Artemis

Artemis is the Olympian goddess of the hunt, the moon, and chastity; in time, she also became associated with childbirth and nature. No more than few days old, she helped her mother Leto give birth to her twin brother Apollo. Artemis was very protective of her and her priestesses’ innocence. Consequently, she wasn’t very nice when some of them weren’t so careful.

Artemis’ Role

Artemis' Name

Even though Plato says that the name “Artemis” is related to her virginity and the Ancient Greek word for “unharmed” or “pure,” we now know that its origin is undoubtedly different. However, scholars can’t agree over its original meaning.

Artemis' Portrayal and Symbolism

Sculptors, poets, and painters, however, had no such problems. Artemis is almost universally depicted as a young, beautiful and vigorous huntress carrying a quiver with arrows and holding a bow, typically wearing a short knee-high tunic and often accompanied by some animal (stag, doe, or hunting dogs). As a moon goddess, she is sometimes represented wearing a long robe and a crescent moon crown.

Artemis' Epithets

Homer calls Artemis either “The Mistress of Animals” or “She of the Wild.” As a huntress, she is also often referred to as “arrow-pouring” or “deer-shooting.” Just like her brother, she may be occasionally called “bright” or, even more, illustrative of her function as a moon goddess, “torch-bringer.”

Artemis’ Family and Birth

The Trials of Leto

Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, herself a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. Angered by her husband’s infidelity, Hera hunted Leto over the whole planet and forbade her to give birth anywhere on solid earth.

The Birth of Artemis

However, Leto got to the island of Delos and gave birth to Artemis while balancing herself on an olive branch.
When Hera heard this, she prohibited her daughter Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, from helping Leto any further. This postponed the birth of Apollo for nine days. And who knows how much more time it would have passed if the baby Artemis hadn’t miraculously learned the art of midwifery and helped Leto finally deliver her brother.

Artemis Protecting Leto · Niobe and Tityus

Artemis and Apollo were very protective of their mother. When Niobe – a mother of six boys and as many girls – boasted that while Leto gave birth to two gods, she delivered a whole Olympus, Apollo and Artemis killed all her children. Apollo took care of the male offspring and Artemis of Niobe’s daughters. On another occasion, Tityus tried to rape Leto. Naturally, he was killed by Apollo’s and Artemis’s arrows.

Artemis, the Vengeful Virgin Goddess

When Artemis was still a little maid, she asked from her father Zeus to keep her maidenhood forever. So – just like Athena and Hestia – she remained chaste for eternity. And she guarded this vow even more vigorously than them.

Artemis and Actaeon

For example, when the hunter Actaeon saw her bathing naked, she transformed him into a stag and set his hounds against him. Needless to add, Actaeon was ripped apart to pieces.

Artemis and Siproites

The less famous Siproites was just a boy when he had Actaeon’s misfortune of accidentally seeing the goddess unclothed. So, he was punished less severely: Artemis transformed him into a girl (the story is preserved by Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 17).

Artemis and Orion

Others tried to rape Artemis; none of them lived to tell. The most famous story involves Orion, a long-time hunting companion of hers. In fact, he may as well have been Artemis’ only love interest. However, when he tried taking off Artemis’ robe, the goddess killed him. Others say that Orion was actually killed by a scorpion sent by Gaea or an Apollo’s arrow; the gods merely tried to keep Artemis’ virginity intact the only time she couldn’t.

Artemis, the Defender of Purity

Artemis didn’t only take care of her own purity; she also defended the innocence of her worshippers. And was merciless if any one of her priestesses ever lost it.

Artemis and Callisto

For example, her hunting companion Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, was seduced by Zeus and hid it until Artemis saw her bathing and discovered that she was with child. In the version attributed to Hesiod, the enraged goddess turned her into a bear; as a bear she bore Zeus’s son Arcas, and years later, pursued by her own grown son and the Arcadians, she was about to be killed when Zeus set her among the stars as the Bear, with Arcas beside her as the Bear-warden (Hesiod, Catalogue fragments, quoted by Eratosthenes; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.1). In other versions it was Hera who made her a bear and Artemis who shot her (Apollodorus 3.8.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.466–507).

Artemis and Hippolytus

Just as she punished the transgressors of the sacred vow, Artemis rewarded those who kept it. So as to devote himself to a chaste life, Hippolytus scorned Aphrodite after which the goddess of love made his stepmother fall in love with him. This set a chain of events which led to Hippolytus’ death. However, Artemis called upon Asclepius and resurrected Hippolytus as a new man, who subsequently ruled in Italy under the name of Virbius.

Artemis and Iphigenia

In the case of Iphigenia, Artemis substituted the girl with a deer just as Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon. Afterward, she took Iphigenia with her in Tauris and made her a priestess of her cult.

Obscure Facts about Artemis

Artemis and Amazons

Artemis is linked with the Amazons, the legendary tribe of warrior women, through her sanctuary at Ephesus. Callimachus says that the Amazons set up an image of Artemis there beneath an oak trunk and danced a war-dance around it, led by their queen Hippo (Hymn to Artemis 237–250). Pausanias also records the tradition that the Amazons dedicated the image and sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess when they fled from Heracles and from Dionysus, though he denies that they founded the sanctuary, which he attributes to Coresus and Ephesus (Pausanias 4.31.8, 7.2.7).

Artemis and Ephesus

The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey, was the most famous seat of her worship. Pausanias writes that all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus, and that the temple surpasses all buildings among men in size (Pausanias 4.31.8). Strabo adds that the temple was, and in his own day still was, a place of refuge, whose limits of asylum were altered more than once (Strabo 14.1.23).

Artemis Sources

“The Homeric Hymn to Artemis” may be short and merely descriptive, but Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis (his 3^rd Hymn) is lengthy and rather charming. Euripides’ celebrated plays “Hippolytus” and “Iphigenia in Tauris” tell two of the most famous stories related to Artemis.

See Also: Actaeon, Apollo, Leto, Orion