Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/58

 44 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY between Argos and Mycenae. There she sat upon a throne, fully clothed, a crown upon her head, in her right hand a pomegranate, which on account of its many seeds was an emblem of fruitfulness. In her left hand she held the royal scepter, with a cuckoo, the messenger of spring, as its crown. Similarly it is as a queen that she appears before us in the excellent colossal bust of the Villa Ludovisi, a work which may belong to about the middle of the fourth century B.C. 57. To Artemis (Lat. Diana), daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo, was attributed particu- larly, besides her influence upon childbirth (A. Iltihyia), another one of the various functions of moon goddesses, namely, a fostering care over the abundant game in field and forest. She then developed into the goddess of hunt- ing (Agroteira), probably because, being a light-goddess, she is, like her brother Apollo, armed with bow and arrows ; moreover, the swift motion of the moon through the so-called Zodiac reminds one of a hunt. At Athens the festival of Elapliebolia (' stag hunt') was celebrated in her honor, and the hind is represented as her constant companion.- As a chaste and austere maiden she pun- ished with great severity every violation of chastity. The hunter Actaeon, son of Aristaeus, who had acci- dentally surprised her and her attendant nymphs bath- ing, was changed by her into a stag, that his own dogs might tear him to pieces ; and on similar grounds she killed the giant hunter Orion, who was then transferred as a constellation to the sky. 58. The many-breasted goddess of Ephesus, conceived of as the nourisher of all life, was so similar to the pro- tectress of the beasts of the forest and field that she also