Artemis
Goddess of the Hunt
AR-tuh-miss
Huntress of the wild places, sworn to virginity and unforgiving of anyone who intrudes on it.
The Story
Artemis asked her father for eternal maidenhood, a bow, and the mountains, and got all three. Born first of the twins, she is said to have helped her mother deliver Apollo, which is why women in labour prayed to a goddess who would never bear a child.
Her wilderness is not scenery, it is jurisdiction, and the penalties are exact. Actaeon saw her bathing and was turned into a stag for his own hounds to bring down; Agamemnon killed a stag in her grove and paid for the wind to Troy with his daughter.
Did You Know?
- The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders. A man burned it down in 356 BC purely to be remembered for it; the Ephesians banned anyone from recording his name, which is how we know it was Herostratus.
- Athenian girls served a term at her sanctuary at Brauron before marriage, in saffron robes, in a rite described as playing the bear.
- The Ephesian version of her is covered in dozens of rounded protuberances that scholars have identified as breasts, eggs, bulls' testicles, or amber gourds. There is still no agreement.