Artemis / Diana
Goddess of the hunt, the wild, and the moon
Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, and the moon — a fierce, independent archer who roamed the mountains with her band of nymphs and her hounds. She asked Zeus for eternal freedom, and she guarded it with her bow.
How they were born
Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. When Leto was pregnant, the jealous Hera forbade every land to shelter her, until the floating island of Delos took her in. Artemis was born first, and according to tradition she then acted as midwife for her mother, helping to deliver her twin brother Apollo after nine long days of labor — which is why Artemis, though a virgin herself, became the goddess women called on in childbirth.
The greatest stories
Artemis and Actaeon
Actaeon was a young hunter who had spent the day chasing deer in the woods with his hounds. Thirsty and tired, he wandered into a hidden grove where Artemis was bathing in a spring with her nymphs. The moment she saw him, Artemis splashed water in his face and cried out that he could tell everyone he had seen her — if he could tell anyone at all. Antlers sprouted from his head, his arms became legs, and he turned into a stag. His own hunting dogs caught his scent and tore him apart, and Artemis watched without pity. The Greeks told this story as a warning: some boundaries are not to be crossed, and the wild is not a place for careless eyes.
Artemis and Niobe
Niobe, queen of Thebes, was proud of her fourteen children — seven sons and seven daughters — and she boasted that she was better than the goddess Leto, who had only two. It was a fatal insult. Leto called on her twins, and Apollo and Artemis came with their bows: Apollo shot down all seven sons, and Artemis shot down all seven daughters, so swiftly that Niobe could do nothing but watch. Niobe wept so long and so hard that the gods took pity on her and turned her to stone — but even as a rock on Mount Sipylus, the stone was said to weep forever. The Greeks called this hubris: pride that forgets the gods are listening.
The Calydonian Boar
When King Oeneus of Calydon forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, she sent a monstrous boar to ravage his kingdom, tearing up fields and killing farmers. The king's son Meleager called together the greatest heroes of Greece to hunt it, including the huntress Atalanta, whom Meleager admired. Atalanta drew first blood with her arrow, and Meleager finished the boar with his spear — but when he awarded the boar's hide to Atalanta, his own uncles tried to take it from her, and Meleager killed them in the quarrel. His mother, learning her brothers were dead, threw into the fire the log that the Fates had said measured Meleager's life, and he died as it burned. Artemis had sent the boar, but the heroes destroyed themselves.
Artemis and Orion
Orion was a giant hunter, the only man Artemis ever truly enjoyed hunting beside, and the two became close companions — some say she even came to love him. Her brother Apollo did not approve, and in one version of the story he tricked her: pointing to a dark speck far out at sea, he bet that she could not hit it with her arrow. Artemis never missed. The speck was Orion, swimming with only his head above the water, and her arrow killed him. When she realized what she had done, Artemis placed Orion among the stars, where he still hunts across the winter sky with his dogs, forever chasing the Pleiades. In other versions Orion boasted he would kill every animal on earth, and Gaia sent a scorpion to sting him — the scorpion, too, became a constellation.
Artemis and Iphigenia
When the Greek fleet was becalmed at Aulis on its way to Troy, the seer Calchas said Artemis was holding back the winds because Agamemnon had boasted he was a better hunter than she was. The price for the wind was terrible: Agamemnon must sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia. He lured her to Aulis with the promise of marriage to Achilles, and she was led to the altar — but at the last moment, Artemis swept her away and left a deer in her place on the altar. Artemis carried Iphigenia far away to Tauris, where she served as the goddess's priestess. In some tellings Iphigenia was truly sacrificed, and in others she was saved — the Greeks themselves could not agree, and both endings were told.
Family & connections
Symbol, animal & weapon
Fun facts
- The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — four times the size of the Parthenon, and rebuilt three times.
- As a little girl, Artemis sat on Zeus' knee and asked him for ten gifts: eternal virginity, a bow and arrows, mountains to roam, and a band of nymphs to hunt with — and he gave her everything she asked.
- She was born first of the twins and helped deliver her brother Apollo, which is why a virgin goddess became the protector of women in childbirth.
- NASA named its program to return astronauts to the Moon 'Artemis' — she is the twin sister of Apollo, after whom the first Moon program was named.
- The Amazons, the legendary warrior women, were said to worship Artemis above all other gods, and the city of Ephesus claimed she was born there rather than on Delos.
Gallery — sculpture & art
