Artemis: Greek Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon

Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and the moon, the Diana of the Romans. These are the pages where she appears.

Goddess of the hunt and the moon

On The Olympian Gods Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, wilderness and the moon, the daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin of Apollo. On Moon Selene is the old moon goddess, and Artemis, with the Roman Diana, takes on lunar features later. Ignatius Donnelly, on The Kings of Atlantis become the Gods of the Greeks, lists her among the twelve gods of Olympus, which he takes as a reminiscence of the twelve gods of Atlantis.

Her mountains

On Mount Taygetus the nymph Taygete, one of the Pleiades, escapes Zeus when Artemis turns her into a doe, and the mountain is sacred to the goddess. On Mount Erymanthos hunters and locals offered at her altars, and on Poseidon and Erymanthos the people of the river honour Demeter, Artemis and Pan rather than Poseidon. On What Is Mount Ossa? I quote Apollodorus on the giant twins who piled Pelion on Ossa:

Sacrifice, temples and festivals

On Astynome Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to appease Artemis before the fleet sails for Troy. The Temple of Artemis at Sardis stood on ground that may have been sacred to her from the earliest days. In The Secret of Plato’s Atlantis Arundell reads the festivals of Ceres and Diana as carriers of the flood tradition, and at Sparta he finds one form of the rite he follows in the flagellation of youths before the altar of Diana Orthia.

Related pages

• The Olympian Gods
• Moon
• The Kings of Atlantis become the Gods of the Greeks
• Mount Taygetus
• Mount Erymanthos
• What Is Mount Ossa?
• Astynome
• Temple of Artemis
• The Secret of Plato’s Atlantis

For every page I tagged with Artemis, see the Artemis tag archive.