49 Fun Facts About Artemis

Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt and of which celestial body in later tradition?

The Greeks' original lunar deity was Selene; the two were merged over time, along with Hecate, into a triple goddess.

Who was Artemis's twin brother?

Apollo was Artemis's twin; by some accounts she was born first and, as a newborn, helped her mother deliver him.

Who was the mother of Artemis?

Leto, a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, bore the divine twins to Zeus after a long persecution.

On which island, in most accounts, was Artemis born?

Delos, then a floating island, took in the persecuted mother when no fixed land dared; it was anchored in place as its reward.

Which Roman goddess is the equivalent of Artemis?

Diana, Rome's goddess of the hunt and wild places, absorbed Artemis's myths; her name likely derives from a Latin root meaning divine or heavenly.

Along with Athena and which other goddess, Artemis was one of the three great virgin goddesses?

Hestia, goddess of the hearth, joined Athena and Artemis as the three virgin goddesses whom, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite says, Aphrodite could not sway.

Which animal was especially sacred to Artemis?

The deer was Artemis's sacred animal: she is shown with a hind at her side, and harming her deer brought her fury down on hunters and kings alike.

The hunter Actaeon saw Artemis bathing and was turned into which animal before his own dogs killed him?

Artemis turned Actaeon into a stag; in Apollodorus his grieving hounds were consoled by a lifelike statue of him made by the centaur Chiron.

Actaeon belonged to the royal house of which Greek city?

Actaeon's mother Autonoe was a daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and his father was Aristaeus, the rustic god of beekeeping and herds.

Artemis's companion Callisto was transformed into which animal after Zeus seduced her?

Callisto was turned into a she-bear, by Artemis, by Zeus or by his jealous wife depending on the teller, and bore Zeus the son Arcas, who gave his name to Arcadia.

Callisto was the daughter of which king of Arcadia?

Lycaon, the Arcadian king whom Zeus turned into a wolf, was Callisto's father in the usual account; Hyginus adds that Zeus approached her disguised as Artemis.

Which constellation was Callisto placed in, according to the version in Hyginus?

Her son Arcas became Ursa Minor in the same telling.

Which boastful queen claimed to outdo Leto as a mother and lost all her children to the twins?

Niobe boasted that her twelve children outdid the mother of the twins; in the Iliad the twin gods shot her six sons and six daughters.

Which of Artemis's hunting companions was killed by a giant scorpion and placed among the stars?

In another version Apollo tricked his sister into shooting Orion herself while he swam far out at sea.

According to Istrus, Orion was the only person Artemis ever did what?

Istrus, quoted by Hyginus, says Artemis fell in love with the hunter and meant to marry him; her disapproving brother dared her to hit a distant speck at sea, which was his head.

Which Greek commander shot Artemis's sacred deer, causing her to becalm the fleet at Aulis?

Agamemnon shot a creature sacred to Artemis and boasted of the kill; she stilled the winds at Aulis and demanded his daughter Iphigenia before the fleet could sail.

Which playwright's Iphigenia in Tauris shows the girl serving as Artemis's priestess after her rescue?

Euripides wrote Iphigenia in Tauris around 414 BC; in it the rescued girl serves Artemis among the Taurians until her brother Orestes arrives.

Iphigenia was brought to Aulis under the pretence that she would marry which hero?

The summons promised Iphigenia a wedding to Achilles; Clytemnestra escorted her to Aulis, and the lie deepened her hatred of her husband.

In the Trojan War, which side did Artemis support?

Artemis sided with the Trojans, as did her twin; in the Iliad's battle of the gods she was boxed about the ears by a senior goddess and fled weeping to Zeus.

At which city's sanctuary of Artemis Orthia were boys ritually flogged at her altar?

Sparta's sanctuary of Artemis Orthia hosted the diamastigosis, in which boys were whipped at the goddess's altar, a rite described by Plutarch and Pausanias.

Artemis sent the great boar that ravaged Calydon because King Oeneus had forgotten her at what?

Oeneus offered the first fruits of the harvest sacrifices to every god but Artemis, so she loosed the Calydonian boar on his fields, as the Iliad recounts.

Homer's title for Artemis, 'Potnia Theron', means what?

Potnia Theron, 'Mistress of animals', is what Homer calls Artemis in the Iliad; the motif of a goddess flanked by two beasts goes back to Bronze Age art.

The name Artemis may be related to the Greek word arktos, meaning what?

Bear: arktos is the Greek for bear, and the link would explain Artemis's bear rites in Attica, though other etymologies of her name have been proposed.

At which Attic sanctuary did Athenian girls serve Artemis in the Arkteia rite before marriage?

Brauron, on Attica's east coast, housed the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia, where Athenian girls served the goddess in the Arkteia rite before marriage.

Which Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting is thought to be a precursor of Artemis?

Britomartis, a Cretan goddess later called Diktynna, fled King Minos for nine months and leapt into the sea, landing in fishermen's nets, in Callimachus's hymn to Artemis.

Which god gave Artemis her hunting dogs, animals said to be able to hunt even lions?

