Artemis

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 master.

[19] Ancient Greek writers, by way of folk etymology, and some modern scholars, have linked Artemis (Doric Artamis) to ἄρταμος, artamos, i.e. "butcher"[20][21] or, like Plato did in Cratylus, to ἀρτεμής, artemḗs, i.e. "safe", "unharmed", "uninjured", "pure", "the stainless maiden".

Kallisto in Arcadia is a hypostasis of Artemis with the shape of a bear, and her cults at Brauron and at Piraeus (Munichia) are remarkable for the arkteia where virgin girls before marriage were disguised as she-bears.

The tops of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes awesomely with the outcry of beasts: earthquakes and the sea also where fishes shoal.According to the beliefs of the first Greeks in Arcadia Artemis is the first nymph, a goddess of free nature.

[42] The Dorians interpreted Artemis mainly as goddess of vegetation who was worshipped in an orgiastic cult with lascivious dances, with the common epithets Orthia, Korythalia and Dereatis.

[56] In Greek religion we must see less tractable elements which have nothing to do with the Olympians, but come from an old, less organized world–exorcisms, rituals to raise crops, gods and goddesses conceived not quite in human shape.

Artemis shows sometimes the wild and darker side of her character and can bring immediate death with her arrows, however she embodies the idea of "the free nature" which was introduced by the first Greeks.

Pausanias describes xoana of "Ariste" and "Kalliste" in the way to the academy of Athens and he believes that the names are surnames of the goddess Artemis, who is depicted carrying a torch.

Her name is most likely derived from the "laurel-branch" which was used as "May-branch",[103] or an allusion to her statue being made of laurel-wood (daphne)[104] Strabo refers to her annual festival at Olympia.

[166] In a Greek legend the mountain was the place where Heracles chased and captured the terrible Ceryneian Hind, an enormous female deer with golden antlers and hooves of bronze.

[197] The two earliest poets, Homer and Hesiod, confirm Artemis and Apollo's status as full siblings born to the same mother and father, but neither explicitly makes them twins.

[204] After their troubling childbirth, Leto took the twin infants and crossed over to Lycia, in the southwest corner of Asia Minor, where she tried to drink from and bathe the babies in a spring she found there.

Leto, in her anger that the impious Lycians had refused to offer hospitality to a fatigued mother and her thirsty infants, transformed them all into frogs, forever doomed to swim and hop around the spring.

[216]: 264  Euripides, coming in a bit later, wrote in the Bacchae that Actaeon was torn to shreds and perhaps devoured by his "flesh-eating" hunting dogs when he claimed to be a better hunter than Artemis.

Callimachus writes that Actaeon chanced upon Artemis bathing in the woods, and she caused him to be devoured by his own hounds for the sacrilege, and he makes no mention of transformation into a deer either.

[214] According to the Latin version of the story told by the Roman Ovid, Actaeon was a hunter who after returning home from a long day's hunting in the woods, he stumbled upon Artemis and her retinue of nymphs bathing in her sacred grotto.

[260] 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 times.

As childbirth and pregnancy was a very common and important event, there were numerous other deities associated with it, many localized to a particular geographic area, including but not limited to Aphrodite, Hera and Hekate.

[269] Older sources, such as Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo (in Line 115), have the arrival of Eileithyia on Delos as the event that allows Leto to give birth to her children.

Contradictory is Hesiod's presentation of the myth in Theogony, where he states that Leto bore her children before Zeus' marriage to Hera with no commentary on any drama related to their birth.

Excavation at the site of the Artemision in 1987–88 identified a multitude of tear-shaped amber beads that had been hung on the original wooden statue (xoanon), and these were probably carried over into later sculpted copies.

[...] Luna, the moon, is so called a lucendo (from shining); she bears the name also of Lucina: and as in Greece the women in labor invoke Diana Lucifera,[337]Association to health was another reason Artemis and Selene were syncretized; Strabo wrote that Apollo and Artemis were connected to the Sun and the Moon, respectively, which was due to the changes the two celestial bodies caused in the temperature of the air, as the twins were gods of pestilential diseases and sudden deaths.

"[344] In works of art, the two goddesses were mostly distinguished; Selene is usually depicted as being shorter than Artemis, with a rounder face, and wearing a long robe instead of a short hunting chiton, with a billowing cloak forming an arc above her head.

In the fest of Laphria at Delphi Artemis is related to the Pre-Greek mistress of the animals, with barbaric sacrifices and possible connections with magic and ghosts since Potnia Theron was close to the daimons.

