An Ephesian statue of Artemis as a fertility goddess |
Artemis
Roman name: Diana
The virgin huntress
Alternative names include Cynthia (from her birthplace on Mount Cynthus on Delos), Potnia Theron (mistress of wild animals) and Locheia (helper in childbirth).
Normally depicted as a huntress with her bow and arrows, a stag, or her hounds. Often depicted with a crescent moon.
Goddess of the hunt
Artemis was a goddess of wild nature, who danced with her nymphs in forests, mountains and marshes. She was an incomparable huntress, but also protected wild animals.
She was armed with a bow and arrows made by the blacksmith god, Hephaestus.
Goddess of virginity and childbirth
Artemis was a goddess of contradictions. She was a virgin goddess who protected her chastity ferociously (see below), but she was also a goddess of fertility and childbirth.
Especially under her alternative name, Cynthia, Artemis was associated with the moon. The moon is cold, pure and distant and is conventionally linked to chastity. But the lunar cycle is also associated with menstrual cycles, and Artemis was also worshipped as a fertility goddess. She had an important cult following at Ephesus where statues show her with nodes over her chest which may be extra breasts, or bulls’ testicles sacrificed to her, but are certainly fertility symbols.
Artemis was also a goddess of childbirth. In one version of her birth story she was a midwife when she was a day old! Her mother, Leto gave birth to Artemis on the island of Ortygia, and then the newborn goddess helped her mother to cross the straits to Delos, where she then delivered her twin brother Apollo the following day.
Artemis was attended by her nymphs, who were also supposed to remain virgins but there are numerous stories of their love affairs. It is suggested that these licentious stories were originally told about Artemis before she was widely adopted as a figure of chastity. This would help to explain the contradictions in her character.
Vengeful goddess
Artemis was swift to punish when angered. Indeed, her disproportionate wrath was held to be symbolic of nature’s dangerous unpredictability.
The mortal Niobe boasted that, as she was mother to fourteen sons and daughters, she was superior to Leto who had borne only two children. This infuriated Apollo who murdered Niobe’s sons, and instructed Artemis to kill her daughters. Niobe wept so much that she turned into a pillar of stone.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses describes how Artemis and her nymphs were disturbed by the hunter Actaeon whilst they were bathing. Furious that she had been seen naked, Artemis turned Actaeon into a stag. He was pursued and killed by his own hounds. In another, less popular, version of the story, Artemis turned Actaeon into a stag because he angered her by boasting that his skill in hunting exceeded hers.
Zeus once disguised himself as Artemis in order to seduce one of her nymphs, Callisto. But the goddess showed no mercy, turning Callisto into a bear, before shooting her dead. Artemis then sent Callisto up to the heavens where she became the constellation of the Great Bear (also known as the Plough).
Similarly, according to one legend, Artemis killed the great hunter Orion when he tried to rape her. Orion also became a constellation in the night sky and his dog became Sirius, the dog star.