world. She is the goddess of the hunt and the wild; she gradually displaced Selene (the titaness of the moon) as goddess of the moon. Her best known cults were in her birthplace, the island of Delos; in Brauron; Mounikhia (located on a hill near the port Piraeus); and in Sparta. Artemis is in statues or paintings with deer, bow and arrows, in a forest setting.



In Ionia the "Lady of Ephesus", a goddess whom Hellenes identified with Artemis, was a principal deity. Her temple at Ephesus (an ancient Greek city located in western part of Turkey), one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was probably the best known center of her worship apart from Delos. In Acts of the Apostles, the Ephesian metalsmiths who feel threatened by Paul's preaching of the new faith, jealously riot in her defense, shouting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" (Acts 19:28 KJV).

[ e] Greek deities series
Primordial deities
Titans (predecessor ancient dieties overthrown emprisoned and deposed by the Olympian Gods)
Greek sea gods (Aquatic deities)
Chthonic deities
Muses (Personified concepts)
Other deities
Twelve Olympians
Zeus Hera Poseidon Hermes Hestia Demeter Aphrodite Athena Apollo Artemis Ares Hephaestus

Athenian festivals in honor of Artemis include Elaphebolia, Mounikhia, Kharisteria, Brauronia; the festival of Artemis Orthia was observed in Sparta.

Young Athenian girls between the ages of five and ten were sent to the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron to serve the Goddess for one year. During this time the girls were known as arktoi, or little she-bears. A myth explaining this servitude relates that a bear had formed the habit of regularly visiting the town of Brauron, and the people there fed it, so that over time the bear became tame. A young girl teased the bear, and, in some versions of the myth it killed her, while in other versions it clawed her eyes out. Either way, the girl's brothers killed the bear, and Artemis was enraged. She demanded that young girls "act the bear" at her sanctuary in atonement for the bear's death.

Virginal Artemis was worshipped as a fertility/childbirth goddess in some places since, according to some myths, she assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin. During the Classical period in Athens, she was identified with Hecate. Artemis also assimilated Caryatis (Carya) and Ilithyia.

Artemis in art

The oldest representations of Artemis in Greek Archaic art portray her as Potnia Theron ("Queen of the Beasts"): a winged goddess holding a stag and leopard in her hands, or sometimes a leopard and a lion. This winged Artemis lingered in ex-votos as Artemis Orthia, with a sanctuary close by Sparta.

In Greek classical art she is usually portrayed as a maiden huntress clothed in a girl's short skirt,^[1] with hunting boots, a quiver, a silver bow and arrows. Often she is shown in the shooting pose, and is accompanied by a hunting dog or stag. Her darker side is revealed in some vase paintings, where she is shown as the death-bringing goddess whose arrows fell young maidens and women, such as the daughters of Niobe.

The attributes of the goddess were often varied: bow and arrows were sometimes replaced by hunting spears; as a goddess of maiden dances she held a lyre; as a goddess of light a pair of flaming torches.

Only in post-Classical art do we find representations of Artemis-Diana with the crown of the crescent moon, as Luna. In the ancient world, although she was occasionally associated with the moon, she was never portrayed as the moon itself. Ancient statues of the goddesses can sometimes be found with crescent moons, however these are invariably Renaissance-era additions.

On June 7, 2007, a Roman era bronze sculpure of "Artemis and the Stag" was sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York City by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York for $25.5 million, setting the record as the most expensive sculpture and antiquity sold by auction.

Artemis as the Lady of Ephesus

At Ephesus, her temple became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There the Lady whom Greeks associated with Artemis through interpretatio Graeca was worshipped primarily as a mother goddess, akin to the Phrygian goddess Cybele, in an ancient sanctuary where her cult image depicted the "Lady of Ephesus" adorned with multiple rounded breastlike protuberances on her chest.

