The cult of Artemis: Ephesus, Sparta, Brauron and the wild goddess

A goddess of the edges

Artemis is the goddess of what lies outside the city: forests, mountains, wild animals and life's transitions. Daughter of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo, she hunts with bow and arrows, refuses marriage and protects girls until they are girls no longer. At the same time, women call on her in childbirth, and her arrows explain the sudden deaths of women, just as Apollo's explain those of men.

This mixture of virginity, violence and care is what makes her cult so varied. There was not one Artemis, but many, each tied to a place.

What the myths tell

Already in Homer she is "mistress of animals" (potnia thērōn). Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis, from the 3rd century BC, shows the young girl asking her father for eternal virginity, many names and a bow. The best-known myths are about punishment: Actaeon, turned into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds for seeing her naked; Niobe, who lost her daughters for boasting before Leto; and Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon had to sacrifice at Aulis to appease the goddess and win winds for Troy.

Ephesus: the wonder of the world

The temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in present-day Turkey, was one of the largest buildings in the Greek world and made the list of the Seven Wonders. In 356 BC it was set on fire by a man named Herostratus, who wanted to become famous. Tradition says it was the same night Alexander the Great was born. The temple was rebuilt and only fell at the end of antiquity. Today one reassembled column stands in a waterlogged field.

The Artemis of Ephesus did not look like the huntress. Her cult statue had a torso covered in bulges that were long read as breasts. Today scholars debate whether they were eggs, ornaments or even the testicles of sacrificed bulls. The cult was so important to the local economy that the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 19, describes a riot of silversmiths against Paul's preaching, shouting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!".

Brauron: the bear-girls

At the sanctuary of Brauron, near Athens, Athenian girls spent a period serving the goddess as "bears" (arktoi). The rite, the arkteia, appears on vases showing girls running and dancing, and is mentioned in a comedy by Aristophanes. A myth tells that a sacred bear was killed and the goddess demanded this service in compensation. It was a rite of passage: before marriage, the "wild" girl belonged to Artemis.

Sparta: Artemis Orthia

At Sparta, in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, young men had to steal cheeses from the altar while being whipped. In Roman times the rite became a spectacle for tourists, and Pausanias records the legend that the goddess wanted human blood on the altar and that the whipping was a substitute. British excavations in the early 20th century found thousands of masks and lead votive figurines.

From Artemis to Diana

The Romans identified Artemis with their Diana and inherited the Greek myths. But Diana had cults of her own. In the grove at Lake Nemi, Diana's priest, the rex nemorensis, won his office by killing his predecessor. James Frazer opened The Golden Bough (1890) with that scene and built from it a whole theory of sacred kings and sacrifice, heavily criticised today but decisive for modern occultism.

Artemis today

Modern witchcraft and Wicca made Diana and Artemis faces of the lunar Goddess, linked to the crescent moon. That is a recent reading: in Greece the moon was Selene, and Artemis' link with her is late. That does not invalidate contemporary practice, but it helps separate the ancient cult from the modern synthesis. See the guide to Wicca, the one to Hecate, another goddess of the edges often confused with Artemis, and the moon phases.