In the cults of Artemis at Brauron and at Piraeus Munichia (arkteia) young virgin girls were disguished to she-bears (arktoi) in a ritual and they served the goddess before marriage.

[363] Ovid describes the boar as follows:[364] Artemis felt pity for the Calydonian princesses Meleagrids as they mourned for their lost brother, Meleager, so she transformed them into Guinea fowl to be her favorite animals.

In Greek classical art she is usually portrayed as a maiden huntress, young, tall, and slim, clothed in a girl's short skirt,[370] with hunting boots, a quiver, a golden or silver bow[371] and arrows.

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.

On June 7, 2007, a Roman-era bronze sculpture of Artemis and the Stag was sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York state by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for $25.5 million.

Artemia species live in salt lakes, and although they are almost never found in an open sea, they do appear along the Aegean coast near Ephesus, where the Temple of Artemis once stood.

Artémis (Diane), the huntress. Roman copy of a Greek statue, 2nd century. Galleria dei Candelabri - Vatican Museums
Artemis as Mistress of Animals, Parian pottery, 675–600 BCE. Hypothetical restoration (only some parts have been preserved). Archaeological Museum of Mykonos .
Minoan seal from Knossos . A goddess flanked by two lionesses, probably the "Mother of the Mountains", in the presence of her consort or the dedicant.
Artemis pouring a libation. Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 460–450 BCE. From Eretria. c. 460-450 BCE. Attributed to Bowdoin Painter . Louvre , Paris
Scene from sacrifice in honour of Artemis-Diana who is accompanied by a deer. Fresco from the triclinium of the house of Vettii in Pompeii , Italy, between 62 CE and 79 CE (Destruction of Pompeii).
Artemis with bow and arrow in front of an altar. Attic red-figure lekythos, c. 475 BCE, from Selinunte, Sicily. Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum , Palermo
Statue of Artemis, marble. Pergamon Museum , Berlin
Artemis on her two hind-drawn chariot, Boeotian red-figure kylix, 450–425 BCE, by the Painter of Great Athens. Louvre , Paris.
Sacrifice of Iphigenia . Antique fresco from Pompei , probably a copy of a painting by Timanthes . Agamemnon (right) and Clytemnestra crying (left). In the sky appears the fawn which will replace her. National Archaeological Museum, Naples .
Artemis Bendis (with her Thracian cap), Apollo, Hermes and a young warrior. Apulian red-figure bell-shaped krater, c. 380–370 BCE by the Bendis Painter. Louvre , Paris.
Heracles throwing the Erymanthian Boar on Eurystheus , who, frightened, hides in a jar. Goddesses Artemis (left) and Athena (right). Attic Amphora 500–515 BCE by Rycroft Painter . National Archaeological Museum (Madrid) .
Apollo and Artemis. Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup, circa 470 BCE, by the Briseis Painter. Louvre , Paris
The Niobid Krater. Apollo and Artemis kill the children of Niobe , 460-450 BCE by the Niobid Painter . Louvre , Paris.
Left to right: Artemis, Apollo with his lyre, Leto and Ares. Attic amphora c. 510 BCE, by Psiax Painter. National Archaeological Museum (Madrid) .
Heracles breaking off the golden antler of the Ceryneian Hind , while Athena (left) and Artemis (right) look on. Black-figure amphora, c. 540–530 BCE, from Vulci. British Museum , London.
Archaic representation of the goddess Artemis Orthia. Ivory relief plate of a bronze fibula. The goddess holds waterbirds and wears a traditional hair style. From her sanctuary at Sparta, 660 BCE. National Archaeological Museum of Athens .
Votive relief with a dedication to Artemis Phosphorus. An exhibit of Varna Archaeological Museum .
Artemis (potnia theron) on amphora of Naxos, Delos, 700–675 BCE, Archaeological Museum of Myconos
Hecate or Artemis is depicted with a bow, twin flaming torches and a large dog . Archaic Attic black figure kylix, attributed to Kleibolos Painter. Museum of the University of Tübingen , Baden.
Coin from Tauric Chersonesus with Artemis, deer, bull, club and quiver . c. 320–290 BCE. Diagora-, magistrate. CHER, Artemis Parthenos left. DIAGORA, Bull butting right; Christopher Markom Collection
Leto on the run with Artemis and Apollo, Roman statue circa 350–400 CE
Artemis (left) and Apollo try to get the Ceryneian Hind from Heracles. Detail of an Attic black-figure amphora c. 530–520 BCE. Louvre , Paris
Leto with Zeus and their children, 420–410 BCE, marble, Archaeological Museum of Brauron
