Artemis, The Goddess of Hunting Options

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ARTEMIS - THE GODDESS OF HUNTING




Artemis is one of the oldest and most intresting figure in the Greek pantheum. Daughter of Zeus and Litos, twin sister of Apollonas, goddess of hunting, queen of the mountains and forests, protector of small kids and animals.
They say that Artemis was born in the rock-island Ortygia, that her mother, Lito, went there to find shelter from the anger that Hera, the legal wife of Zeus, had for her, like all the girls that Zeus had love affairs with them.

There with the help of all the goddesses except Hera, Artemis came to life and after a while Apollonas too. From the begining Artemis was a very clever child. She helped her mother to born her twin brother Apollonas, so from then, Greeks identified her with Hilithia (=Ηλιθεία) the goddess of parturition.
From very young, she was very stable in her decisions. From the age of three, she had special demands about her clothing, her weapons and the court in her special hobby, hunting! Zeus admired her for her courage and intelligence and he was trying to satisfy all her demands. One of the first things that Artemis asked her father for, was the eternal purity and virginity!

Devoted to her ideas, she never broke. She never slink in mud her name and she had the demand that everyone was devoted to her, act the same! Even the nymfs that were all around her all the time.

Artemis had no mersy. Anything or anyone was turning against her beleives had to be punished. Gods and mortals, many times tasted her lethal arrows. Aktaionas once, the son of Aristaios and Aytonoh, happened to see Artemis naked when she was taking her bath in a river. From her fear that he might tell everyone, she transform him into a deer and she put the 50 dogs that were with him to eat him.
One other time Kallisto, daughter of Lykaona and one of the attendants of Artemis, almost lost her life because she had made love with Zeus and she was carrying his baby. She also killed Ariadni because, according to the legend, she had been kidnaped and felt in love with Thiseas in the island of Naxos.
Also Orionas, son of Posidon, died from her arrows because according to one legend he made love with IO the goddess of dawn, or according to another legend, because he was telling everyone that he was better in the bow from her.

Artemis loved a lot small kids or teenagers and anyone who hadnt lost his purity. She was protecting everyone who lived under this way of life. Ippolytos is a living example of this. Ippolytos was a very good hunter and a great broncobuster. He had devoted his life in Artemis and in the ides that she represented. No woman was ever capable to atrract him. Not even Faidra, the wife of Thiseas, who she was a very beautifull woman didnt manage to mislead him from his ideas. Artemis was very pleased with this and she gave him glory and happiness and everybody remembers his name after his death.

Artemis was one of the most beautifull goddesses of Olympous. Our ancestors imagined her tall with pretty and noble body and beautifull walking.

When her brother Apollonas hesitated to fight Posidon, artemis kept a negative possition to her brother and she spoke to him with bitter words. Hera that was present at the moment was very angree with her that she started hitting her with her own arrows.

Artemis didnt like travelling a lot and all her energy was canalized in the hunting. Surrounded by beautifull nymphs but a lot of wild dogs also. Dressed very pure, suitable for the hunting of these days, was trying to hunt big beasts in the mountains and the forests. She was a vibrantly woman with great athletic skills and very good in the bow, it was very difficult for a beast to get away. But she was also the protector of everything living or not in the forests and mountains. She was a realy queen of the nature, wild or not.

As a protector of the nature, Artemis was responsible for the agriculture and the pastoralism also. Places that worshiped her, was certain that the crop will be god and the animals will be ok, but places that people ignoring her and her beleives, it was also certain that their crops will be destroyed and their animals slaughtered.

Admitos and Oineas felt her anger because of their disregard. Admitos at his wedding celebration, forgot to make a sucrifice for the goddess, as he should do, so Artemis that was living about that, send him in his wedding bed some snakes and she was ready to take his life, no matter if Apollonas was trying to persuade her for the opposite. Finally Admitos persuades the Moires (=destiny), the 3 old women that were deciding the future or the death of each mortal, to let him go and for exchange, they could take someone else of his people. The onlyone who wanted to go with them was his wife Alkhsth. But the last moment she was saved by Hercules, the well known demigod and son of Zeus, before her soul goes down, in the kingdom of Adis.

Oineas once, also had forgot to sacrifice for the protector of his city Kalydonas. The protector was Artemis. This error cost his city a lot. Artemis sent in his city a big capros (very big wild pig) that made int the city great disasters. Noone was daring to fight him except his son Meleagros. He finaly killed him but in the fight for the sharing, he was killed. His wife and his mother didnt stand the loss of him and commited suicide. His sisters that were regreting him a lot, Artemis transform them into hens!

Beyond these incidents, Artemis also helped Hercules in one of his famous 12 contests! For a big time Hercules was hunting a beautifull deer with golden horns and feet that was property of Artemis. Artemis and her brother prevent him from killing the animal and persuade him to give it in Tiryntha, at the king Eurysthea. When Eurystheas took the animal he gave it back to Artemis. Like here, Artemis and her brother Apollonas acted together many times for a common purpose. Like the incident with Niovi. Niovi was blusting Lito for the prettier children she had and the number of them. Here we have the collaboration of Artemis and Apollonas. Seven arrows from Artemis and seven from apollonas and her 14 children were dead. With the same way she also killed Hioni (snow) that she was telling that her beauty was far beyond any other goddess and Artemis too.

In the Trojan War, we also see Artemis with her brother Apollonas, Aris and Afrodite (venus) helping the Trojans. One incident from the very begining was when they tried to sail for Troy (=Τροία). There was no wind at all and that was because the king Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army in the Trojan war, hunt by accident a deer in a forest that was dedicated to Artemis. Artemis demanded the sucrifice of Ifigenia (=Ιφιγένεια) for the winds to blow again.

Also Ainias, fatally injured by Diomidis, with the help of Artemis and Lhto managed to recover and continew in the battle.

Artemis had many synbols. From animals and plants to weapons. Some of them are: the goat, the deer, the bear, the dog, the snake, the palm tree, the sword, the quiver for the arrows, the spear and many more!

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