Her great temple at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, before it was burnt to the ground. In the war that followed, Artemis along with her twin brother and mother supported the Trojans against the Greeks, and challenged Hera into battle.Īrtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities, her worship spread throughout ancient Greece, with her multiple temples, altars, shrines, and local veneration found everywhere in the ancient world. In most versions, when Iphigenia is led to the altar to be offered as a sacrifice, Artemis pities her and takes her away, leaving another deer in her place. Artemis demanded the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's young daughter, as compensation for her slain deer. In the Epic tradition, Artemis halted the winds blowing the Greek ships during the Trojan War, stranding the Greek fleet in Aulis, after King Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, shot and killed her sacred deer. In the story of Callisto, the girl is driven away from Artemis' company after breaking her vow of virginity, having lain with and been impregnated by Zeus. In the myth of Actaeon, when the young hunter sees her bathing naked, he is transformed into a deer by the angered goddess and is then devoured by his own hunting dogs who do not recognize their own master.
In myth and literature, Artemis is presented as a hunting goddess of the woods, surrounded by her followers, who are not to be crossed. Much like Athena and Hestia, Artemis preferred to remain a maiden goddess and was sworn never to marry, and was thus one of the three Greek virgin goddesses, over whom the goddess of love and lust, Aphrodite, had no power whatsoever. Artemis was worshipped as one of the primary goddesses of childbirth and midwifery along with Eileithyia and Hera. Like her brother, she was a kourotrophic (child-nurturing) deity, that is the patron and protector of young children, especially young girls, and women, and was believed to both bring disease upon women and children and relieve them of it. Usually, Artemis is the twin to be born first, who then proceeds to assist Leto in the birth of the second child, Apollo.
Only the island of Delos gave refuge to Leto, allowing her to give birth to her children. For this, Zeus' wife Hera forbade Leto from giving birth anywhere on land. In most accounts, the twins are the products of an extramarital liaison. In Greek tradition, Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent. She would often roam the forests of Greece, attended by her large entourage, mostly made up of nymphs, some mortals, and hunters. She was heavily identified with Selene, the personification of the Moon, and Hecate, another lunar deity, and was thus regarded as one of the most prominent lunar deities in mythology, alongside the aforementioned two. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Artemis ( / ˈ ɑːr t ɪ m ɪ s/ Greek: Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity.
Artemis (seated and wearing a radiate crown), the beautiful nymph Callisto (left), Eros and other nymphs.
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