All accounts agree in making her interested in wild life (hence her title Agrotera, She of the Wild), and especially in the young of all living things, particularly but not exclusively of man. Hence she is a goddess of birth, appealed to by women on that occasion, and is called Locheia, She of the Child-bed, and Kourotrophos, Nurse of Youths. By men she is chiefly worshipped as a patroness of hunting. Kindly on occasion, she is also a formidable goddess, and in particular, any sudden but not violent death among women is attnbuted to a shot from her bow. It is almost needless to say that her connexion with the life of women led to her identification with the moon, precisely as in the case of Hera; a further confusion is produced by confounding her with the infernal goddess Hekate. Once more, as with Hera, any real arguments for these identifications are wanting, and in particular, neither the oldest mentions of Artemis in literature nor the earliest known forms of her cult in any way hint at a lunar aspect of Artemis’ character. Occasionally the ancients confused her with the Titaness Phoibe, her mother’s mother (the name of the Titaness is equivalent in meaning to French or English Clare or Clara; and as it is an epithet in Greek, it may also serve the younger goddess as an honorary title, in the usual fashion).
Although mythology represents her as Apollo’s sister, she is found worshipped in places with which he has little or no concern, not only Ephesos on the coast of Asia Minor, where she has a temple-legend connecting her with non-Greek peoples, but at scores of places in Greece proper. Further, her association with wild animals connects her logically with the Minoan goddess whom we commonly call the Potnia theron or Lady of Wild Things, her Cretan name being unknown to us. To this may be added the fact that one of the most famous of her attendant nymphs, Britomartis, is a Cretan goddess, clearly of great local importance. Her original maternal character is very clear in her cult at Ephesos; but it might be objected that Artemis of Ephesos and Artemis of Greece proper have nothing in common save the name. Still, from the mainland of Greece there is a series of tales in which the nymphs who attend Artemis are represented as becoming mothers. One of the most important of these figures is the Arkadian Kallisto, whose name so strongly suggests Artemis’ own title Kalliste (Fairest) as to make it highly likely that she was originally Artemis herself. Perhaps the apparent puzzle of Artemis as simultaneously both a goddess of childbirth and a virgin goddess is best solved by recognizing in her a certain purity of status not unlike that of Hera, who was her husband Zeus’ wife—and as such the archetypal matron—whilst NOT being the mother of his children; similarly, Artemis may usefully be thought of as a devoted nurse to young creatures of every species, whilst NOT being herself a breeding mother.
But if we forthrightly ask how the lovely classical conception of the virgin huntress came about, the answer is that we do not know. Perhaps the goddess simply owes her title of Parthenos (Virgin) to the virginal character of the nymphs who followed her in her wilderness haunts (until, that is, various of them somehow lost their virginity and so, unlike their leader Artemis, became mothers). Whatever produced the idea, there is however little reason to quarrel with it, since it gave us one of the most gracious of the many divine figures of classical antiquity, the Artemis of Euripides’ Hippolytos and of developed Greek art.
The ordinary legend of the birth of Artemis and her brother Apollo is as follows. Leto the Titaness was loved by Zeus, and conceived twin children. But no land of all the many which Leto visited when she felt her time draw near would receive her, until at last she came to Ortygia, wherever that may be; it was identified fairly early with the rocky and inhospitable island of Delos, a form of the story which is very likely due to the fact that the Ionian cities of Asia Minor chose this central but politically unimportant spot as the site of their great common festival, the Panionia. It is, of course, because they lie strewn round about Delos roughly at their center that the multitude of Aegean islands called the Cyclades (the Encircling isles) are so named. For the fear of the other lands to receive her, two motives are assigned. The earlier, as we have it, is sheer terror of the formidable son, Apollo, of whom she was destined to become the mother. This is found in the ‘Homeric’ Hymn to that god, but for that very reason is somewhat suspicious, since the poem is written for his festival and is couched in a strain of fervent and in no way detached praise of him. The other motive, although later, seems a better story; the whole earth feared Hera, who either had set her son Ares and her servant Iris to warn all and sundry not to receive her rival, or had decreed that Leto should not bring forth her children in any place where the sun shone. In addition, she allowed Python, the dragon of Delphi, to pursue Leto.
At all events, Delos received her, and there the divine twins were safely born; Poseidon, in one version, evaded Hera’s decree by keeping the island, which at that time was afloat and not bound fast in one place, covered with his waves, so that the sun should not shine on it. As to who attended their mother in her travail, the tradition again varies; the quaintest version is perhaps that in Apollodoros, that Artemis was born first and at once gave Leto that same help as divine midwife for which in later times mortal women often looked to her, thus insuring the safe arrival of her brother. In the ‘Homeric’ hymn, all the goddesses were there save Hera and Eileithyia, but the latter was finally bribed into coming. In the island there grew an ancient palm tree (phoinix), which was believed to have been clasped by Leto in her labour-pains (though Odysseus in speaking of a palm tree that he saw growing in Delos describes it as a young plant).
Artemis of course took part in the battle of the gods and giants, according to every artist who represents it. This is an event of conveniently vague date; on the one hand, it seems a very ancient myth, but on the other, it was not good art (and also, perhaps, neither pious nor safe) to omit from representations and descriptions of it such picturesque figures as Artemis with her bow, Herakles with his club, Dionysos in one of his bestial shapes, and so on. Hence the Gigantomachy is brought down late enough in mythical chronology, never very rigid, to include these younger figures.