Epithets

As Aeginaea, she was worshiped in Sparta; the name means either huntress of chamois, or the wielder of the javelin (αιγανέα).^[2][3] As Agrotera, she was especially associated as the patron goddess of hunters. In Athens Artemis was often associated with the local Aeginian goddess, Aphaea. As Potnia Theron, she was the patron of wild animals; Homer used this title. As Kourotrophos, she was the nurse of youths. As Locheia, she was the goddess of childbirth and midwives. She was sometimes known as Cynthia, from her birthplace on Mount Cynthus on Delos, or Amarynthia from a festival in her honor originally held at Amarynthus in Euboea. She sometimes used the name Phoebe, the feminine form of her brother Apollo's epithet Phoebus.

Agrotera was a title of the goddess as the patron of hunters. The ancient Spartans used to sacrifice to her as one of their patron goddesses before starting a new military campaign.

Etymology

There may be some connection with the Greek αρτεμης = "safe and sound" from the root αρ = "to fit".

Birth

In Greek mythology Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Leto had to find a place where the sun had never shone to give birth to the two due to a curse set by Hera, Zeus' wife, because she was angry with Zeus. For this, Zeus raised an island that had been floating underwater and not yet touched by the sun. The island was Delos, and Leto gave birth there, while grasping hold of a sacred palm-tree. Artemis was born first, on the 6th of the month. She then proceeded to assist her mother with the birth of Apollo, who was born on the 7th.

Childhood

The childhood of Artemis is not embodied in any surviving myth, but a poem of Callimachus — the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" — imagines some charming vignettes: at three years old, Artemis asked her father, Zeus, while sitting on his knee, to grant her several wishes. Her first wish was to remain chaste for eternity, and never to be confined by marriage. She then asked for lop-eared hounds, stags to lead her chariot, and nymphs to be her hunting companions, "sixty dancing girls, daughters of Ocean, all nine years old, all little girl sea nymphs." He granted her wishes.^[4] All of her companions remained virgins, and Artemis guarded her own chastity closely. Her symbol was the silver bow and arrow.

Artemis and Actaeon

She was once bathing in a vale on Mount Cithaeron, when the Theban prince and hunter Actaeon stumbled across her. One version of this story says that Actaeon hid in the bushes and spied on her as she continued to bathe; she was enraged to discover the spy, and turned him into a stag which was pursued and killed by his own hounds. Alternatively, Actaeon boasted that he was a better hunter than she and Artemis turned him into a stag and he was eaten by his hounds.

Artemis and Adonis

In some versions of the story of Adonis, Artemis sent a wild boar to kill the youth as punishment for the hubristic boast that he was a superior to the goddess in hunting. In others, she killed him for revenge. Adonis was a favorite of Aphrodite so Artemis killed him to get back at Aphrodite for the death of Hippolytus, a favorite of Artemis.

Siproites

A Cretan, Siproites, saw Artemis like Actaeon and was changed by her into a woman. The complete story does not survive in any mythographer's works, but is mentioned offhand by Antoninus Liberalis, suggesting that the story was current.

Orion

Orion was a hunting companion of the goddess Artemis. In some versions of his story he was killed by Artemis, while in others he was killed by a scorpion sent by Gaea. In some versions, Orion tried to rape one of her followers and she killed him. In one version, Orion tried to rape Artemis herself and she killed him in self-defense. According to Hyginus (quoting the Greek poet Istrus) Artemis once loved Orion and wanted to marry him, but was tricked into killing him by her brother Apollo who was protective of his sister's maidenhood.

Other stories

Callisto

Daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia. She was one of Artemis's hunting attendants. As a companion of Artemis, Callisto took a vow of chastity. Zeus appeared to her disguised as Artemis, or in some stories Apollo, gained her confidence, then took advantage of her (or raped her, according to Ovid). As a result of this encounter she conceived a son, Arcas. Enraged, Hera or Artemis changed her into a bear. Arcas almost killed the bear, but Zeus stopped him just in time. Out of pity, Zeus placed Callisto the bear into the heavens, thus the origin of Callisto the Bear as a constellation. Some stories say that he placed both Arcas and Callisto into the heavens as bears, forming the Ursa Minor and Ursa Major constellations.

