Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/393

Rh ARTEMIS. A'RTEMIS ("Apre/ms), one of the great divini- ties of the Greeks. Her name is usually derived from ctpre/xTfy, uninjured, healthy, vigorous ; accord- ing to which she would be the goddess who is her- self inviolate and vigorous, and also grants strength and health to others. ( Plat Cratijl. p. 40G, b. ; Str.ib. xiv. p. 635 ; Eustath. ad Horn. pp. 32, 577, .173'J.) According to the Homeric account and Hesiod (T/icoy. 918) she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, whence Aeschylus (Sept. 148) calls her ATjTw^eVeto. She was the sister of Apollo, and born with him at the same time in the island of Delos. According to a tradition which Pausanias (viii. 37. § 3) found in Aeschylus, Artemis was a daughter of Demeter, and not of Leto, while ac- cording to an Egyptian story (Herod, ii. 156") she was the daughter of Dionysus and I sis, and Leto was only her nurse. But these and some other legends are only the results of the identification of the Greek Artemis with other local or foreign divinities. The place of her birth is for the same reason not the same in all traditions : some say that it was the grove of Ortygia near Ephesus (Tacit. Anmd. iii. 61 ; Schol. ad Pind. Nem. i. 1), others that it was Crete (Diod. v. 72), and others again, that she was the sister of Apollo, but born somewhat earlier, so that she was able to assist Leto in giving birth to Apollo. (Orph Hymn. 34. 5 ; Spanheim, ad Callim. p. 476, &c.) In the de- scription of the nature and character of this god- dess, it is necessary to distinguish between the different points of view from which the Greeks regarded her, and also between the really Greek Artemis and certain foreign divinities, who for some resemblance or another were identified by the Greeks with their own Artemis, 1. Artemis as the sister of Apollo, is a kind of female Apollo, that is, she as a female divinity re- presented the same idea that Apollo did as a male divinity. This relation between the two is in many other cases described as the relation of hus- band and wife, and there seems to have been a tradition which actually described Artemis as the wife of Apollo. (Eustath. ad Horn. p. 1197.) In the cluiracter of sister of Apollo, Artemis is like her brother armed with a bow, quiver, and iirrows, and sends plague and death among men and animals : she is a Seo aitoKKovaa. Suddeii deaths, but more especially those of women, are described as the effect of her arrows. (Horn. //. vi. 205, 427, «&c., xix. 59, xxi. 483, «&:c. ; Od. xi. 172, &c., 324, XV. 478, xviii. 202, xx. 61, &c., v. 124, &c.) She also acts sometimes in conjunction with her brother. {Od. xv. 410; II. xxiv. 606.) As Apollo was not only a destructive god, but also averted the evils which it was in his power to in- flict, so Artemis was at the same time a &ea cuh reipa ; that is, she cured and alleviated the suffer- ings of mortals. Thus, for instance, she healed Aeneas, when he was wounded and carried into the temple of Apollo. {II. v. 447.) In the Trojan war she sided, like Apollo, with the Trojans. The man whom she looked graciously upon was prosperous in his fields and tlocks, his household was thriving, and he died in old age. (Callim. Hi/mtu in Dian. 129, &c) She was more especially the protectress of the young, whence the epithets TTaiBorp6<pos, Kovporpocpos, and <pionf7pa^ (comp. Diod. v. 73) ; and Aeschylus {Ayum. 142) calls her the protectress of young fiucking-animals, and of the game ranging through ARTEMIS, 376 the forests of the mountains. Artemis thus also came to be regarded as the goddess of the flocks and the chase : she is the huntress among the im- mortals ; she is called the stag-killer {iXa^§6Ko%), the lover of the tumult connected with the chase (/ctAaSeij/Tf), and ayp6rfpa. {II. xxi. 511, 485, &c. ; Hom. Hymn, in Dian. 10.) Artemis is moreover, like Apollo, unmarried ; she is a maiden- divinity never conquered by love. (Soph. Eleii. 1220.) The priests and priestesses devoted to her service were bound to live pure and chast*».. and trangressions of their vows of chastity were severely punished. (Pans. vii. 19. § 1. viii. 13. § 1.) She was worshipped in several places together with her brother ; and the worship of both divinities was believed to have come from the Hyperboreans, and Hyperborean maidens brought sacrifices to Delos. (Herod, ii. 32, 35.) The laurel was sacred to both divinities, and both were regarded as the founders and protectors of towns and streets. (Pans. i. 38. § 6, iii. 24. § 6, viii. 36, in fin. ; Aeschyl. Sept. 450 ; Callim. Hymn, in Dian. 34.) There are, however, some points also, in which there is no resemblance between Artemis and Apollo: she has nothing to do with music or poetry, nor is there any trace of her having been regarded as an omcular divinity like Apollo. Re- specting the real and original character of Artemis as the- sister of Apollo, we encounter the same difficulties as those mentioned in the article Apollo, viz. as to whether she was a purely spi- ritual and ethical divinity, as Muller thinks, or whether she was the representative of some power in physical nature ; and the question must be decided here in the same manner as in the case of Apollo. When Apollo was regarded as identical with the sun or Helios, nothing was more natural than that his sister should be regarded as Selene or the moon, and accordingly the Greek Artemis is, at least in later times, the goddess of the moon. Buttmann and Hermann consider this idea of Ar- temis being the moon as the fundamental one from which all the others are derived. But, at any rate, the idea of Artemis being the goddess of the moon, must be confined to Artemis the sister of Apollo, and is not applicable to the Arcadian, Tau- rian, or Ephesian Artemis. 2. T}ie Arcadian Artemis is a goddess of the nymphs, and was wors])ipped as such in Arcadia in very early times. Her sanctuaries and temples were more numerous in this country than in any other part of Greece. There was no connexion between the Arcadian Artemis ard Apollo, nor are there any traces here of the ethical character which is so prominent in Artemis, the sister of Apollo. These circumstances, together with the fact, that her surnames and epithets in Arcadia are nearly all derived from the mountains, rivers, aJid lakes, shew that here she was the representative of some part or power of nature. In Arcadia she hunted with her nymphs on Taygetus, Erynian- thus, and Maenalus ; twenty nymphs accompanied her during the chase, and with sixty others, daugh- ters of Oceanus, she held her dances in the forests of the mountains. Her bow, quiver, and arrows, were made by Hephaestus, and Pan provided her with dogs. Her chariot was drawn by four stags with golden antlers. (Callim. Hymn, in Dian. 13, 81, 90, &c.; ApoUod. ii. 5. § 3; Pind. 01. iii, 51.) Her temples and siinctuaries in Arcadia were usually near lakes or rivers, whence she v/its