The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter IX.

§ 1. Worship of Artemis. § 2. The Artemis connected with Apollo distinct from the other goddesses of that name. Her attributes. § 3. The Arcadian Artemis. § 4. Fable of Alpheus and Arethusa. The Peloponnesian Artemis. § 5. The Attic Artemis. § 6. Artemis Orthia, or Iphigenia. § 7. Rites of the worship of Artemis Tauria. § 8. The Artemis of Asia Minor. § 9. Her connexion with the Amazons.

1. We now proceed to consider the worship of Artemis; a subject which need not be so fully examined as that of Apollo, as it does not, like the worship of that god, everywhere present the same fundamental notions, and therefore cannot, in all its first beginnings, be derived from the religion of the Dorians. But as in general the Grecian mythology adopted the most various and inconsistent religious views and ideas, so in the name of the single goddess Artemis were united almost opposite branches of ancient worship, which we must attempt to separate. Lest, however, it should be supposed that we are unable to trace the association of ideas, which saw a simple character in the “various forms of that great goddess, who, having her origin in the interior of [pg 372] Asia, passed from thence into Greece, and was worshipped as the moon, the goddess of the woods, the huntress, the nurse of children, and a nurse of the universe, as well by the choruses of the virgins of Caryæ, as in the dances of the temples;”[1514] we will endeavour to ascertain some historical criterion, which may distinguish the worship of Artemis from that of any other deity, and which must not be one of the ideas or symbols of the worship itself, since it is concerning the possibility or impossibility of their connexion that we are to inquire.

2. For this purpose it may be assumed, that the Artemis connected with Apollo belongs alone to the same system of religious notions: and consequently, the Artemis of Ephesus, Artemis Orthia, and Artemis Tauropolus, are of a different nature, as Apollo is never represented as their brother: of this, however, more hereafter. Here we will first show, that in all the chief temples of Apollo, Artemis was worshipped as his sister, as the partner of his nature and of his actions, and, as it were, a part of the same deity. Thus both were children of Latona, and were equally the rulers of the temple of Delphi;[1515] the victory over the Python, the flight, and the expiation, concern both;[1516] both were honoured at the Pythian games of Sicyon, together with Latona;[1517] as also in [pg 373] Crete,[1518] Delos, Lesbos,[1519] at Carthæa,[1520] in the Didymæum,[1521] on the citadel of Troy,[1522] in the worship of Lycia,[1523] as well as in that of Metapontum.[1524] The worship both of Apollo and Artemis is said to have been derived from the Hyperboreans;[1525] and the names of the Hyperborean priestesses, who brought the rites to Delos, Arge and Opis, according to others Hecaerge and Loxo, are only epithets of Artemis. Arge probably means “the rapid;” Opis[1526] (Ὦπις, Ionice Οὖπις, the same as ὄπις) well characterises the spirit of this religion, as it signifies the constant watch and care of the goddess over human actions,[1527] while at the same time she inspires fear and veneration of herself.[1528] She was known also by the same name among the Dorians [pg 374] of Sparta,[1529] and celebrated as such in sacred chants:[1530] thus almost all the attributes and actions of Apollo are referred also to Artemis. She is also the goddess of sudden death;[1531] which she sometimes inflicts in wrath, but sometimes without anger;[1532] and hence she is represented as armed, not only with bow and arrows, but in the Doric states with a complete panoply.[1533] In ancient poets she is not only the destroyer of wild beasts, but also, like her brother, of sacrilegious men.[1534] Thus, with Apollo, she killed Tityus, and, by herself, the Aloidæ,[1535] and Orion, who dared to violate Opis when bringing the ears of corn to Delos.[1536] Hence she [pg 375] was to be appeased by expiatory rites; and had an equal share in Thargelia, and similar festivals.[1537] And for the same reason the laurel was likewise sacred to Artemis.[1538] She was honoured with the song of the pæan.[1539] She is at the same time the destroyer and the preserver (λυκεία[1540] and οὐλία).[1541] And even her name Ἄρτεμις[1542] clearly corresponds with that of the protecting Apollo, since it signifies the “healthy,” the “uninjured.”[1543] Whether the art of music belonged to Apollo alone is not certain; at least the Lacedæmonians celebrated in honour of Artemis a musical contest called καλαϝοιδία;[1544] and her singing is represented in the Iliad as delighting both gods and men.[1545] On reliefs which represent the victors in musical contests, Apollo is always accompanied by his mother and sister.[1546] Artemis had also a claim to the gift of prophecy, at least if we can attribute any antiquity to the tradition of her being a sibyl.[1547] Like Apollo, she is [pg 376] always represented as unmarried; and therefore not as the deity of an elementary religion, and originally not as goddess of the moon, although it cannot be denied that the worship of the moon was very nearly connected with other branches of the worship of Artemis.

But, it may be asked, if this Artemis always has the same characteristics as Apollo, and has none that are peculiar to herself, why should there be two deities to express one idea? Wherefore both a male and female, if neither have any relation to sex? It is difficult to give a satisfactory answer to these questions.