Iphigenia and the Taurian Artemis

Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove and boasted that he was a better hunter. When the Greek fleet was preparing at Aulis to depart for Troy to begin the Trojan War, Artemis becalmed the winds. The seer Calchis advised Agamemnon that the only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. In some version, the sacrifice goes through as planned (with Agamemnon killing his daughter), and the act results in his own death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. In another version, Artemis snatches Iphigenia from the altar and substitutes a deer. Iphigenia is then transported to the Crimea and appointed as priestess in the goddess's Tauric temple, where strangers were offered as human sacrifice.

Niobe

A Queen of Thebes and wife of Amphion, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because while she had fourteen children (Niobids), seven boys and seven girls, Leto had only one of each. When Artemis and Apollo heard this impiety, Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, and Artemis shot her daughters, who died instantly without a sound. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions a number of the Niobids were spared (Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, killed himself or was killed by Apollo. A devastated Niobe was turned to stone by Artemis as she wept, or committed suicide. In some myths she was thrown into a forsaken part of the Egyptian desert. Another says that her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of Thebes to stone, so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their death, when the gods themselves entombed them.

Otus and Ephialtes

The Gigantes Otus and Ephialtes were sons of Poseidon. They were so strong that nothing could harm them. One night, as they slept, Gaea whispered to them, that since they were so strong, they should be the rulers of Olympus. They built a mountain as tall as Mt. Olympus, and then demanded that the gods surrender, and that Artemis and Hera become their wives. The gods fought back, but couldn't harm them. The sons even managed to kidnap Ares and hold him in a jar for thirteen months. Artemis later changed herself into a deer and ran between them. The Aloadae, not wanting her to get away because they were eager huntsmen, each threw their javelin and simultaneously killed each other.

The Meleagrids

After the death of Meleager, Artemis turned his grieving sisters, the Meleagrids into guineafowl that Artemis loved very much.

Chione

Artemis killed Chione for becoming too proud and vain after having an affair with Apollo.

Atalanta and Oeneus

Artemis saved the infant Atalanta from dying of exposure after her father abandoned her. She sent a female bear to suckle the baby, who was then raised by hunters.

Among other adventures, Atalanta participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, which Artemis had sent to destroy Calydon because King Oeneus had forgotten her at the harvest sacrifices. In the hunt, Atalanta drew the first blood, and was awarded the prize of the skin. She hung it in a sacred grove at Tegea as a dedication to Artemis.

Trojan War

Artemis favored the Trojans during the ten-year war with the Greeks. She came to blows with Hera, when the divine allies of the Greeks and Trojans engaged each other in conflict. Hera struck Artemis on the ears with her own quiver, causing the arrows to fall out. As Artemis fled crying to Zeus, Leto gathered up the bow and arrows which had fallen out of the quiver. (Homer, Iliad 21,470 ff)

Artemis may have been represented as a supporter of Troy because her brother Apollo was the patron god of the city and she herself was widely worshipped in western Anatolia in historical time.

Artemis in Astronomy

The minor planet (105) Artemis; a lunar crater; also Artemis Chasma and Artemis Corona, both on Venus, have all been named for her.

Artemis in Astrology

In the western zodiac, Artemis is the ruling Goddess of the Cancer sign due to her common affiliation with Earth's Moon.

References

• Burkert, Walter, 1985. Greek Religion (Cambridge:Harvard University Press)
• Graves, Robert (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths (Penguin)
• Kerenyi, Karl, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks
• Telenius, Seppo (2005) 2006. Athena-Artemis (Helsinki: Kirja kerrallaan)
• Buffalo News article - 'Artemis' sets auction records, June 8, 2007

External links

• Theoi Project, Artemis, information on Artemis from original Greek and Roman sources, images from classical art.
• Hymn To Artemis - The Virgin Goddess of the Hunt
• A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. G. E. Marindin, William Smith, LLD, William Wayte)

Greek deities series
Primordial deities | Titans | Aquatic deities | Chthonic deities
Twelve Olympians
Zeus | Hera | Poseidon | Hestia | Demeter | Aphrodite Athena | Apollo | Artemis | Ares | Hephaestus | Hermes