Artemis the Daughter of Zeus

Artemis in Greek mythology the daughter of Zeus and of Leto and the twin sister of Apollo 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 combined 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 almost everywhere in Greece. She is the goddess of the hunt and the wild; she gradually displaced Selene 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 in statues or paintings with deer, bow and arrows, near a forest and various animals in nature.


Engraving of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, imagined by Martin Heemskerckn 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).

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[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.


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. 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.


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" with many breasts. Her cult statue was adorned with multiple rounded protuberances on her chest.


Epithets
As Agrotera, she was especially associated as the patron goddess of hunters. 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 initially held originally at Amarynthus in Euboea. She sometimes used the name Phoebe, the feminine form of her brother, Apollo's, Phoebus.

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



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. 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 the god king's knee, to grant her several wishes. First she asked to remain a virgin forever. She then asked to never have to be married and to have lop-eared hounds, stags to lead her chariot, and nymphs as her hunting companions, "sixty dancing girls, daughters of Ocean, all nine years old, all little girl sea nymphs." He granted her wishes. All of her companions remained virgins, and Artemis guarded her own chastity closely.



Actaeon
She was once bathing naked in a vale on Mount Cithaeron, when the Theban prince and hunter Actaeon stumbled across her. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. He was so stunned that he accidentally stepped on a twig, and Artemis noticed him. She was so disgusted at his stares that she threw magical water at his forehead. The water transformed him into a stag and his own hounds killed him. He was torn apart by the deadly hunting dogs, who never knew that the stag they were hunting was their own master. 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.


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 nude 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-defence. 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.