The Artemis of cult bears only a partial resemblance to the Homeric goddess, an adolescent girl who delights in the hunt and is celebrated as the divine prototype of the virginal maiden, ripe for marriage. Still, hints of Artemis’ cruelty and power appear in the Homeric portrait. Hera (II. 21.483) calls her “a lion to women,” pointing out that she brings death to any woman she wishes, though her power is dependent on the will of Zeus. Homer (II. 21.470-71) also gives Artemis the titles Agrotera (of the Wilds) and Potnia Theron (Mistress of Animals). Because Artemis is a goddess of game animals and takes special delight in “the suckling young of every wild creature” (Aesch. Ag. 140-43), she has been compared to certain deities of hunter-gatherer cultures around the world, whose function is to protect and regulate
The supply of game. Wild animals, particularly deer, were considered sacred to Artemis, and her sanctuaries sometimes possessed sacred and inviolate herds, as at Lousoi in Arkadia.2
A Mistress of Animals is familiar in the shared iconography of Bronze Age cultures in the Aegean; she stands flanked by paired animals or birds, which she grasps firmly by their necks or tails. This motif occasionally appears in representations of other Greek goddesses, but is found most often among Archaic votive gifts to Artemis. In societies where hunting is reduced in the main to an aristocratic pastime, the powerful deities of the hunt are not forgotten but modified; Artemis’ interest in the death-dealing potential of the hunter is transferred to the warrior.3 The widespread cult of Artemis Agrotera, found all over mainland Greece and beyond, focused often on victory in battle. According to Xenophon (Hell. 4.2.20), at the crucial point when the enemy was within sight, the Spartans slaughtered a goat for Artemis Agrotera, “as was their custom,” and charged. Athenian sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera were conducted by the polemarchos, a military official, and made in conjunction with those to the war god Enyalios. In thanks for their victory at Marathon in 490, the Athenians annually organized a large procession to Agrai outside the city, a pleasant spot where the young Artemis was supposed to have hunted for the first time. Dressed in their armor, the ephebes escorted five hundred female goats to be sacrificed at Artemis’ small Classical temple on the Ilissos river. The battles of Artemision and Salamis were also commemorated with festivals for Artemis, whose saving power was felt in times of dire peril.4
Artemis’ identity as mistress of wild nature is expressed through the placement of sanctuaries (often in rural areas, especially near rivers or wetlands) and through epithets and unusual sacrificial practices. In Samos, she was known as Kaprophagos (Boar Eater), presumably because wild boars were offered to her. The wild boar also appears as a sacred animal in the legends of Kalydon in Aitolia, where the angry goddess once sent a huge boar to ravage the countryside. The Laphrion or sanctuary of Artemis Laphria in Kalydon was the most important in the district, next to Apollo’s sanctuary at Thermon. It was established in the Geometric period, while the first temple of Artemis appeared at the end of the seventh century and was rebuilt several times. In the fifth century (c. 460) the Kalydonians added a gold and ivory statue of Artemis in huntress garb with one breast exposed, sculpted by Menichmos and Soidas of Naupaktos. A second temple at the site was devoted to Apollo Laphrios, just as the Thermon sanctuary of Apollo in Aitolia included a temple of Artemis. The remains at the site show that the sacrificial animals here included boars, deer, and horses. Pausanias’ description (7.18.8-13) of the later cult at nearby Patrai, where Augustus transferred it after destroying Kalydon, may give us some idea of earlier practices, though we cannot be certain that there was continuity. Each spring the people of Patrai held a grand procession to the altar, and last of all came the priestess of Artemis in a
Figure 8.1 Artemis from the east frieze of the Parthenon. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
Chariot drawn by yoked deer. Creatures of all sorts, including deer, game birds, bear cubs, and domesticated animals, were driven into a large enclosure around the altar. A bonfire of logs within was kindled and the fire consumed the animals alive. The offerings also included fruit from the local orchards, which suggests that the animals too were considered “first fruits” for the goddess. This ritual has been compared to the spring fire festivals of other Indo-European cultures, including the Celtic practice of burning live animals and people in wicker enclosures.5
The themes of salvation in wartime and mastery over the animal world are again united with a fire festival in the Phokian cult of Artemis Elaphebolos (Shooter of Stags). The people of Phokis in central Greece long remembered a sixth-century conflict with their neighbors to the north, the Thessalians. They told how on the eve of the most desperate battle, the men of Phokis constructed a huge pyre and placed on it all their valuable possessions and the images of the gods. If the battle was lost, the men guarding the pyre were to kill the Phokian women and children, place them on the pyre, light it, and then commit suicide. When the Phokians instead won the battle, they commemorated the victory during the important festival called the Elaphebolia at the sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo near Hyampolis. This site (modern Kalapodi) held symbolic and strategic importance because it guarded the entrance into Phokis. In all likelihood the festival, and certainly the sanctuary, were far older than the war with the Thessalians. Recent excavations have revealed that Kalapodi is one of the extremely rare cases in which continuity of worship can (arguably) be demonstrated from late Mycenaean times to the Geometric period. While this does not prove that Artemis was a goddess of the sanctuary in the Bronze Age, the remains of sacrificial deer from the Mycenaean levels are consistent with her title of Elaphebolos.
In the ninth century the sanctuary was reorganized and two small temples (presumably for Artemis and Apollo) were constructed, one over the previous Mycenaean installation. These were followed by a succession of later temples, in the early phases characterized by interior hearths for cooking sacrificial animals (now the more conventional goats and sheep). About 560, major renovations were undertaken and the character of the offerings changed, with a new preponderance of weapons and armor. These developments are consistent with local memories of the war with Thessaly and the development of the sanctuary as a regional place of worship and a key factor in Phokian self-definition.
World History
