Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, sister of Apollo. Originally revered as the goddess of the animal and plant world. She is the “mistress of the beasts,” Tavropol, Limnatis, a bear. Later – the goddess of hunting, mountains and forests, patroness of women in labor. Artemis begged eternal virginity for herself from Zeus.
Sixty Okeanid and twenty nymphs were her constant companions on the hunt, participants in her games and dances. Its main function is the preservation of established customs, sacrifices to the gods, for violation of which she cruelly punishes: she sends a terrible boar to the Kalidon kingdom, and deadly snakes to the marriage bed of King Admet. It also protects the animal world, calling for the answer of Hercules, who killed the Kerinias doe with golden horns, and demands in return for the sacred deer killed by Agamemnon the bloody sacrifice – his daughter Iphigenia.
Artemis – defender of chastity. She patronizes Hippolyta, who despises love, turns Acteon, who accidentally saw a naked goddess, into a deer, which his own dogs tore, and a nymph Calypso, who broke her vow, into a bear. She is decisive, does not tolerate rivalry, uses her apt arrows as an instrument of punishment. Artemis, along with Apollo, exterminated the children of Nioby, who was puffed up in front of the mother of the gods Leto with her seven sons and seven daughters; her arrow struck Orion, who dared to compete with the goddess. As the goddess of vegetation, Artemis is associated with fertility.
This cult especially spread in Ephesus, where the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, burned by Gerostratus, was built in her honor. Artemis was worshiped here as the wet-goddess, “the most difficult”; she is the patroness of the Amazons. Artemis was revered as the goddess of war.
In Sparta, before the battle, a goat was sacrificed to the goddess, and in Athens every year five hundred goats were assigned to the altars in the Marathon battle anniversary. Artemis often came close to the goddess of the month or the goddess of the full moon. The famous myth about Artemis-Selena, in love with handsome Endymion, who wished eternal youth and immortality and received them in a restless sleep.
Every night the goddess approached the grotto of the Carian Mountain Latm, where the young man slept and admired his beauty. The attribute of the goddess is a quiver behind the back, in the hands of a bow or torch; it is accompanied by a doe or pack of hunting dogs. In Rome, Artemis is identified with the local deity Diana.
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