Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/59

 THE GREEK GODS 45 was called Artemis ; yet she seems to have been origi- nally, like Ehea and Cybele, only a local, modified type of the great maternal goddess of nature and war, Ma or Ammas (' mother'), who was worshiped by the Indo- European inhabitants of Asia Minor. To the nymphs attending Artemis as huntresses correspond the Ama- zones (' Amazons ? ) in the service of this Asiatic goddess. Evidently they were originally like her, and lived, accord- ing to the ancient myth, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, i.e. on the Thermodon and Iris in Pontus, while the chief abode of Ma herself was in that very region, at Comana on the Iris. The Amazons fought as bold riders against Bellerophon, Hercules, Theseus, and Achilles. Accordingly they are represented in art mostly as powerful, beautiful riders, with short garments and semicircular (or Boeotian) shields, and are frequently armed with the battle-axe. Phidias and Polyclitus made also statues representing in each case an Amazon fatigued by the exertions of battle. 59. In Athens, Delos, and Epidaurus, Artemis bore the epithet tKarrj ('the far-shooter 7 ). So it is clear that the goddess Hecate, daughter of the Titan Perses ('the shining one') and Asteria ('naiad of the stars 7 ), although her worship developed quite independently, was by nature very closely related to Artemis. Hecate was worshiped principally in Caria and the adjacent provinces of Asia Minor, where she seems to have been an ancient goddess of the country. In Greece proper she was really worshiped only on the east coast, where she was particu- larly honored on the island of Aegina by secret rites or mysteries (Hysteria). In earlier times she was repre- sented with but one body, fully clothed, in her hands two