Artemis drives a chariot drawn by a team of deer next to the dying Actaeon. Attic red-figure volute crater, c. 450–440 BCE by the Painter of the Wooly Satyrs. Louvre , Paris.
Mosaic depicting Diana and her nymph surprised by Actaeon .Mosaic, 2nd century CE Ruins of Volubilis , Morocco
Diana and Actaeon by Titian (1556–1559), oil in canvas. National Gallery and Scottish National Gallery , London and Edinburg.
A 1772 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting Niobe attempting to shield her children from Artemis and Apollo . Dallas Museum of Art , Dallas.
Daniel Seiter 's 1685 painting of Diana over Orion's dead body, before he is placed in the heavens. Louvre , Paris.
Artemis (seated and wearing a radiate crown), the beautiful nymph Callisto (left), Eros and other nymphs. Antique fresco from Pompeii. National Archaeological Museum, Naples .
Diana and Callisto , c. 1556–1559, by Titian . Scottish National Gallery , Edinburgh.
The rape of Leto by Tityos: Apollo (left), tries to grasp Tityos, Leto (middle) pushes him and Artemis (right), ready to stop him. Attic red-figure amphora from Vulci. c. 510–520 BCE, by Phintias Painter. Louvre , Paris.
Artemis (Diana) from the "Rospigliosi type", Roman copy of the 1st–2nd centuries CE after a Hellenistic original, Louvre Museum.
The Death of Adonis , by Giuseppe Mazzuoli , 1709. Hermitage Museum , Saint Petersburg , Russia.
Artemis slaying a deer, from the courtyard of House III, 125–100 BCE. Archaeological Museum of Delos , Greece .
The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia (1653) by Sébastien Bourdon , Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans
Temple of Artemis at Brauron . The stoa and the sacred spring from the SW.
The Roman Temple of Artemis in Jerash, Jordan , built during the reign of Antoninus Pius
The site of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Its final form was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World .
Bronze statue of Artemis (Piraeus Artemis), with a quiver at the back and the pose of the fingers which held a bow. A classicistic work, 4th century BCE attributed to Euphranor . Archaeological Museum of Piraeus .
Artemis on her chariot drawn by two hinds. Detail from an Attic red figure crater 460–440 BCE. Attributed to the Painter of the Wooly Satyrs. Louvre , Paris.
Mixing Vessel with Hermes, Apollo and Artemis. Lucanian, 415–400 BCE, attributed to the Palermo Painter. J. Paul Getty Museum , California.
Apollo's return to Delos from Hyperboreans . Artemis holding a deer welcomes Apollo. Cycladic krater (7th cent. BCE) National Archaeological Museum, Athens .
Marble statue of Artemis-Diana in the Capitoline Museums
Artemis hunting a stag, surrounded by Zeus (left), Nikê (top) and Apollo (right). The goddess is wielding a torch. Attic red-figured pelike 370–350 BCE. From Campania, South Italy. British Museum , London
From left to right: Artemis holding an oinochoe, Apollo holding a laurel branch and a phiale, about to pour a libation on the altar. Attic red-figure column-krater 450 BCE. National Archaeological Museum (Madrid)
This bronze statue of Artemis in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus ( Athens ) dates from the mid-fourth century BCE and was given to sculptor Euphranor .
Artemis Diadoumena. Statuette of Artemis from Delos (1st cent. BCE) at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens
The Artemis of Ephesus, second century CE. Ephesus Archaeological Museum , Izmir, Turkey
Praxitelean bronze head of a goddess (probably Artemis), wearing a lunate crown, 4th century BCE. Found at Issa, Vis , Croatia).
Marble statue of Artemis-Selene with torch, 3rd century. Museo Chiaramonti - Vatican Museums .
Artemis holding torches. Marble, Roman copy of the 2nd century CE after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE. Museo Chiaramonti , Vatican Museums
Artemis with a bow and a deer. Attic lekythos 460–450 BCE
Detail of an Attic red-figure hydria depicting Apollo and Artemis. 480–450 BCE by the Pan Painter . Legion of Honor (museum) , San Francisco.
Artemis with a hunting dog pouring a libation, c. 460–450 BCE.
The small Piraeus Artemis , bronze statue of the 4th century
Coin from Tauric Chersonesus with Artemis, deer, bull, club and quiver ( c. 300 BCE )
Apollo (left) and Artemis (right) carrying a torch and flanking an altar. Terracotta amphora (jar) 490 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art . Manhattan, New York
Artémis Potnia Theron, 560–550 BCE