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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ARN-AUD |
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ARTEMIS , one of the principal goddesses in Greek mythology, the counterpart of the Roman Diana. The suggested etymologies of the name (see O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. p. 1267, note 2), as in the case of most of the Olympian deities, are unsatisfactory, and throw no light upon her significance and characteristics. The Homeric and later conception of Artemis, though by no means the original
original
only a goddess who deals death, but she is also a healing and a purifying divinity, oaia (" the healer," cf. Apollo Oulios), XG7t, ?dada (" purifier,") and vwretpa, " she who saves from all evils" (cf. Apollo aaoTpoaatos). Her connexion with the prophetic art is doubtful, although mention is made of an Artemis Sibylla. To her association with Apollo are certainly to be referred the names Delphinia and Pythia, and the titles referring to state and family lifeapo rrarrlpLa, aarpL&ns, (3ovXal.a. It probably accounts for her appearance as a goddess of seafarers, the bestower of fair weather and prosperous voyages. At Phigalia in Arcadia, Eurynome, represented as half woman and half fish, was probably another form of Artemis. To the same association may be traced her slight connexion with music, song and dance. It is in the Arcadian and Athenian rites and legends, however, which are certainly earlier than Homer, that the original conception of the goddess is to be found. These tend to show that Artemis was first and foremost a nature goddess, whose cult shows numerous traces of totemism. As a goddess of fertilizing moisture, lakes, rivers, springs, and marshy lowlands are brought into close connexion with her. Thus she is ALvaia, SEgaotva )tivrts (" lady of the lake ") Ada (" of marshes "), rroragia (" of rivers," especially of the Cladaus and Alpheus
Artemis was naturally also a goddess of trees and vegetation. Near Orchomenus her wooden image stood in a large cedar
worship was originally that of the tree itself (KeSpearLS, " the cedar
The functions of the goddess extended from the vegetable to the animal world, to the inhabitants of the woods and mountains. This is clearly expressed in the cult of Artemis Laphria (possibly connected with Ah4 vpa, " spoils "), at whose festivals all kinds of animals, both wild and tame, as well as fruits, were thrown together on a huge wood fire. Her general name in this connexion was aypommpa (" roaming the wilds," not necessarily " goddess of the chase," an aspect less familiar in the older religion), to whom five hundred goats were offered every year by the Athenians as a thanksgiving in commemoration of the victory at Marathon. Numerous animals were sacred to her, and at Syracuse all kinds of wild beasts, including a lioness, were carried in procession in her honour. It has been observed that she is rather the patroness of the wild beasts of the field than of the more agricultural or domestic animals (Farnell, Cults, ii. p. 431), although the epithet i,uepaoia (" the tamer," according to others, the "gentle" goddess of healing) seems to refer to her connexion with the latter. The bear was especially associated with her in Arcadia, and in her worship as Artemis Brauronia at Brauron in Attica. According to .the legend, Callisto, an Arcadian nymph, became by Zeus the mother of Arcas, the eponymous hero of the Arcadians. Zeus, to conceal the amour, changed Callisto into a she-bear; Hera, however, discovered it, and persuaded Artemis to slay Callisto, who wasplaced amongst the stars as apKros (" the bear "). There is no doubt that Callisto is identical with Artemis; her name is an obvious variation of KaXXLgrrt,a frequent epithet of the goddess, to whom a temple was erected on the hill where Callisto was supposed to be buried. It is suggested by 1VI. Kraus in Classical Review, February 1908, that Aphaea, the cult-name of Artemis at Aegina, is of Semitic origin and means " beautiful. " Closely connected with this legend is the worship of Artemis Brauronia. The accounts of its institution, which differ in detail, agree that it was intended to appease the wrath of the goddess at the killing of a bear. A number of young girls, between five and ten years of age, wearing a bear-skin (afterwards a saffron-coloured robe) danced a bear-dance, called apireia, the girls themselves being calledapKrot. In one account, a maiden was ordered to be sacrificed to the bear Artemis, but a certain man who had a goat called it his daughter and offered it up in secret , just as at. Munychium a fawn dressed up as a girl was sacrificed to the goddess. In place of the goat or fawn a bear might have been expected, but the choice may have been influenced by the animal totem of the tribe into whose hands the ritual fell. The whole is a reminiscence of earlier times, when the goddess herself was a bear, to whom human sacrifice was offered. Callisto was origin-ally a bear-goddess worshipped in Arcadia, identified with Artemis, when nothing remained of the original animal-worship but name and ritual. The worship of Callisto being merged in that of the greater divinity, she became the handmaid and companion of Artemis. A stone figure of a bear found on the Acropolis seems to point to the worship of Artemis Brauronia. Her death at the hands of the latter was explained by the wrath of the goddessin her later aspect as goddess of chastityat Callisto's amour with Zeus (see A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, ii.; Farnell, Cults, ii. p. 437). The custom of flogging youths at the altar of Artemis Orthia 1 at Limnaeum in Laconia, and the legend of Iphigeneia (q.v.), herself another form of Artemis, connected with Artemis Taurica of the Tauric Chersonese, are usually supposed to point to early human sacrifice (but see Farnell). Various explanations have been given of the epithet SpOia: (1) that it refers to the primitive type of the " erect " wooden idol; (2) that it means " she who safely rears children after birth," or "heals the sick " (cf. opOLos applied to Asclepius); (3) that it has a phallic significance (Schreiber in Roscher's Lexikon). Scholars differ as to whether Artemis Taurica is identical with Artemis Tauropolos, worshipped chiefly