Turned a hunter into a stag for seeing her bathe, and his own hounds tore him apart
Actaeon, whose fifty dogs then searched for their master; told by Ovid and in Titian's painting.
Myth · Greek
Artemis
Greek mythology — Olympian, virgin goddess of the hunt, wild animals and childbirth
Artemis is the virgin goddess of the hunt, of wild country and wild creatures, of young girls and, despite her chastity, of childbirth — having helped her own mother deliver her twin. She roams the mountains with a bow and a band of nymphs, and punishes trespass on her privacy or her animals with famous severity. Her temple at Ephesus, where she was worshipped in a very different, many-breasted Anatolian form, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
How to spot them
- ▸Bow and quiver, the crescent moon, the deer and the hunting dog; the short tunic of a huntress
- ▸Twin sister of Apollo, born to Leto on Delos
- ▸Epithets Potnia Theron ('mistress of animals'), Phoebe, Cynthia and Orthia
- ▸The Temple at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders, burned down in 356 BC
- ▸One of the three virgin goddesses, with Athena and Hestia
Stories & episodes
Becalmed a fleet at Aulis until a king agreed to sacrifice his daughter
Agamemnon had killed a sacred deer; Iphigenia was snatched away and a hind left in her place.
Sent a monstrous boar against a kingdom whose king forgot her harvest offering
The Calydonian boar hunt, in which Atalanta drew first blood.
Killed the giant hunter who boasted he could kill every animal on earth
Orion, dispatched by her arrow or by a scorpion; both became constellations.
At three days old she asked her father for eternal maidenhood, a bow and sixty ocean nymphs
The request in Callimachus' Hymn 3, which also asks for a tunic to the knee.
Helped deliver her own twin brother immediately after being born
Hence her role as goddess of childbirth, worshipped alongside Eileithyia.
Turned a companion into a bear for breaking her vow of chastity
Callisto, seduced by Zeus, became Ursa Major; the transformation is credited to Artemis or to Hera.
Quick-fire facts
- •Roman equivalent: Diana, whose grove at Lake Nemi and its priest the Rex Nemorensis open Frazer's The Golden Bough
- •Daughter of Zeus and Leto; twin sister of Apollo; her name appears in Linear B as a-te-mi-to
- •The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was burned in 356 BC by Herostratus, seeking fame; the Ephesians banned mention of his name
- •The Ephesian cult statue is covered in ovoid protuberances, variously read as breasts, eggs or bull testicles
- •Girls served her as arktoi, 'little bears', at Brauron in Attica
- •At Sparta, boys were flogged at the altar of Artemis Orthia
- •She is sometimes identified with Selene (the moon) and with Hecate, as Apollo was with Helios
- •In Euripides' Hippolytus, the hero's devotion to her and neglect of Aphrodite destroys him
- •Acts 19 records the riot of Ephesian silversmiths shouting 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians'
- •NASA's Artemis programme, the successor to Apollo, is named for her
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Sources
- Aaron J. Atsma, the Theoi Project — Artemis
- Callimachus — Hymn 3, To Artemis The child goddess's requests to Zeus, and her nymphs and hunting gear