Let us get familiarised with a few other Greek Gods and Goddesses also. “Artemis, in Greek religion, the goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation and of chastity and childbirth; she was identified by the Romans with Diana. Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. Among the rural populace, Artemis was the favourite goddess”
2. Artemis Called Diana by the Romans. According to the most ancient account, she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo, born with him in the island of Delos.
Artemis as the sister of Apollo, is a female divinity, representing the same idea that Apollo did as a male divinity. Artemis is, like her brother, armed With a bow, quiver and arrows, and sends plagues and sudden death among humans and animals, and if propitiated cures and alleviates sufferings. In the trojan war, she sided. like Apollo, with the trojans. She was more especially the protectress of the young. She came to be regarded as the goddess of the flocks and the chase and became the huntress among the immortals. Artemis, like Apollo, is unmarried, she is a maiden-divinity never conquered by love. She slew Orion with her arrows, because he attempted her chastity: and she changed Actaeon into a stag because he had seen her bathing. With her brother Apollo, she slew the children of Niobe, who had deemed herself superior to eto When Apollo was regarded as identical with the Sun or Helios, his sister, Artemis, was looked upon as Selene or the Moon. Hence she is represented as in love with Endymion whom she kissed in his sleep but this legend properly relates to Salēne or the Moon, and is foreign to the character of Artemis The Arcadian Artemis a Goddess of the nymphs, was worshipped in Arcadia in early times. She hunted with her nymphs on the Arcadian mountains and her chariot was drawn by four stags with golden antlers. There was no connection between the Arcadian Artemis and Apollo
The Taurian Artemis.There was in Tauris a Goddess, whom the Greeks identified with their own Artemis, and to whom all strangers thrown on the Loast of Tauris were sacrificed. Iphigenia and Orestes brought her image from thence, and landed at Brauron in Attica, whence the goddess derived the name of Brauronia. The Brauronian Artemis was worshipped at Athens and Sparta, and Spartan boys were scourged at her altar till it was besprinkled with their blood.
The Ephesian Artemis was distinct from the Greek goddess. She was an ancient Asiatic divinity, whose worship the Greeks found established in Ionia, when they settled there, and to whom they gave the name of Artemis. Her image in the magnificent temple of Ephesus was represented with many breasts. The representations of the Greek Artemis in works of art vary according to the role assigned to her. As the huntress, her breast is covered, and the legs up to the knees are naked, the rest being covered by the chlamys (short cloak). Her equipment consists of the bow, quiver and arrows, or a spear stags and dogs. As the goddess of the moon, she wears a long robe, which reaches down to her feet, a veil covers her head and above her forehead rises the crescent of the moon. The most famous of her existing statues is Versailles ‘Diana’, now in the Louvre, Paris. In the Indo-Greek coin-portraits, Artemis wears eight-rayed crown chiton and buskin, and holds bow and arrow, with quiver at the back. The Greeks who settled in Bactria after Alexander’s invasion. identified the local goddess Anahid with their own Artemis. Anahid (Anaita of the Avesta hymns and Tanata of the Persians), was originally a Saka Goddess & became very popular in Baceria and Persia after Cyrus brought her cult from the east. At Bactra, the capital of Bactria, stood one of her many rich temples. Artaxirxes adorned this shrine with a magnificent statue. This image is celebrated in the Avesta hymns, which describe her as the “High- girdled one, clad in a mantle of gold, having on the head a golden crown, with eight rays and and hundred stars and clad in a robe of thirty otter skins of the sort with a shining fur. Apparently the Indo-Greek portraits are influenced by this Bactrian image.
