Artemis- Greek GodDeity"Mistress of Animals"

Birth on Delos

Hera forbade any land from sheltering Leto, pregnant with Zeus's children. She kept Eileithyia, goddess of labor, on Olympus so that Leto's agony would have no end. Leto wandered for nine days, rejected by every island. Delos alone received her: a barren rock adrift on the waves, not truly land, and so beyond Hera's decree. The goddesses sent Iris to fetch Eileithyia with a bribe: a necklace of gold and amber, nine cubits long. When Eileithyia arrived, Leto clutched a palm tree on the shore and gave birth. Artemis came first. The newborn turned and helped her mother deliver Apollo.

When both twins were born, the barren rock was anchored in place and bloomed. No one was afterward permitted to be born or die on Delos.

The Nymphs and the Bow

In Callimachus's hymn, Artemis was three years old when she climbed onto her father's knee. She asked for a silver bow and the mountains. Zeus laughed and gave her both. The Cyclopes forged the bow. Pan contributed hunting dogs from his own pack. She gathered sixty ocean nymphs as companions, and every one swore the same oath of chastity she had claimed at three.

When the nymph Callisto, seduced by Zeus himself, was found to be pregnant, Artemis drove her from the band. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Callisto tried to hide her belly while bathing, but the water revealed everything. She was transformed into a bear and hunted through the wilderness until Zeus placed her among the stars as Ursa Major.

Actaeon and Niobe

Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus, was hunting on Mount Cithaeron when he stumbled onto a hidden spring. Artemis and her nymphs were bathing. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the goddess had no weapon at hand. She splashed water onto Actaeon's face, and antlers broke through his skull. His hands became hooves, his body covered in dappled fur. His own hounds caught the scent and dragged him down. Ovid names them all. Melampus and Ichnobates led the pack. They did not know him. Actaeon tried to call their names. No sound came from his stag's throat.

Niobe of Thebes boasted that she surpassed Leto, who had only two children where Niobe had fourteen. Apollo and Artemis answered together. Apollo killed the seven sons. Artemis killed the seven daughters. In Ovid, Niobe was turned to stone on Mount Sipylus, a rock face that still weeps water.

The Calydonian Boar

King Oeneus of Calydon made harvest offerings to the gods and forgot Artemis. She sent a boar to ravage his lands, enormous and savage. It uprooted orchards and drove farmers behind their walls. Oeneus's son Meleager assembled hunters from across Greece. The boar killed Ancaeus when he charged it with an axe. Atalanta drew first blood with an arrow. Meleager delivered the killing blow and awarded her the hide. His uncles objected. In the quarrel, Meleager killed them.

His mother Althaea had kept a secret since his birth. The Fates had told her that Meleager would live only as long as a certain brand remained unburnt. She had snatched it from the flames and hidden it away. Now, torn between her dead brothers and her living son, she threw the brand back into the fire. Meleager collapsed as it burned.

Iphigenia at Aulis

At Aulis, the Greek fleet sat becalmed. A thousand ships waited for wind. Agamemnon had killed a deer in Artemis's sacred grove and boasted he was a better hunter. Artemis stilled the wind. The seer Calchas told Agamemnon the price: his daughter Iphigenia.

Iphigenia was lured to Aulis with the promise that she would marry Achilles. Her mother Clytemnestra came with her, expecting a wedding. In Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, the girl first wept and begged for her life, then chose to go willingly. As the knife fell, Artemis substituted a deer on the altar and carried the girl to the land of the Taurians, where Iphigenia served as her priestess. In Aeschylus's Agamemnon, there is no substitution.

Orion

Orion was a son of Poseidon, a hunter tall enough to wade through the sea with his head above the waves. He hunted with Artemis across Crete, the only mortal who could match her in the chase.

Apollo disapproved. In Hyginus's Fabulae, he pointed to a distant target bobbing on the waves and challenged Artemis to prove her aim. She drew and fired. The target was Orion's head. When the sea washed his body ashore, Artemis placed him among the stars.

In the Catasterismi attributed to Eratosthenes, it was no trick. A great scorpion killed Orion after he boasted he would hunt every animal on earth. Artemis and Leto asked Zeus to set both in the sky. Orion sets as Scorpius rises, still fleeing.