Artemis

File:Diane de Versailles Leochares.jpg

The Diana of Versailles, a Roman copy of a sculpture by Leochares (Louvre Museum)

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.

Name, Characterization and Etymology

There may be some connection with the Greek αρτεμης = "safe and sound" from the root αρ = "to fit". ^{[citation needed]}

Nor does laughter-loving Aphrodite ever tame in love Artemis, the huntress with shafts of gold; for she loves archery and the slaying of wild beasts in the mountains, the lyre also and dancing and thrilling cries and shady woods and the cities of upright men.

<Various forms of Artemis (as discussed in the worship section, given that the myths tend to silence such disparities)> <Artemis and nature> <Artemis as virgin, association with women and childbirth (goddess to placate)> <Unforgiving and vindictive qualities>

Epithets

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.

Mythical Accounts

Birth

See also: Apollo

After one of Zeus's many extra-marital dalliances, Leto (a Titaness) finds herself pregnant with his divine offspring. Unfortunately for her, news of this predicament was borne to Hera (the Sky God's justifiably jealous wife), who vengefully declared that the ailing mistress was barred from giving birth on terra firma (or, in another version, anywhere that the sun shone) and ordered one of her handmaidens to ensure that Leto abided by this cruel decree. Already straining in her labor, the troubled maid chanced to find the rocky island of Delos, which happened not to be anchored to the mainland. As it provided a loophole to Hera's vindictive curse, it was there that the Titaness gave birth to her twins. Intriguingly, some early accounts suggest that Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo, or that Artemis was born one day before Apollo on the island of Ortygia, and that she assisted her mother in crossing the sea to Delos the next day to birth her twin. This postulation is notable as both attributions are consistent with the cultic role of the Divine Huntress as a helper in childbirth (see below).

In a parallel account, it is suggested that Hera kidnapped Ilithyia (the goddess of childbirth) in order to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods, sympathetic to Leto's plight, coaxed Hera into releasing the birthing-goddess by offering her an enormous amber necklace.

Childhood

Unlike her twin, whose youthful exploits are depicted in numerous sources, the childhood of Artemis is relatively under-represented (especially in older classical materials). However, one account depicting this period has survived in a poem by Callimachus (ca. 305 B.C.E.–240 B.C.E.), who fancifully describes a conversation between the goddess (then "still a little maid") and Zeus, her benevolent pater:

She spake these words to her sire: “Give me to keep my maidenhood, Father, forever: and give me to be of many names, that Phoebus may not vie with me. And give me arrows and a bow [,] ... and give me to gird me in a tunic with embroidered border reaching to the knee, that I may slay wild beasts. And give me sixty daughters of Oceanus for my choir – all nine years old, all maidens yet ungirdled; and give me for handmaidens twenty nymphs of Amnisus who shall tend well my buskins, and, when I shoot no more at lynx or stag, shall tend my swift hounds. And give to me all mountains; and for city, assign me any, even whatsoever thou wilt: for seldom is it that Artemis goes down to the town. On the mountains will I dwell and the cities of men I will visit only when women vexed by the sharp pang of childbirth call me to their aid even in the hour when I was born the Fates ordained that I should be their helper, forasmuch as my mother suffered no pain either when she gave me birth or when she carried me win her womb, but without travail put me from her body.” So spake the child and would have touched her father’s beard, but many a hand did she reach forth in vain, that she might touch it.

Given the etiological character of such a catalog of desires, it is perhaps not surprising that this listing echoes various elements of goddess's mythos (from her sexual abstinence and her association with virginal handmaidens, to her status as a nature deity (or huntress) and her role as a helper in childbirth).

The Spiteful Goddess

File:Adonis3.jpg

Adonis.

In many mythic accounts, Artemis is characterized as an utterly unforgiving and vengeful being, visiting death upon any mortal who offended her. However, it should be noted that many of these seemingly callous executions follow well-established patterns within the overall moral framework presented by the Greek hymns and texts. For instance, the crime of hubris, for which Artemis slays Actaeon, and grimly punishes Agamemnon and Niobe, was also the motive for Apollo's murder of Marsyas and Athena's contest with (and eventual transformation of) Arachne.

