Artemis
Roman: Diana
Moon Hunt Nature Protection Childbirth
Goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and wild animals, Homer's 'mistress of wild beasts'. Later cult also made her a protector of girls and of women in childbirth, and later still a goddess of the moon.
Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the sister of Apollo. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo says she was born on Ortygia and he on Delos; later writers made them twins. In the Iliad she sides with the Trojans, and when she taunts Apollo during the battle of the gods, Hera boxes her ears with her own bow. In a later myth, best known from Callimachus and Ovid, the hunter Actaeon came upon her bathing, and she turned him into a stag to be hunted down by his own hounds.
Symbols
Bow and arrows Deer Cypress Crescent moon
In the ancient sources
Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey
- iocheaira
- “shooter of arrows” Odyssey 6.102
- chrysothronos
- “golden-throned” Iliad 9.533
- potnia thērōn
- “mistress of wild beasts” Iliad 21.470
- Iliad 21.468–513 In the battle of the gods she taunts Apollo; Hera calls her a lion against women and boxes her ears with her own bow.
- Iliad 9.533–549 When King Oeneus forgets her offering of first fruits, she sends the Calydonian boar against his land.
- Iliad 24.602–609 With Apollo she kills the children of Niobe, who had boasted that she had more children than Leto.
- Odyssey 6.102–109 The princess Nausicaa among her maids is compared to Artemis hunting on the mountains.
- Odyssey 11.172–173 Her 'gentle arrows' bring women a sudden, painless death.
Homer never calls Artemis and Apollo twins, and in his poems she brings sudden death to women rather than helping them in childbirth (that role belongs to Eileithyia).
Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns
- elaphēbolos
- “shooter of stags” Homeric Hymn to Artemis 27.2
- Theogony 918–920 Leto lies with Zeus and bears Apollo and Artemis, who delights in arrows.
- Homeric Hymn to Apollo 14–16 Leto is hailed as mother of Artemis, born on Ortygia, and of Apollo, born on rocky Delos.
- Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 16–20 Aphrodite can never tame Artemis, who loves archery, hunting in the mountains, lyres, dances and shady woods.
- Homeric Hymn to Artemis (27) After hunting she goes to Apollo's house at Delphi and leads the Muses and Graces in a dance honoring Leto.
In Hesiod and the Hymns she is a huntress and archer, not yet a goddess of the moon.
Cross-checked against these texts and records, in public-domain or freely available versions where they exist. Line, section and chapter numbers follow the standard editions, so a particular translation may differ slightly.
Correspondences Explore all
These mix ancient attributes with modern associations from contemporary pagan and magical practice; the modern ones weren't part of her original worship.