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72 deer were offered up, Elaphēbŏlĭa. As goddess of the chase, she had also some influence in war, and the Spartans before battle sought her favour by the gift of a she-goat. Miltiădēs too, before the battle of Mărăthōn, had vowed to her as many goats as there should be enemies fallen on the field; but the number proving so great that the vow could not be kept, 500 goats were sacrificed at each anniversary of the victory in the month of Boëdrŏmĭōn. Again, she was much worshipped as a goddess of the Moon. At Amarynthus in Eubœa, the whole island kept holiday to her with processions and prize-fights. At Mūny̌chia in Attica, at full moon in the month of Munychĭōn (April–May), large round loaves or cakes, decked all round with lights as a symbol of her own luminary, were borne in procession and presented to her; and at the same time was solemnized the festival of the victory of Sălămīs in Cyprus, because on that occasion the goddess had shone in her full glory on the Greeks. An ancient shrine of the Moon-goddess at Braurōn in Attica was held in such veneration, that the Braurōnĭa, originally a merely local festival, was afterwards made a public ceremony, to which Athens itself sent deputies every five years, and a precinct was dedicated to "Artemis of Brauron" on the Acrŏpŏlis itself. (See plan of .) At this feast the girls between five and ten years of age, clad in saffron-coloured garments, were conducted by their mothers in procession to the goddess, and commended to her care. For Artemis is also a protectress of youth, especially those of her own sex. As such she patronized a Nurses' festival at Sparta in a temple outside the town, to which little boys were brought by their nurses; while the Ionians at their Apatūrĭa presented her with the hair of boys. Almost everywhere young girls revered the virgin goddess as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage they offered up to her a lock of their hair, their girdle, and their maiden garment. She was also worshipped in many parts as the goddess of Good Repute, especially in youths and maidens, and was regarded as an enemy of all disorderly doings. With her attributes as the goddess of the moon, and as the promoter of healthy development, especially in the female frame, is connected the notion of her assisting in childbirth (see ). In early times human sacrifices had been offered to Artemis. A relic of this was the yearly custom observed at Sparta, of flogging the boys till they bled, at the altar of a deity not unknown elsewhere, and named Artemis Orthia (the upright) probably from her stiff posture in the antiquated wooden image. At Sparta, as in other places, the ancient image was looked upon as the same which Iphigĕnīa and Orestēs brought away from Tauris (the Crimea), viz., that of the Tauric Artemis, a Scythian deity who was identified with Artemis because of the human sacrifices common in her worship. The Artemis of Ephesus, too, so greatly honoured by all the Ionians of Asia [Acts xix 28] is no Greek divinity, but Asiatic. This is sufficiently shown by the fact that eunuchs were employed in her worship; a practice quite foreign to Greek ideas. The Greek colonists identified her with their own Artemis, because she was goddess of the moon and a power of nature, present in mountains, woods and marshy places, nourishing life in plants, animals and men.

But, unlike Artemis, she was not regarded as a virgin, but as a mother and foster-mother, as is clearly shown by the multitude of breasts in the rude effigy. Her worship, frantic and fanatical after the manner of