Artemis

Also known as: Alphean / Artemis Laphria / Artemis Limnatis / Artemis Limnæa / Artemis Preserver / Artemis Triclaria / Artemis of Limnæ / Artemis the Leader / Artemis the Saviour / Cordace / Elaphiæan / Ephesian Artemis / Hegemone / Heurippe / Issora / Laphrian Artemis / Lightbringing Artemis / Limnæa / Lycean Artemis / Orthian Artemis / Saviour / Sciadian Artemis / Sovereign Artemis / The Most Beautiful / Æginetan Artemis · Family: Olympian gods · Role: goddess · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 23

In Book 1, Artemis is associated with a temple at Brauron whose statue was designed by Praxiteles. Iphigenia brought her statue to Brauron and left it there before continuing to Athens and Argos; another account says Artemis changed Iphigenia into Hecate. In Book 2, Artemis killed Cenchrias, and Pirene mourned him; with Apollo, she slew Pytho, after which they went to Ægialea for purification. She also killed Coronis for betraying Apollo, while Hermes rescued her child Æsculapius from the funeral pyre, and made Britomartis a goddess after she escaped Minos.

In Book 3, Cnageus escaped slavery at Artemis’s temple in Crete with its priestess, who took the goddess’s image. In Book 4, the Messenians adopted Artemis Laphria’s worship from the Calydonians; in Book 5, Artemis and Apollo were represented shooting down Niobe’s children. By Book 7, the people of Patræ had received the statue of Laphrian Artemis from Ætolia. A tradition there connected Artemis’s wrath with the deaths of Melanippus (lover of Comætho) and Comætho in her temple; famine and illness followed, and an oracle ordered annual sacrifices of a maiden and lad to Artemis.

In Book 8, Artemis shot Callisto to please Hera, and Odysseus dedicated a temple to her at Pheneus under the title Heurippe. In Book 9, she substituted a doe when Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed, and her dog and the Teumessus fox were turned to stone. In Book 10, Artemis joined Apollo and Leto in shooting Tityus; she was also said to have given Camiro and Clytie their stature.