Artemis is generally known as the ancient Greek goddess of hunting; however, in contrast to the other gods of Olympus, she was a deity associated with multiple cults.
All ancient Greek gods were temperamental, as they reflected the nature of humans, who are often temperamental themselves. They were simply mercurial and often unpredictable, as was the case with Artemis, too, but she also possessed seemingly contradictory traits and was worshiped for a myriad of reasons.
While Artemis is the goddess of hunting, she is also reminiscent of the fearless amazon, with the wild as her divine kingdom and wildlife being her constituents. She wears a lion’s skin with the ease that Heracles wore the lion’s head as if she is ready to go out on the hunt or go to battle, and although she is known for being beautiful, she avoids the company of men and is instead dedicated to chastity.
Artemis is ruthless when it comes to those who disrespect her kingdom and doles out the appropriate punishment to them. She adores the creatures of her kingdom yet punishes men who disrespect her realm by turning them into animals. How is it that she punishes those who have crossed her by transforming them into animals she loves and protects, one may wonder.
In art she is often portrayed as clean and pure, equipped with a bow, quiver of arrows, and a deer lovingly at her side as the protector of the very animals she also hunts down. She is occasionally also depicted in animal skins much like a primitive hunter. At other times, she holds a torch and two live snakes. Hence, while she is the goddess of nature and the wild, she is also found leaning to the darker side in association with Hecate, the goddess of the Moon, night, magic, and witchcraft.
The myth of Artemis’ sacred grove in Mysia, situated in northwestern Asia Minor, adds yet another dimension to the goddess. The grove was protected by a giant serpent named Ophiogeneikos and a woman named Halia. According to the myth, Ophiogeneikos guarded the grove and impregnated Halia, who then gave birth to the Ophiogeneis, a tribe ancients believed had the power to heal snakebites.
The protectress of women and girls
Artemis, commonly known as the goddess of hunting and the protectress of women and girls, was worshiped in Attica as well as in the southern and eastern Peloponnese. As a huntress, she roamed the forests and mountains. As a protectress, she was also revered as the goddess of childbirth and midwifery.
In Athens, as Pausanias writes in Description of Greece 1.19.6:
“Across the Illisos (River) is a district called Agrai and a temple of Artemis Agrotera (the Huntress). They say that Artemis first hunted here when she came from Delos, and for this reason the statue carries a bow.”
Pausanias goes on to mention several other sanctuaries of the goddess in the Academy precinct of Athens, including wooden images of Artemis Ariste (the Best) and Kalliste (the Fairest).
Plutarch, in the Life of Themistocles, writes about a temple that the famous general built, giving Artemis the epithet “Aristoboule,” meaning the “Best Counselor.” This angered many Athenians, as it implied that he had provided the best counsel to the city and the Hellenes.
In 1.23.7, Pausanias describes the famous sanctuary of Artemis at Vravron in Attica, where the wooden statue of Artemis Vravornia was worshiped. In another passage, he recounts how Xerxes, the king of Persia, stole the statue after the sacking of Athens (480–479 BC).
Pausanias also mentions sanctuaries of Artemis on the islands of Aegina and Salamis, as well as in Corinth, Sicyon, Argos, Sparta, Caryae, Mount Taygetos, and other locations throughout the Peloponnese in Southern Greece.
The goddess of the waters and fishermen
In the northwestern Peloponnese, Artemis was venerated at numerous shrines in the hills of Arcadia and Achaea, the most important of which were arguably her temples at Patras and Lake Stymphalia. Throughout the region, she was commonly worshiped as a lake goddess and guardian of waters, believed to bless hunters, fowlers, and fishermen with bountiful catches.
In Description of Greece (8.53.11), the ancient geographer Pausanias writes:
“On the left of the road as you go from Tegea to Lakonia there is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Limnatis (Lady of the Lake), with an image of ebony. The fashion of the workmanship is what the Greeks call Aeginatian.”
Similarly, Strabo, in Geography (8.3.12), describes the region of Elis as a land “full of temples of Artemis, Aphrodite, and the Nymphae, situated in sacred precincts…generally full of flowers due to the abundance of water.”
In another passage, Pausanias (Description of Greece 5.19.5) describes a winged statue of Artemis at Olympia: “On what account Artemis has wings on her shoulders I do not know; in her right hand she grips a leopard, in her left a lion.”
In Description of Greece (6.22.8), the ancient Greek traveler recounts the story of Artemis Alpheiaea in a temple:
“Legend has it that the goddess received the surname for the following reason. Alpheios (River) fell in love with Artemis, and then, realizing that persuasive entreaties would not win the goddess as his bride, he dared to plot violence against her. Artemis was holding at Letrinoi an all-night revel with the Nymphae who were her playmates, and to it came Alpheios. But Artemis had a suspicion of the plot of Alpheios, and smeared with mud her own face and the faces of the Nymphae with her. So Alpheios, when he joined the throng, could not distinguish Artemis from the others, and, not being able to pick her out, went away without bringing off his attempt.”
