Artemis

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[[Image:Diane de Versailles Leochares.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The ''[[Diana of Versailles]]'', a [[Roman art|Roman]] copy of a [[sculpture]] by [[Leochares]] ([[Louvre Museum]])]]

In [[Greek mythology]], '''Artemis''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: ([[nominative]]) {{polytonic|Ἄρτεμις}}, ([[genitive]]) {{polytonic|Ἀρτέμιδος}}) was the daughter of [[Zeus]] and [[Leto]] and the twin sister of [[Apollo]]. She was usually depicted as the maiden goddess of the hunt, bearing a bow and arrows. Later she became associated with the moon, as her brother was with the sun.

She was one of the most widely venerated of the gods and manifestly one of the oldest deities (Burkert 1985:149). In later times she was associated and considered synonymous with the [[Roman mythology|Roman]] [[goddess]] [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]]. In [[Etruscan mythology]], she took the form of [[Artume]] [[Deer]] and [[Cupressus|cypress]] are sacred to her.

== Worship ==

Artemis was worshipped throughout the [[Ancient Greece|Hellenic world]]. She is the goddess of the hunt and the wild; she gradually displaced [[Selene]] (the [[Titan (mythology)|titaness]] of the moon) as goddess of the [[moon]]. Her best known [[Cult (religious practice)|cults]] were in her birthplace, the island of [[Delos]]; in Brauron; Mounikhia (located on a hill near the port [[Piraeus]]); and in [[Sparta]]. Artemis is portrayed in statues or paintings with deer, bow and arrows, in a forest setting.

[[Image:Temple of Artemis.jpg|thumb|left|300px|[[Engraving]] of the [[Temple of Artemis|temple]] [[Ephesus|at Ephesus]], imagined by [[Martin Heemskerck]]]]

In [[Ionia]] the "''Lady of Ephesus''", a goddess whom [[Hellenes]] identified with Artemis, was a principal deity. Her temple at Ephesus (an ancient [[Greece|Greek]] [[city]] located in western part of [[Turkey]]), one of the [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World|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).
{{Greek myth (Olympian)}}
Athenian festivals in honor of Artemis include [[Elaphebolia]], [[Mounikhia]], [[Kharisteria]], [[Brauronia]]; the festival of [[Artemis Orthia]] was observed in [[Sparta]].

Young Athenian girls between the ages of five and ten 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.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

Virginal Artemis was worshipped as a fertility/childbirth goddess in some places{{Fact|date=February 2007}} since, according to some myths, she assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin. During the [[classical antiquity|Classical period]] in [[Athens]], she was identified with [[Hecate]]. Artemis also assimilated [[Caryatis]] ([[Carya (goddess)|Carya]]) and [[Ilithyia]].

===Artemis in art===

[[Image:Statue of Artemis Ephesus.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The Lady of Ephesus, whom the Greeks identified with Artemis (Archeological Museum, Ephesus, [[Turkey]].]]

The oldest representations of Artemis in Greek Archaic art portray her as ''[[Potnia Theron]]'' ("Queen of the Beasts"): a winged goddess holding a stag and leopard in her hands, or sometimes a leopard and a lion. This winged Artemis lingered in ex-votos as [[Artemis Orthia]], with a sanctuary close by [[Sparta]].

In Greek classical art she is usually portrayed as a maiden huntress clothed in a girl's short skirt,<ref>Homer portrayed Artemis as girlish in the ''[[Iliad]]''.</ref> with hunting boots, a quiver, a bow<ref>Greek poets could not decide whether her bow was silver or gold: Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks she draws her golden bow." ([[Homeric Hymn]] to Artemis), and it is a golden bow in [[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 1.693, where her nymph's is of horn; "And how often goddess, didst thou make trial of thy silver bow?", asks [[Callimachus]] for whom it is a [[Cydonia]]n bow that the [[Cyclopes]] make for her (Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis).</ref> and arrows. Often she is shown in the shooting pose, and is accompanied by a [[hunting dog]] or stag. Her darker side is revealed in some vase paintings, where she is shown as the death-bringing goddess whose arrows fell young maidens and women, such as the daughters of [[Niobe]].

The attributes of the goddess were often varied: bow and arrows were sometimes replaced by hunting spears; as a goddess of maiden dances she held a lyre; {{Fact|date=February 2007}} as a goddess of light a pair of flaming torches.

Only in post-Classical art do we find representations of Artemis-Diana with the crown of the [[crescent]] [[moon]], as [[Luna (goddess)|Luna]]. In the [[Ancient history|ancient world]], although she was occasionally associated with the moon, she was never portrayed as the moon itself. Ancient statues of the goddesses can sometimes be found with crescent moons, however these are invariably Renaissance-era additions.

On June 7, 2007, a Roman era bronze sculpure of "Artemis and the Stag" was sold at [[Sotheby's]] auction house in New York City by the [[Albright-Knox Art Gallery]] in [[Buffalo, New York]] for $25.5 million, setting the record as the most expensive sculpture and antiquity sold by auction.