Pan, met in Arcadia, gave Artemis her hounds in Callimachus's hymn: two black-and-white, three reddish and a spotted dog, able to drag even lions back alive.

Which of Heracles' labours was intended to enrage Artemis by capturing her sacred golden-horned animal?

The Ceryneian Hind labour was Eurystheus's trap: Heracles pursued the hind for a year, then placated Artemis and her brother by blaming Eurystheus and promising to release it.

The golden-horned hind Heracles captured was once which Pleiad, transformed by Artemis to save her from Zeus?

She had been a dear companion of the goddess and was called the Mistress of Animals herself.

Which son of Theseus, a chaste devotee of Artemis, was destroyed by Aphrodite's scheming?

Hippolytus, son of Theseus, worshipped Artemis and scorned Aphrodite, who made his stepmother Phaedra desire him; his father's curse had him dragged to death by his own horses.

Artemis killed which pregnant princess of Thessaly, her brother's lover, for taking a mortal lover?

Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas, lay with the mortal Ischys while pregnant by the god; Artemis shot her, and the unborn child, Asclepius, was cut from the pyre.

Leto turned the peasants of which region into frogs after they muddied a spring she wanted to drink from?

Lycia in south-west Asia Minor was the centre of her earliest cult, and her name may come from the Lycian word for wife.

The Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stood in which city?

The Temple of Artemis stood at Ephesus, near modern Selçuk in Turkey, about 75 km south of Izmir.

Which king funded the rebuilding of the Temple of Artemis from around 550 BC?

Croesus of Lydia paid for much of the marble temple begun around 550 BC, designed by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes; Herodotus records his column dedications.

Who is popularly blamed for burning down the Temple of Artemis in 356 BC, seeking fame at any cost?

Herostratus confessed under torture that he burned the temple to make his name immortal; the Ephesians executed him and forbade mention of him, yet 'herostratic fame' survives.

Ancient tradition held that the temple burned on the night of whose birth?

Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC, and Plutarch relates Hegesias's joke that Artemis was away attending his delivery when her temple burned.

When Alexander offered to pay for rebuilding the burnt shrine, how did the Ephesians reply?

They rebuilt it at their own expense after his death, and the new temple stood for some 600 years.

Which invaders set fire to the Temple of Artemis in AD 268, according to Jordanes?

The Goths, raiding Asia Minor by sea in AD 268, burned the temple, Jordanes writes in his Getica; it was never fully restored.

In Acts, Ephesian metalsmiths rioted against whose preaching, shouting 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!'?

Paul's preaching in the city, in Acts 19, provoked the silversmith Demetrius, whose trade in silver shrines of Artemis was threatened, into stirring a riot in the theatre.

The rex Nemorensis, priest of Diana's sanctuary at Lake Nemi, held office until what happened?

The rex Nemorensis served until a challenger killed him in a duel: a runaway slave who broke a bough from the sacred grove could fight him for the office, the legend behind Frazer's Golden Bough.

On which Roman hill did Diana have her temple, traditionally dedicated by King Servius Tullius?

The Aventine lay outside the pomerium, marking her as a goddess shared by all Latins rather than Rome's alone.

Artemis's Roman counterpart bore the epithet 'Trivia', referring to her guardianship over what?

Trivia, from Latin trivium, 'three ways', marked the goddess as guardian of three-way crossroads; Seneca's Medea invokes her under that name when casting spells.

The Diana of Versailles, a Roman marble of the goddess with a deer, is displayed in which museum?

The Louvre holds the statue, a papal gift to Henry II of France in 1556 that nodded to the king's mistress Diane de Poitiers; it stood at Versailles before entering the museum.

Which rocket launched the uncrewed Artemis I mission in November 2022?

Artemis I lifted off on 16 November 2022 atop the Space Launch System, NASA's new heavy-lift rocket, on its first flight, a 25-day uncrewed lunar mission.

Which goddess of childbirth was delayed nine days before she came to deliver Artemis's twin?

Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, was kept from the labour for nine days until Iris lured her down with a golden necklace, in the Homeric Hymn to the twin god.

How many columns of the great Temple of Artemis have been re-erected on its site?

One column, a composite reassembled from fragments, stands at the marshy site; the rest of the stone was quarried away over the centuries.

Which abandoned infant, later a famous huntress, did Artemis save by sending a bear to nurse her?

Atalanta, exposed at birth by a father who wanted a son, was raised by hunters after her rescue and later drew first blood in the Calydonian boar hunt.

On which mountain was Artemis said to have been born?

Mount Cynthus, the granite hill on Artemis's birth island, gave her the byname Cynthia, which Roman poets later applied to the lunar goddess.

Which princess of Phocis had her tongue pierced by Artemis's arrow for boasting she was more beautiful?

Chione, daughter of Daedalion, had borne sons to Hermes and to Artemis's brother and boasted she outshone the goddess; an arrow through the tongue silenced her, in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Which river god tried to seize Artemis, prompting her to smear her face with mud so he could not recognise her?

Alpheus, the river god of Elis, loved Artemis; at Letrini she and her nymphs daubed their faces with mud so he could not pick her out, Pausanias reports.