Actaeon

In some versions of the tale, the virgin goddess is bathing in a secluded spring upon Mount Cithaeron, when the Theban hunter Actaeon stumbles upon her. Enraged that a male had seen her nakedness, she transforms him into a stag, who then proceeds to be pursued and torn asunder by his own hounds. In an earlier version of the story, the Theban's offense was caused by a boast that his hunting prowess rivaled the goddess's own. In this version at well, the story culminates with the transformation and death of the unfortunate hunter.

Iphigenia and the Taurian Artemis

In the months leading up to the Trojan War, Agamemnon manages to offend the Divine Huntress, either by boasting about his own abilities as an archer or by slaying an animal from a sacred grove. Regardless of the cause, Artemis decided that she would confound the invading army's efforts to reach Troy by directing the winds against them, and thus rendering their massive fleet useless.

Calchas [a Greek seer] said that they could not sail unless Agamemnon's most beautiful daughter were offered to Artemis as a sacrifice. The goddess was angry with Agamemnon because when he had shot a deer he said that not even Artemis could have done it.... After he heard this prophecy Agamemnon sent Odysseus and Talthybius to Clytemnestra to ask for Iphigenia, saying that he had promised to give her to Achilles to be his wife as a reward for going on the expedition. Clytemnestra sent her, and Agamemnon, placing her beside the altar, was about to slaughter her when Artemis carried her off to Tauris. There she made her a priestess and substituted a deer for her at the altar. Some, however, say that Artemis made her immortal.

While the Apollodorus version quoted above has Artemis relenting at the last minute, other versions (including the Agamemnon of Aeschylus) simply allow the king to slit his daughter's throat upon the sacrificial altar.

Niobe

In another case of deadly hubris, Niobe, a Queen of Thebes and wife to King Amphion, boasted that she was superior to Leto because she had fourteen children, while Leto had only two. Upon hearing this impious gloating, the twin deities proceeded to murder all of her offspring, with Artemis cutting down her daughters with poisoned arrows and Apollo massacring her sons as they practiced athletics. At the grim sight of his deceased offspring, Amphion went mad and killed himself (or was killed by Apollo). Likewise, the devastated Queen Niobe committed suicide or was turned to stone by Artemis as she wept.

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,^{[citation needed]} 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

Tizian's Diana and 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 in disguise, 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.

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 times.

Cult of Artemis

<be sure to discuss her role in childbirth here!>

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 usually pictured naked in statues or paintings with deer, bow and arrows, in a forest setting.

Engraving of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, imagined by Martin Heemskerck

In Ionia the "Lady of Ephesus", a goddess whom Hellenes identified with Artemis, was a principal deity. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (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). Template:Greek myth (Olympian) 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 ten and fourteen 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.^{[citation needed]}

Virginal Artemis was worshipped as a fertility/childbirth goddess in some places^{[citation needed]} 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.

The Lady of Ephesus

In Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Here the Lady whom Greeks associated with Artemis through interpretatio Graecae 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.

Artemis in art

The Lady of Ephesus, whom the Greeks identified with Artemis (Archeological Museum, Ephesus, Turkey.

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, 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; ^{[citation needed]} 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.

File:Artemis breasts.jpg

The Artemis of Ephesus, Roman marble (Vatican Museums)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by John Raffan. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. ISBN 0631112413.
• Dillon, Matthew. Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0415127750.
• Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults of the Greek States (in Five Volumes). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.
• Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 080184410X.
• Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths (Complete Edition). London: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0140171991.
• Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908.
• Kerenyi, Karl. The Gods of the Greeks. London & New York: Thames and Hudson, 1951. ISBN 0500270481.
• Mikalson, Jon D. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. ISBN 0631232222.
• Parke, H. W. Festivals of the Athenians. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8014-1054-1.
• Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. ISBN 0-13-716714-8.
• Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1959. ISBN 0-525-47041-7.
• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House, 1991. ISBN 1557784205.
• Vol, Mary. "Athene (Athena) and Artemis" in Seppo Sakari Telenius' Athena-Artemis. Helsinki: Kirja kerrallaan, 2005 and 2006. ISBN 952-92-0560-0.
• Ventris, Michael & Chadwick, John. Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Second Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. ISBN 0521085586.

External links

• Theoi Project—Artemis: information from original Greek and Roman sources, images from classical art. Retrieved June 18, 2007.
• A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. G. E. Marindin, William Smith, LLD, William Wayte). Retrieved June 18, 2007.

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