[[Image:Artemis breasts.jpg|left|thumb|250px|The Artemis of Ephesus, Roman marble ([[Vatican Museums]])]]

=== Artemis as ''the 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 have been interpreted as multiple [[accessory breast]]s, as tradition has it, or sacrificed bull testes, as some newer scholars claim.<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9E04E3DB1130F932A1575BC0A962958260 "In Search of Diana of Ephesus", ''New York Times'', August 21 1994.]</ref>

=== Epithets ===
As '''Aeginaea''', she was worshiped in [[Sparta]]; the name means either huntress of [[chamois]], or the wielder of the javelin ({{polytonic|αιγανέα}}).<ref>[[Pausanias]], iii. 14. § 3</ref><ref>{{Citation
| last = Schmitz
| first = Leonhard
| author-link =
| contribution = Aeginaea
| editor-last = Smith
| editor-first = William
| title = [[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]
| volume = 1
| pages = 26
| publisher =
| place = Boston
| year = 1867
| contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0035.html }}</ref> 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.<ref>[[Pausanias]], x. 38. § 6.</ref> This "Aetolian Artemis" would not have been introduced at Naupactus, anciently a place of [[Ozolian Locris]], until it was awarded to the [[Aetolia]]ns by [[Philip II of Macedon]]. Strabo records another precinct of "Aetolian Artemos" at the head of the [[Adriatic Sea|Adriatic]].<ref>"Among the Heneti certain honours have been decreed to Diomedes; and, indeed, a white horse is still sacrificed to him, and two precincts are still to be seen — one of them sacred to the Argive Hera and the other to the Aetolian Artemis. (Strabo, v.1.9 [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/5A*.html on-line text]).</ref> As '''Agrotera''', she was especially associated as the patron goddess of hunters. In Athens Artemis was often associated with the local [[Aegina|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 [[Cynthus|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]]. 

[[Image:Bust of the goddess of Issa, Vis Museum, Croatia.JPG|thumb|Fourth century [[Praxiteles|Praxitelean]] bronze head of a goddess wearing a [[lunate]] crown, found at Issa ([[Vis]], Croatia)]]
== Etymology ==
There may be some connection with the [[Greek language|Greek]] αρτεμης = "safe and sound" from the [[root (linguistics)|root]] αρ = "to fit". {{Fact|date=February 2007}}

== Birth ==
In Greek mythology Artemis is the daughter of [[Zeus]] and [[Leto]], and the twin sister of [[Apollo]]. Leto had to find a place where the sun had never shone to give birth to the two due to a curse set by [[Hera]], Zeus' wife, because she was angry with Zeus. For this, Zeus raised an island that had been floating underwater and not yet touched by the sun. The island was [[Delos]], and Leto gave birth there, while grasping hold of a sacred [[Arecaceae|palm-tree]]. Artemis was born first, on the 6th of the month. She then proceeded to assist her mother with the birth of Apollo, who was born on the 7th.

== Childhood ==
The childhood of Artemis is not embodied in any surviving myth, but 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 several 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 [[nymph]]s to be her hunting companions, "sixty dancing girls, daughters of [[Oceanus|Ocean]], all nine years old, all little girl sea nymphs." He granted her wishes.<ref>[http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/artemis.html On-line English translation].</ref> All of her companions remained virgins, and Artemis guarded her own chastity closely. Her symbol was the silver bow and arrow.

[[Image:Adonis3.jpg|thumb|[[Adonis]].]]
==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 [[Boar|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 (mythology)|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 (mythology)|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 [[Scorpius#Mythology|scorpion]] sent by [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaea]]. In some versions, Orion tried to rape one of her followers and she killed him. In one version,{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Orion tried to rape Artemis herself and she killed him in [[self-defense]]. According to [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|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 ===
[[Image:Tizian 015.jpg|thumb|300px|right|[[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 deer 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 (Greece)|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 [[Suicide|committed suicide]]. In some myths she was thrown into a forsaken part of the Egyptian desert. Another says 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 and Ephialtes ===
The [[Gigantes]] [[Aloadae|Otus]] and [[Ephialtes (giant)|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 [[Mount Olympus (Mountain)|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.

== Artemis in Astronomy ==

The [[minor planet]] [[(105) Artemis]]; a [[Artemis (crater)|lunar crater]]; also [[Artemis Chasma]] and [[Artemis Corona]], both on Venus, have all been named for her.

== Artemis in Astrology ==

In the western zodiac, Artemis is the ruling Goddess of the Cancer sign due to her common affiliation with Earth's Moon.

==References==
{{Reflist}}
*[[Walter Burkert|Burkert, Walter]], 1985. ''Greek Religion'' (Cambridge:Harvard University Press)
*[[Robert Graves|Graves, Robert]] (1955) 1960. ''The Greek Myths'' (Penguin)
*[[Karl Kerenyi|Kerenyi, Karl]], 1951. ''The Gods of the Greeks''
*[[Seppo Telenius|Telenius, Seppo]] (2005) 2006. ''Athena-Artemis'' (Helsinki: Kirja kerrallaan)
*[http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/93865.html Buffalo News article - '''Artemis' sets auction records''], June 8, 2007

==External links==
{{commons|Artemis}}
* [http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html Theoi Project, Artemis, information on Artemis from original Greek and Roman sources, images from classical art].
*[http://www.crystalrivers.com/prayers/artemis.html Hymn To Artemis - The Virgin Goddess of the Hunt]
*[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063&query=label%3D%23290&word=Amarysia A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. G. E. Marindin, William Smith, LLD, William Wayte)]

{{Greek myth (Olympian)2}}
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[[Category:Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Twelve Olympians]]
[[Category:Lunar goddesses]]
[[Category:Hunting goddesses]]
[[Category:Nature goddesses]]
[[Category:Animal goddesses]]
[[Category:Childhood goddesses]]
[[Category:Offspring of Zeus]]

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