Artemis

=**Artemis** =

Traditional View of Artemis

Modern Art Depicting a Traditional Artemis

**Other Names**
Artemis has a Roman equivalent, Diana. She was known by various names throughout the Hellenic world, likely because her cult was a syncretic one that blended various deities and observances into a single united form. These names include Agrotera, Amarynthia, Aphaea, Cynthia, Kourotrophos, Limnaia, Locheia, Orthia, Parthenia, Phoebe and Potnia Theron.

**Lineage and Birth**
Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and Apollo was her twin brother. Her name derived from "artemês," which means uninjured, healthy or vigorous. She was known as the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals and fertility. She was closely associated with the moon.

There are many different interpretations of her birth. After Zeus cheated on Hera, his jealous wife, Leto, who was a Titaness, found herself to be pregnant. Hera declared that the Titaness was not allowed to give birth on **terra firma** (or, as another myth states, anywhere the sun shone) and ordered one of her handmaidens to make sure that Leto carried this out. Already straining in her labor, she found the rocky island of Delos, which happened not to be anchored to the mainland. It provided a loophole to the curse, and so it was there that the she gave birth to her twins. One variation of this legend tells how Artemis she was born a day before her brother. Her mother gave birth to her and then Artemis almost immediately helped her mother cross the straits over to Delos, and assisted her in giving birth to Apollo. This event led to her eventual association with the birth of children, as a protectress of women in childbirth.

According to a tradition which Pausanias found in Aeschylus, Artemis was a daughter of Demeter, and not of Leto, while according to an Egyptian story, she was the daughter of Dionysus and Isis, and Leto was only her nurse. But these and some other legends are only the results of the identification of the Greek Artemis with other local or foreign divinities. The place of her birth is for the same reason not the same in all traditions. Some say that it was the grove of Ortygia near Ephesus, others that it was Crete.

**Childhood**
There are not many mentions of her childhood, unlike her brother's. Only a few tales remain, and the Iliad tells of her battle with Hera, her father's wife. As a child, Artemis was defeated by Hera and climbed into her father's lap, crying.

Callimachus, a poet, wrote of wishes she asked her father at the age of three. These wishes were granted.

This excerpt from the poem includes Artemis' desires as she told them to her father: 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.

**Appearance**
The representations of the Greek Artemis in works of art are different accordingly as she is represented either as a huntress, or as the goddess of the moon; yet in either case she appears as a youthful and vigorous divinity, as becomes the sister of Apollo. As the huntress, she is tall, nimble, and has small hips; her forehead is high, her eyes glancing freely about, and her hair tied up behind in such a manner, that some locks float down her neck; her breast is covered, and the legs up to the knees are naked, the rest being covered by the chlamys. Her attributes are the bow, quiver, and arrows, or a spear, stags, and dogs. As the goddess of the moon, she wears a long robe which reaches down to her feet, a veil covers her head, and above her forehead rises the crescent of the moon. In her hand she often appears holding a torch.

**Connection To Nature**
Her connection to nature was seen because she travels with her nymphs, roaming mountains and either hunting or protecting animals such as lions, panthers, hinds and stags (myth conflicts on whether she hunts or protects the animals). Artemis was extremely possessive of her sacred animals. Agamemnon killed a stag in her sacred grove, and she punished him by subduing the wind when he went to sail his ship. She refused to bring the wind back until he sacrificed his daughter. Myths dispute whether he did so or not. Her sacred animals include the bear, the boar (one of the fiercest animals that hunters faced), the deer (which pulled her chariot), fresh-water fish, the buzzard-hawk, the guinea-fowl and the partridge. There were also sacred plants associated with her, such as amaranth, asphodel, the Cypress tree and the palm tree.

**Virginity**
Artemis was a virgin, because at age three she asked her father to grant her eternal virginity. Her companions, the nymphs, were also virgins. Throughout Greek myth, she punished men who tried to take advantage of her purity. There are many instances of this occurring, including when Actaeon came upon Artemis and her nymphs bathing. When she noticed him ogling her and her followers, she transformed him into a stag and set his own dogs upon him. Orion tried to rape Artemis, causing her to kill him. Again there are conflicting myths as to how she brought upon his death, including killing him with her bow and arrow or conjuring a scorpion to kill him and his dog. It was said that upon his death, Orion became a constellation in the sky, while his dog became Sirius. One of Artemis' nymphs, Callisto, was tricked into sexual contact with Zeus. He appeared to her in the guise of Artemis, and she submitted to him. Callisto gave birth to Arcas, and afterward, Artemis changed her into a bear and shot her. Like Orion, she became a constellation - the Great Bear.