Some of the nymphs in the train of Artemis (who was commonly worshipped in company with the nymphs) are so plainly goddesses themselves that it is easiest to remember their myths together with hers—if indeed there is really any meaningful distinction to be made between them at all.
Britomartis is one of the oldest. We have Solinus’ word for it that her name is Cretan and means ‘sweet maid,’ while both he and Hesychios say that she is simply Artemis called by her Cretan title. Moreover, she and Artemis share the title Diktynna. Her cult was Cretan, and her principal temple near Kydonia in Crete. She was the daughter of Karme —an obscure figure whose parentage is variously given—and of Zeus. Minos loved her, but she would have none of him, and avoided him by flight or hiding for nine months. At last, in running away from him, she leaped over a cliff into the sea, but was caught, unhurt, in the nets (diktya) of fishers, hence her title Diktynna. Thence Artemis rescued her; according to the most detailed account that we have, Britomartis had simply hidden under the nets, and sailed across to Aigina, as soon as Minos had gone away, in a fishing-smack belonging to one Andromedes. In Aigina Minos tried again to take her, but she vanished away in a grove sacred to Artemis and was thenceforth worshipped by the Aiginetans as Aphaia.
Kallisto is likewise an ancient figure, whose myth, es told by Ovid, runs as follows. Zeus loved Kallisto, and deceived her by taking the form of Artemis. Later, as they bathed together, the real Artemis perceived that her votary was pregnant, and in great wrath drove her away. After her son, Arkas (Bear), the ancestor of the Arkadians, was born, Hera changed her into a she-bear, and in that shape Kallisto wandered for fifteen years. At the end of that time her son met her while out hunting, and would have hurled his spear at her when Zeus in pity snatched them both up into heaven, where they became the constellations Ursa Maior (The Big Bear) and Arctophylax (Bear-Guard).
This is Ovid’s skilful patching together of several different versions, and it is a tribute to his ability as a story-teller that it is by far the best known. The oldest known version is simpler; Hera plays no part, Artemis changes Kallisto into a bear by way of punish- ment, and the reason for Arkas’ pursuit of her was that she had ventured into the sacred enclosure of Zeus Lykaios, into which any creature that entered must be put to death. Another variant, which seems to be native Arkadian, for it is represented on their coins and they had a tomb of Kallisto to show, is that Artemis shot her. A more ingenious form of this is apparently due to Kallimachos; Hera changed her into a bear and persuaded Artemis to shoot her in that shape, as a wild beast. In either case, the child was saved and given to Hermes, who entrusted it to his own mother Maia.
A curious variant is that of ‘some authorities’ in Apollodoros, according to which Zeus disguised himself as Apollo, not Artemis. Another oddity, if not a totally different legend, makes Arkas the son of Zeus and Themisto, daughter of Inachos the river-god.
Still another, Peloponnesian legend represents Zeus as becoming, by Taÿgete (the nymph of the mountain Taÿgetos), father of Lakedaimon, the legendary ancestor of the Lakedaimonians. A variant makes Taÿgete mother of Eurotas, the river of Sparta, which comes to much the same. This legend seems to have been of considerable local importance, since Pausanias saw, on the great throne of Apollo at Amyklai—one of the most notable monuments of Lakedaimonian cult—a representation of Taygete and her sister Alkyone being carried off respectively by Zeus and Poseidon. We have to patch the legend together from a few scattered references, mostly in very obscure authors; according to one of them, a late scholiast on Pindar, Artemis turned Taygete into a hind to help her to escape from Zeus. A mountain-goddess such as this (who is, incidentally, a star, one of the Pleiades), who can on occasion take bestial form, and who becomes the mother of a famous race may very well be a local form of Artemis herself, or of some equivalent goddess hardly to be distingushed from her.
Ancient legend knew of two heroines named Atalante—one an Arkadian, daughter of Iasos (or Iasios, or Iasion) son of Lykourgos of Tegea and Klymene daughter of Minyas; the other was a Boiotian, daughter of Schoineus. In fact, the two are probably one and the same, another by-form of Artemis. She was an Amazonian heroine, a great huntress and full of courage, who is mentioned by a few authorities as taking part not only in the Kalydonian Boar Hunt, but also in the Argosy. The central feature of most versions of her story is the foot-race. She had been exposed in her infancy by her father, who wanted a son, not a daughter, but a she-bear nurtured her. When she grew up and found her parents again, her father desired that she should marry, but she refused to wed any man who would not race with her, to wed her if he won but be put to death if he lost. Finally a lover, Hippomenes or Meilanion, appeared on the scene, favoured by Aphrodite. By that goddess’ advice, he took with him three apples of the Hesperides and during his race with Atalante dropped or threw them in her way at judicious intervals. As she stopped to pick them up, he gained, and so won the race.
Another version is that he merely joined in her hunts until, by the intervention of Aphrodite, her heart was softened and she yielded to him. By most accounts their son was Parthenopaios (“Virgin’s Child”); but there are two versions according to which they profaned a sacred place (temenos) of Zeus or Kybele, and by way of punishment were turned into lions. The legend of the Kalydonian Boar Hunt made Meleagros’ favouring of Atalante the cause of the Kouretes’ subsequent quarrel with Kalydon, with the results narrated by Phoinix to Achilles in Book Nine of the Iliad.