at Samos with a milder ritual, but it is more probable that ravpo7roXos simply means " protectress of bulls."The protecting influence of Artemis was extended, like that of Apollo, to the highest animal, man. She was especially concerned in the bringing up of the young. Boys were brought by their nurses to the temple of Artemis KopvOaXia (= Kovporph4 os) and there consecrated to her; at the Apaturia, on the day called KOUpeWTLS, boys cut off and dedicated their hair to her. Girls as well as boys were under her protection. Her function as a goddess of marriage is less certain, and the cult-titles adduced in support of it are hardly convincing; such are ityeovrt, interpreted as " she who leads home the bride," aeXao pos, " bearer of light," that is, of torches at the marriage procession. On the other hand, her connexion with childbirth is clearly shown: in many places she is even called Eilithyia, who in the earlier poets was regarded as distinct from her. In one version of the story of her birth she is said to have been born a day before Apollo, in order to assist Leto at his birth; women in childbirth invoked her aid, and after delivery offered up their clothes or a lock of hair. As already noticed, in Homer Artemis appears as a goddess of death; closely akin to this is the conception of her as a goddess of war. As such she is vrKrt>bpos (" bringer of victory "); the title KoXau'is is possibly connected with 1 The site of the temple of Artemis Orthia was excavated by the British School of Archaeology at Athens (see Annual, 1906). The flogging (&aaortywfLs) is explained by R. C. Bosanquet as a late institution of decadent Sparta, an exaggeration of an old ritual practice of whipping away boys who tried to steal cheeses from the altar (see The Year's Work in Classical Studies, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, 1907). Ko? fin "`sword-sheath "); and Xacbpta (see above) may refer to the spoils of war as well as the chase. The idea of Artemis as a virgin goddess, the " queen and huntress, chaste and fair," which obtained great prominence in early times, and seems inconsistent with her association with childbirth, is generally explained as due to her connexion with Apollo, but it is suggested by Farnell that ?rapOEvos originally meant "unmarried," and that""Apre,uts aapOEVos may have been originally the goddess of a people who had not yet the advanced Hellenic institutions of settled marriage . . . and when society developed the later family system the goddess remained celibate, though not opposed to childbirth." Another view of the original character of Artemis, which has found much support in modern times, is that she was a moon-goddess. But there is no trace of Artemis as such in the epic period, and the Homeric hymn knows nothing of her identification with Selene. The attribute of the torch will apply equally well to the goddess of the chase, and epithets such as 4worcopos, Qeaaaopos, atOoiria, although applicable, are by- no means convincing. The idea dates from the 5th century, and was due to her connexion with Hecate and Apollo. When the latter came to be identified by philosophical speculation with the sun-god Helios, it was natural that his sister and counterpart should be identified with the moon-goddess Selene. But she is nowhere recognized in cult as such (see Gruppe, Griechische Mythologic, ii. p. 1297, note 2). It has been mentioned that Callisto, Iphigeneia, Eilithyia, are only Artemis under different names; to these may be added Adrasteia, Atalanta, Helen, Leto and others (see Wernicke in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie). Again, various non-Hellenic divinities were identified with Artemis, and their cult gradually amalgamated with hers. The most important of these was Artemis of Ephesus, whose seat was in the marshy valley of the Caystrus. Like the Greek Artemis, she was essentially a nature goddess, the great foster-mother of the vegetable and animal kingdom. A number of officials were engaged in the performance of her temple service. Her eunuch priests, ,ueyaM'of (a name which points to a Persian origin), were under the control of a high priest called Essen (according to others, there was a body of priests called Essenes). There were also three classes of priestesses, Mellierae, Hierae, Parierae; there is no evidence that they were called Melissae (" bees "), although the bee is a frequent symbol on the coins of the city. Her chief
spring , at which games and various contests took place after the Greek fashion, although the ritual continued to be of a modified oriental, orgiastic type. This goddess is closely connected with the Amazons (q.v.), who are said to have built her temple and set up her image in the trunk of a tree. The Greeks of Ephesus identified her with their own Artemis, and claimed that her birthplace Ortygia was near Ephesus, not in Delos. She has much in common with the oriental prototype of Aphrodite, and the Cappadocian goddess Ma, another form of Cybele. The usual figure of the Ephesian Artemis, which was said in the first instance to have fallen from heaven, is in the form of a female with many breasts, the symbol of productivity or a token of her function as the all-nourishing mother. From the waist to the feet her image resembles a pillar, narrowing downwards and sculptured all round with rows of animals (lions, rams and bulls).Mention may also be made of the following non-Hellenic representatives of Artemis. Leucophryne (or Leucophrys), whose worship was brought by emigrants from Magnesia in Thessaly to Magnesia on the Maeander, was a nature goddess, and her representation on coins exactly resembles that of the Ephesian Artemis. Her cult, however, from the little that is known of it appears to have been more Hellenic. There was an altar and temple of Artemis Pergaea at Perga in Pamphylia, where a yearly festival was held in her honour. As in the case of Cybele, mendicant priests were attached to her service. Similar figures were Artemis Coloene, worshipped at Lake Coloe near Sardis; Artemis Cordax, celebrated in wanton dances on Mount
Among the chief
drawn
movement
For the Roman goddess identified with Artemis see DIANA. (J. H. F.) End of Article: ARTEMIS If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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