Artemis

 

In Greek mythology, Artemis [(Greek: (nominative) Ἄñôåìéò, (genitive) ἈñôÝìéäïò)] was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the goddess of forests and hills and was often depicted as carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her. 

 

Her later association with the moon is a popular idea which has little foundation. She became associated with Selene, goddess of the moon, and was sometimes depicted with a crescent moon above her head.

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the gods and one of the oldest (Burkert 1985, 149). In later times, she became associated with the Roman goddess Diana and with the Etruscan goddess, Artume. 

Artemis, the goddess of hunting and the keeper of forests and hills, was worshipped throughout the Hellenic world. Her best known cults were in the island of Delos (her birthplace); in Attica at Brauron and Mounikhia (near Piraeus); and in Sparta. She was often depicted in paintings and statues in a forest setting, carrying a bow and arrows and accompanied by a deer.  

She gradually displaced Selene (the titaness of the moon) as goddess of the moon. 

 

  

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). 

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

 

Pre-pubescent Athenian girls young Athenian girls approaching marriageable age 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, assimilating Ilithyia, 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). 

 

Artemis asthe 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. They had been traditionally interpreted as multiple accessory breasts, or as sacrificed bull testes, as some newer scholars claimed, until excavation at the site of the Artemision in 1987-88 identified the multitude of tear-shaped amber beads that had adorned her ancient wooden xoanon. 

 

 

Epithets

As Aeginaea, she was worshiped in Sparta; the name means either huntress of chamois, or the wielder of the javelin (áéãáíÝá). She was worshipped at Naupactus as Aetole; in her temple in that town there was a statue of white marble representing her throwing a javelin. This “Aetolian Artemis” would not have been introduced at Naupactus, anciently a place of Ozolian Locris, until it was awarded to the Aetolians by Philip II of Macedon. Strabo records another precinct of “Aetolian Artemos” at the head of the Adriatic. 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 was sometimes identified by the name Phoebe, the feminine form of her brother Apollo’s solar epithet Phoebus. 

The ancient Spartans used to sacrifice to her as one of their patron goddesses before starting a new military campaign.

Various conflicting accounts are given in Greek mythology of the birth of Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo. All accounts agree, however, that she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto.

An account by Callimachus has it that Hera forbade Leto to give birth on either terra firma (the mainland) or on an island. Hera was angry with Zeus, her husband, because he had impregnated Leto. But the island of Delos (or possibly Ortygia) disobeyed Hera, and Leto gave birth there.

The childhood of Artemis is not embodied in any surviving myth: the Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. 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 six 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, 60 from the river and 20 from the ocean. Also, she asked for a silver bow like her brother Apollo. He granted her wishes. 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

 

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 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 stag 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.Some myths say 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 andEphialtes

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.

 

 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis

Demeter

The Greek earth goddess par excellence, who brings forth the fruits of the earth, particularly the various grains. She taught mankind the art of sowing and ploughing so they could end their nomadic existence. As such, Demeter was also the goddess of planned society. She was very popular with the rural population. As a fertility goddess she is sometimes identified with Rhea and Gaia.

In systematized theology, Demeter is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister of Zeus by whom she became the mother of Persephone. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, lord of the underworld, Demeter wandered the earth in search of her lost child. During this time the earth brought forth no grain. Finally Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld, ordering Hades to restore Persephone
to her mother. However, before she left, Hades gave her a pomegranate (a common fertility symbol). When she ate from it, she was bound to spend a third of the year with her husband in the infernal regions. Only when her daughter is with her, Demeter lets things grow (summer). The dying and blossoming of nature was thus connected with Demeter. 

 

In the Eleusinian mysteries, Demeter and Persephone were especially venerated. When she was looking for her daughter, in the shape of an old woman called Doso, she was welcomed by Celeus, the king of Eleusis (in Attica). He requested her to nurse his sons Demophon and Triptolemus ‘. To reward his hospitality she intended to make the boy Demophon immortal by placing him each night in the hearth, to burn his mortal nature away. The spell was broken one night because Metanira, the wife of Celeus, walked in on her while she was performing this ritual. Demeter taught the other son, Triptolemus, the principles of agriculture, who, in turn, taught others this
art. In Demeter’s honor as a goddess of marriage, women in Athens, and other centers in Greece, celebrated the feast of Thesmophoria
(from her epithet Thesmophoros, “she of the regular customs”). Throughout Classical times members of all social strata came from
all parts of the Mediterranean world to be initiated in and celebrate her Mysteries at Eleusis. 

 

In ancient art, Demeter was often portrayed (sitting) as a solemn woman, often wearing a wreath of braided ears of corn. Well-known is the statue made by Knidos (mid forth century BCE). Her usual symbolic attributes are the fruits of the earth and the torch, the latter presumably referring to her search for Persephone. Her sacred animals were the snake (an earth-creature) and the pig (another symbol of fertility). Some of her epithets include Auxesia, Deo, Chloe, and Sito. The Romans equated her with the goddess Ceres.