The Greek Goddesses

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana.

Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals". The Arcadians believed she was the daughter of Demeter.

In the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis was often described as the dso and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often depicted as a huntress carrying a Bow & Arrows.

The deer, wolves, and the cypress were sacred to her. In later Hellenistic times, she also assumed the ancient role of Eileithyia in aiding childbirth.

Ancient Greek writers linked Artemis (Doric Artamis) by way of folk etymology to artemes "safe" or artamos "butcher".

However, the name Artemis (variants Arktemis, Arktemisa) is most likely related to Greek árktos "bear" , supported by the bear cult that the goddess had in Attica (Brauronia) and the Neolithic remains at the Arkoudiotissa Cave, as well as the story about Callisto, which was originally about Artemis (Arcadian epithet Callisto).

This cult was a survival of very old totemic and shamanistic rituals and formed part of a larger bear cult found further afield in other Indo-European cultures (e.g., Gaulish Artio).

It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshiped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, Britomartis. While the connection with Anatolian names has been suggested, the earliest attested forms of the name Artemis are the Mycenaean Greek a-te-mi-to and a-ti-mi-te, written in Linear B at Pylos. Artemis was venerated in Lydia as Artimus.

                        Birth

Various conflicting accounts are given in Classical Greek mythology of the birth of Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo. All accounts agree, however, that she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and that she was the twin sister of [[Apollbecause he had impregnated Leto. But the island of Delos (or Ortygia in the Homeric Hymn to Artemis) disobeyed Hera, and Leto gave birth there.

Once, Artemis was tricked into having a child. Artemis had offended Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. She told Athena and Hera that they were not the true virgin goddess.

After all, Athena had children, and Hera was the goddess of marriage. She then told Aphrodite that love was worthless since you would most likely have a broken heart in the end. She showed the example of Orpheus and Eurydice. They still had broken hearts. Of course, this goddess did not take offense easily.

They plotted to get revenge. With the help of Dionysus, they made every young man look like a golden stag. But really, they were the men of Athens. Soon she was in childbirth, which was very painful. Hera (who was also the goddess of childbirth), made sure that the birth would not come easily for Artemis.

People are not sure who her daughter was. Some say it is Haley's comet. Others say that she is the shadows of night. Most people believe that it was the moon that was her daughter, always shining down upon us.

In ancient Cretan history, Leto was worshiped at Phaistos and in Cretan mythology, Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis at the islands known today as the Paximadia.

A scholium of Servius on Aeneid iii. 72 accounts for the island's archaic name Ortygia by asserting that Zeus transformed Leto into a quail (ortux) in order to prevent Hera from finding out his infidelity, and Kenneth McLeish suggested further that in quail form Leto would have given birth with as few birth-pains as a mother quail suffers when it lays an egg.