She is the lady of the forest and all the wild things, as well as the Huntsman- in-chief to the gods, an odd office for a woman. Like Apollo she hunts with silver arrows. She is one of the three virgin goddesses along with Athena and Hestia.
Surprisingly, she also presides over childbirth, this goes back to the fact that she did not cause her mother any pain when she was born. As always in Greek Mythology, she also had her dark side, showing her as fierce and vengeful warrior. For example, although she is the protector of the young, she kept the Greek Fleet from sailing to Troy , until Iphigenia , a royal maiden, daughter of the Commander in Chief Agamemnon was sacrificed to her.
All because the Greek soldiers killed one of the creatures, a hare, together with her young. On the other hand, when women died a quick and painless death, they were said to have been slain by Artemis' silver arrows.
Artemis was vindictive and there were many who suffered from her anger. One of her actions was to join Apollo in killing the children on Niobe. Artemis took part in the battle against the Giants, where she killed Gration. She also destroyed the Aloadae and is said to have killed the monster Bouphagus. Other victims of Artemis included Orion and Actaeon , as well as Meleager, who was fated to die as the result of the Calydonian Boar hunt instigated by Artemis.
Artemis was also associated with the moon, and called Phoebe and Selene Luna in Latin , neither name originally belonged to her. Phoebe was a titan, one of the elder gods. So was Selene, a moon- goddess and sister of Helios , the sun-god often confused with Artemis' brother, Apollo. In the later poems Artemis became associated with another goddess, Hecate , the dark and awful goddess of the lower world.
Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark of the Moon, the black nights when the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the Crossways, which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic; and awful divinity. Still inspired by Athena, the flute played rapturous music. Listeners even compared the satyr's playing favorably to Apollo's playing of the lyre. This comparison enraged Apollo, who immediately challenged Marsyas to a contest. The contestants agreed that the winner could choose any punishment for the loser.
The jury of Muses found both players magnificent. So Apollo dared the satyr to try to do what he himself could do: turn his instrument upside-down and play it?
Marsyas, of course, could do neither with a flute. Impressed by his versatility, the Muses judged Apollo the best musician. Not content with merely winning, Apollo then chose a brutal punishment for Marsyas: He skinned the satyr alive and nailed his skin to a pine tree.
Apollo never married, but he was by no means a celibate. He fathered more than a dozen children by at least nine different partners. Apollo also wooed a beautiful young man, Hyacinthus. Sadly, while Apollo was teaching the boy how to throw the discus, the West Wind? The drops of blood that fell from his head yielded the flower hyacinth.
Yet his most persistent courtship? Apollo first eliminated the competition. Leucippus, the son of King Oenomaus of Pisa, also loved Daphne? But Apollo knew of this charade? When Leucippus was exposed? Though Apollo alone now wooed her, Daphne still refused him. Ultimately, she changed into a laurel tree rather than submit to his desires. Thereafter, Apollo made the laurel his sacred plant. Others refused Apollo, too. When Zeus ruled that Marpessa, daughter of the river god Evenus, could choose between her two suitors, she chose the mortal Idas.
She suspected that Apollo's amorous interest would wane as she grew older. The nymph Sinope used cleverness to escape Apollo's advances. Sinope agreed to surrender herself to the god, but only if he first granted her a wish. When Apollo swore to give her anything she wanted, Sinope revealed her wish: to remain a virgin for all of her days.
Some storytellers say that Sinope had used this same trick to avoid Zeus's embrace. Burgess, Ph. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call You can also purchase this book at Amazon. Logos Ortygia means? What a Life! Logos The cithara was a musical instrument that resembled a large lyre.
See also:. Classical Mythology: A Heavenly Marriage? Hera and Zeus. Trending Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about. Is Vatican City a Country? The Languages of Africa.
Artemis with her twin brother, Apollo, put to death the children of Niobe. The reason being that Niobe, a mere mortal, had boasted to Leto, the mother of the divine twins, that she had bore more children, which must make her superior to Leto. Apollo being outraged at such an insult on his mother, informed Artemis. The twin gods hunted them down and shot them with their bows and arrows; Apollo killed the male children and Artemis the girls. Artemis was worshiped in most Greek cities but only as a secondary deity.
However, to the Greeks in Asia Minor modern day Turkey she was a prominent deity. In Ephesus, a principal city of Asia Minor, a great temple was built in her honor, which became one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". But at Ephesus she was worshiped mainly as a fertility goddess, and was identified with Cybele the mother goddess of eastern lands.
The cult statues of the Ephesian Artemis differ greatly from those of mainland Greece, whereas she is depicted as a huntress with her bow and arrows. Those found at Ephesus show her in the eastern style, standing erect with numerous nodes on her chest.
There have been many theories as to what they represent. Some say they are breasts, others that they are bulls testes which were sacrificed to her. So the true interpretation remains uncertain, we can say that each represents fertility. She carried to her own temple on her head as the protector of her own temple.
But on the very night Alexander the Great was born in in Macedonia, she could not keep her own temple in Ephesus. Because she was helping the birth of the important person.
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