This consideration may, however, in some measure assist; namely, that as soon as Apollo was once supposed to be as an earthly god, as the ideal of all human strength, it was necessary to add also a female being. And the near approximation of the male to the female deity may be accounted for by the condition of the Doric women, who were much more considered as independent beings, and possessed a capability for all those other things which adorn the other sex.

3. But the most difficult part of our problem still remains unsolved; viz. to ascertain what was the worship of Artemis, which had not the same origin and nature with that of Apollo. First of all we should mention the Arcadian. That goddess has nowhere so many temples as in Arcadia; she was there the national deity, and had been long revered, under the title of “Hymnia”, by all the races of that people.[1548] She was also introduced under the name of [pg 377] Callisto into the national genealogies, and called the daughter of Lycaon[1549] (i.e. of the Lycæan Zeus), and mother of Arcas (i.e. of the Arcadian people). For that Callisto is only another form of the name of Artemis Calliste, which is a common epithet of Artemis, is plain from the fact that the tomb of that heroine was shown in the temple of the goddess,[1550] and that Callisto was said to be changed into a bear, which was the symbol of the Arcadian Artemis.[1551] Afterwards, indeed, the fable was much altered; and it was related that Artemis changed Callisto into a bear merely from anger.[1552] But that this ancient Arcadian deity was not the Doric Artemis is proved by the above-mentioned criterion; viz. that she has no connexion with Apollo.

Another circumstance, however, speaks even still plainer. Apollo and his sister seldom received any particular surnames from places where they were worshipped;[1553] whereas the other Artemis has almost innumerable names from the mountains, hills, fountains, and waters of Arcadia, and the other regions of Peloponnesus. Hence Alcman remarks that the goddess bears the names of thousands of hills, cities, and rivers.[1554] There must have been, therefore, something [pg 378] in the attributes of this Arcadian Artemis which produced such a number of local names; she must have been considered as united and connected with the country in which she was worshipped. This leads to the notion of an elementary goddess, of a similar, though more universal nature than nymphs of the mountains, rivers, and brooks. Accordingly we find that this ancient Peloponnesian Artemis was nearly connected with lakes, fountains, and rivers. She was worshipped in several places under the titles of Limnatis and Heleia.[1555] There were frequently [pg 379] also fountains in the temples of Artemis: viz., at Corinth, Marius, Mothone,[1556] and near the district of Derrhiatis in Laconia.[1557] She likewise received great honours at the Clitorian fountain of Lusi.[1558] Among rivers, those she was most connected with are the Cladeus and the Alpheus.[1559] The moist and watery district, through which this latter stream flows into the sea, was filled with temples of the nymphs of Aphrodite and Artemis, among which the sanctuary of the Alphean Artemis[1560] is most remarkable. There were in that temple paintings of Cleanthus and Aregon of Corinth, which were chiefly on subjects relating to religion; as, for instance, that of Poseidon presenting a thunny-fish to Zeus while in the act of producing Athene.[1561] All this naturally suggests the idea of a goddess who produced a flourishing and vigorous life from the element of water; and hence we would not entirely reject the popular faith of the Phigaleans, that Eurynome, the goddess of fish, and herself represented as half a fish, was an Artemis.[1562]

4. The mention of the river Alpheus reminds us of Sicily, whither, in order to catch the fountain Arethusa, which was swallowed up in the land of Elis, he is said to have followed her under the sea, and to have first reached her in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse.[1563] This singular fable may perhaps be explained by the following considerations. Syracuse was founded in the 5th Olympiad by Corinthians, with whom were some settlers from the district of Olympia, and particularly some members of the family of the Iamidæ, who held a sacred office at the altar of the Olympian Zeus.[1564] These joint colonists (συνοιχιστῆρες according to the expression of Pindar) appear to have had sufficient weight in the new city to introduce their own religion and mythology. For, as we have seen above, Artemis was worshipped at Olympia as the goddess of the Alpheus, being generally considered in that country as presiding over lakes and rivers. She had in the grove of Altis an altar, together with Alpheus;[1565] and there was there a popular legend, that Alpheus had once loved Artemis. Now the settlers that went from this district to Syracuse, in their first expedition, confined themselves to the island of Ortygia. Here they built a temple to the river-goddess Artemis; a sanctuary of so great fame, that Pindar calls the whole island “the seat of Artemis, the river-goddess.[1566]” There was, however, no river in Ortygia, and therefore Artemis was supposed to regret her beloved Alpheus. Hence arose the belief that Arethusa, a fountain near the [pg 381] temple, contained the sacred water of the Alpheus;[1567] a belief which was strengthened by the circumstance that large fish were found in the spring;[1568] and from this arose the fable that Alpheus had followed the goddess to Sicily. But Artemis was supposed to fly from the pursuit of Alpheus.[1569] This at least was the fiction followed by Telesilla, a poetess who lived in the 64th Olympiad;[1570] and the same fable was perhaps adopted by Pindar.[1571] Afterwards, however, the precise meaning and origin of this fable were forgotten; and the fountain-nymph Arethusa took the place of Artemis, and became the object of the pursuit of the river-god.[1572] Such appears to have been the origin of the elegant fable of Alpheus and Arethusa.