“Above the temple of Athena (at Pellene, Aachaea) is a grove, surrounded by a wall, of Artemis surnamed Sotera (Savior), by whom they swear their most solemn oaths,” he also writes in Description of Greece (7.24.4). “No man may enter the grove except the priests. These priests are natives, chosen chiefly because of their [noble lineage].”
The goddess with the torches who saved Iphigenia
In Aulis, located in Boeotia, Pausanias describes a temple of Artemis that houses two statues carved from white marble:
“One carries torches, and the other is [depicted] shooting an arrow. The story is that when, in obedience to the soothsaying of Calchas, the Greeks were about to sacrifice Iphigenia on the altar, the goddess substituted a deer to be the victim instead of her. Preserve in the temple is what still survives of the plane-tree mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. The story is that the Greeks were kept at Aulis by contrary winds, and when suddenly a favoring breeze sprang up, each sacrificed to Artemis the victim he had to hand, female and male alike.”
In Boeotia, located in Central Greece, there are several sanctuaries dedicated to Artemis, as well as some shared with her brother, Apollo. At Cape Artemision—named after the goddess—Herodotus (Histories 7.176) writes of:
“…the wide Thracian sea that contracts until the passage between the island of Skiathos and the mainland of Magnesia is but narrow. This strait leads next to Artemision, which is a beach on the coast of Euboea, on which stands a temple of Artemis (off the coast of which the Persian fleet was destroyed by the Greeks.”
“Above all other divinities they (the people of Hyampolis in Phocis) worship Artemis, of whom they have a temple,” Pausanias also writes of Phocis in Book 10 of his famous work, Description of Greece. “The image of her I cannot describe, for their rule is to open the sanctuary twice, and not more often, every year. They say that whatever cattle they consecrate to Artemis grow up immune to disease and fatter than other cattle.”
Callimachus, an ancient Greek poet and librarian from Alexandria who was active during the Hellenistic era, also wrote about the cult of Artemis on the island of Euboea (also spelled “Evia”), the second-largest Greek island, which lies east of Attica, where Athens is located. In Iambi, he notes that in Amarynthos, the goddess was worshiped under the epithet Artemis Kolainis (“the Hornless”) because Agamemnon had sacrificed a hornless ram to her. According to tradition, Agamemnon established her as “the goddess to whom the tailless and the one-eyed are sacrificed” (Description of Greece 10.35.7).
The Artemis cult in the colonies
The cult of Artemis in the Greek colonies of Anatolia, the Black Sea, North Africa, and Italy varied significantly, often incorporating elements of local deities who were reclassified as “Artemis.”
In Anatolia, the Ephesian Artemis was worshiped as a mother goddess rather than as the hunting queen of the forests and mountains. She was commonly depicted with multiple rows of egg-shaped breasts, symbolizing motherhood and fertility.
Regarding Artemis of Ephesus, Pausanias writes in Description of Greece (4.31.7):
“All cities worship Artemis Ephesia, and individuals hold her in honor above all the gods. The reason, in my view, is the renown of the Amazons, who traditionally dedicated the image, and the extreme antiquity of this sanctuary. Three other points as well have contributed to her fame: the size of the temple, surpassing all buildings among men, the eminence of the city of the Ephesians, and the renown of the goddess who dwells there.”
Another version of Artemis was worshiped on the Tauric Chersonese along the Black Sea in what is now modern-day Crimea. This region was inhabited by a people known as the Tauri. The early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (circa 150–216 AD) writes in Exhortation to the Greeks:
“The Taurian race, who dwell along the Taurian peninsula, whenever they capture strangers in their territory, that is to say, men who have been shipwrecked, sacrifice them on the spot to Tauric Artemis. These are your sacrifices which Euripides represents in tragedy upon the stage.”
The cults of these two foreign versions of Artemis spread throughout the Greek world, with the temple of Artemis in Ephesus being one of the largest. Strabo, (Geography 14.1.22) writes:
“As for the temple of Artemis, in Ephesus, its first architect was Khersiphron; and then another man made it larger. But when it was set on fire by a certain Herostratos, the citizens erected another and better one, having collected the ornaments of the women and their own individual belongings, and having sold also the pillars of the former temple.”
Roman author Aelian (175-235 AD) also wrote about a giant serpent guarding the grove of Artemis in his book On Animals. “Halia, the daughter of Sybaris, was entering a grove of Artemis (the grove was in Phrygia or Mysia) when a divine Drakon appeared to her—it was of immense size—and lay with her,” he wrote. “And from this union sprang the Ophiogeneis (Snake-born) of the first generation.”
In ancient Italy, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus likewise wrote of Artemis, recounting in Library of History that the goddess was granted the island of Ortygia—part of Syracuse—by the gods. According to both oracles and local tradition, the island was named in her honor. To please Artemis, a group of nymphs created a notable spring, named Arethousa, which flowed there. The fountain was said to be filled with large fish that were considered sacred and, even in Diodorus’s time, it remained untouched by humans.
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