**Battles**
Besides revenge for threatening her chastity, Artemis sought revenge for any other sin against her. For example, when Adonis claimed he was a better hunter than she, Artemis sent a wild boar to kill him. She and her brother killed Niobe and her children after she boasted that she was better than their mother, Leto. Apollo killed the sons while Artemis killed the daughters. Artemis also killed her brother's lover, Chione, at his request after she became too proud and vain.

**Worship**
Artemis, or one of her other related names, was worshiped throughout the Hellenic world, in a cult whose geographical expansiveness was only rivaled by its great antiquity. Likewise, her areas of patronage were equally varied: she was the goddess of the hunt and the wild; of chastity; of unexpected mortality (especially of women); of the moon (a position she eventually took over from Selene); and of childbirth. This wide range of her areas of patronage are due to the syncretic nature of her cult, which united various (and largely disparate) local observances under her name. Places of worship central to Artemis herself are the island of Delos, known as her birthplace; outside of Athens, in Brauron; at Mounikhia (located on a hill near the port Piraeus); and in Sparta. In addition to the cult observances associated with specific temples, the goddess was also celebrated at numerous festivals throughout the empire.

**The Lady of Ephesus and The Temple of Artemis**
In Ionia the "Lady of Ephesus," a goddess that the 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 Ancient World, was probably the best known center of her worship apart from Delos. Here the lady whom Greeks associated with Artemis through //interpretatio Graecae// was worshiped primarily as a mother goddess, akin to the Phrygian goddess Cybele. In this ancient sanctuary, her cult image depicted the goddess adorned with multiple rounded breast-like protuberances on her chest. These devotions continued into the Common Era, and are, in fact, attested to in the Christian Gospels. Specifically, when Paul visits the town of Ephasus, the local metalsmiths, who feel threatened by his preaching of a new faith, jealously riot in the goddess's defense, shouting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" (Acts 19:28). The vigor of this crowd was so notable that Paul feared for his life, and fled the town under cover of darkness.

**Accessories**
She was armed with a bow and arrow, which was crafted by Hephaestus and the Cyclopes. She was also in possession of a golden chariot which was pulled by four golden-horned hinds or deer. She had a pack of six hunting dogs, which were a gift from Pan. Like Apollo, she was sometimes depicted as carrying a lyre. She was also depicted with either a torch or several torches.

Modern View of Artemis; drawn by Jasmine Shears

**Personality**
She has a short temper, especially when it comes to men. She is known as a man-hater and a feminist. There is talk of her being homosexual because of her refusal to associate with any males. Whenever she has free time, she likes to spend time in the forest with her nymphs, with whom she has a close relationship. Artemis is quite vengeful, and whenever someone wrongs her, she kills them and/or transforms them into an animal.

**Career**
As she is known as the goddess of childbirth, it makes sense that Artemis would be a midwife. She helps women along while they are giving birth.

**Appearance**
She has long, dark hair that she keeps pinned up during her help with childbirth, but she lets her hair free when she goes into the wilderness, a symbol of her freedom. Instead of a long robe, she wears a black dress that cuts at the knee, with a silvery-yellow ribbon cinched at the waist, representing her association with the moon as well as accentuating her figure. Artemis wears black because she is sick of being associated with white, the color of purity--she has been wearing white for hundreds of years! She also wears black sandles and has dark skin from the time she spends in the wilderness.

**Involvement in The Lightning Thief**
While Artemis is much more central to The Titan's Curse, she is mentioned in The Lightning Thief. Her cabin is number eight and is simply honorary since, as a virgin, she never had children. The cabin is silver. Grover explains that Artemis "vowed to be a maiden forever, so of course, no kids." But he further explains that the cabin had to be built because "if she didn't have one, she'd be mad." In The Titan's Curse, Artemis appears to be about 12 years old. She has auburn hair and silvery-yellow eyes the color of the full moon.

**Artemis in Popular Culture**


Artemis featured on Xena: The Warrior Princess; Artemis character in Wonder Woman animated film