- Looks after
- The hunt, wild places and young girls
- Roman name
- Diana
- Often shown with
- The bow, the deer, the crescent moon, the cypress.
Artemis
Ἄρτεμις
Artemis is the goddess of the hunt and of wild places, the twin sister of Apollo, and a virgin who keeps to her own company.
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Artemis was born on Delos, the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and in later accounts she is born first and helps Leto deliver Apollo. As a young girl she asked her father for eternal virginity, a bow and arrows, and a company of nymphs to hunt with.
She is the mistress of animals and wild country, and also the protector of girls and women, especially in childbirth. She could cause sudden death among women, as Apollo could among men. In the Iliad she is called the lady of wild animals.
Two stories show her severity. The hunter Actaeon saw her bathing and she turned him into a stag, whereupon his own hounds killed him. At Aulis, Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to calm the winds, because he had offended Artemis.
Her temple at Ephesus, in what is now Turkey, was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, though the Ephesian Artemis was a more nurturing goddess than the Greek huntress. In the later period she was merged with Selene and with Hecate.
In later art and language
NASA's Artemis programme to return people to the Moon is named after her, as the twin of Apollo.
Ancient sources
- Homeric Hymn 27 to Artemis
- Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.138-252
- Aeschylus, Agamemnon