We now return to the Peloponnesian Artemis, and will mention some of her other symbols and attributes. Her statue stood next to that of Demeter, at Megalopolis, dressed in the skin of a deer, with a quiver on her back, holding a torch in one hand, and two serpents in the other, with a dog by her side.[1573] The connexion which existed between her and the Arcadian Demeter is probably more ancient than this statue; and indeed the symbol of the deer seems to have been common in Arcadia to both Artemis and [pg 382] Cora, called in Arcadia despœna.[1574] She was also worshipped with Bacchus;[1575] and, like him, had phallic festivals.[1576] From her connexion with fountains and rivers, and other rural objects, it was natural that this Artemis should be considered as the patron of wild animals. Thus Æschylus calls her “the protectress of young lions, and the whelps of other wild beasts.”[1577] In like manner she was supposed to preside over the breeding of horses,[1578] and generally over the nurture of infants and children;[1579] it was therefore by a perversion of the original idea that she took the character of a [pg 383] huntress, the enemy and destroyer of wild animals. An analogous inconsistency to that before pointed out in the attributes of the Doric Apollo and Artemis, who were represented as both protecting and destroying.[1580]

5. By the mythological symbol of Artemis Callisto, the bear, we are reminded of some ceremonies at Athens, where young girls, between the ages of five and ten years (who were consecrated to the Munychian and Brauronian Artemis), were called bears;[1581] and the goddess herself, in some singular traditions, is represented as a bear calling for human blood.[1582] When the Ionians went from Athens to Asia, they carried the worship of the Munychian goddess to Miletus and Cyzicus;[1583] and to the former city the kindred worship of Artemis Chitone, as the goddess presiding over birth, whose wooden statues were made of fructiferous wood.[1584]

6. The consideration of the Attic festival of Artemis leads again to another variety of the worship of Artemis; viz., to that of Artemis Orthosia, Orthia, or Iphigenia. We will first give the traditions and facts as we find them. Iphigenia, coming from Tauria to Attica, was supposed to have landed at [pg 384] Brauron, and at the neighbouring Halæ Araphenides, and left behind her the ancient wooden image of Artemis.[1585] Here she was immediately interwoven with the heroic genealogy, and called the daughter of Theseus.[1586] In Sparta there was a temple of Artemis Orthia in a damp part of the city, called Limnæum, where was also shown a wooden statue, which had come from Tauria.[1587] As to the introduction of the worship, it is said that Astrabacus and Alopecus (the ass and fox), the sons of Irbus, descendants of Agis in the fourth generation (about 900 B.C.), had found the image in a bush, and had been struck mad by the sight of it; that the Limnatæ, and other villages of Sparta, had upon this offered sacrifices to them, when a quarrel arose, and murder ensued. A number of men were killed at the altar; and accordingly the goddess called for victims to atone for the pollution; instead of which, in later times, the scourging of boys was instituted, over the severity of which the priestess presided.[1588] It is remarkable that this was immediately followed by a πομπὴ Λυδῶν, a Lydian procession.[1589]

From this narration it follows that the scourging was considered as a substitute for human sacrifice; and further, that the worship was looked upon as of a foreign origin: notwithstanding this, it was completely interwoven into the Lacedæmonian mythology. For it can be shown that the pretended daughter of Agamemnon, Iphigenia, is no other than the Taurian goddess, who was actually worshipped in several cities of Greece under the name of Ἰφιγένεια. Considered as a heroine, indeed, she became first, instead of the goddess thirsting for human sacrifice, the virgin sacrificed to her; and, secondly, her sacrificing priestess.[1590] According to the Cyprian poems (for Homer knew nothing of her) Iphigenia was sacrificed to Artemis; but was by her brought to Tauria, and made immortal, a deer (or, according to others, a bear, and also a bull) having been left in her place;[1591] Hesiod also represented her as immortal, viz., as Hecate.[1592] The sacrifice was supposed to have taken place at Aulis, because there was a temple (probably of the Orthosian Artemis) near the port, to whom sacrifices were made at the passage.[1593]

This worship probably came to Laconia from Lemnos,[1594] one of its principal seats. In early tradition Lemnos was probably identical with Tauria,[1595] and the latter country derived its poetical name from the symbol of the bull, in the same manner as Lycia in later times took its name from the symbol of the wolf. In [pg 386] Lemnos also a great goddess was anciently worshipped with sacrifices of virgins; to which place the wooden image is said to have been brought from Brauron. This opinion becomes more evident by a comparison with the worship of Chryse. Agamemnon is said to have been the father of Chryse as well as of Iphigenia,[1596] and also, according to others, of a son Chryses, who went to Tauria with Orestes.[1597] Now it is certain that Chryse was a goddess, who had from early times been worshipped both at Lemnos and Samothrace. The Argonauts under Hercules and Jason were said to have sacrificed to her; and her ancient wooden image, raised over an hearth of unhewn stones, is often represented on ancient vases.[1598] Philoctetes is said to have been bitten by the viper[1599] when he discovered this altar.[1600] This goddess Chryse, who is also called Athene, was probably only a different form of her sister Iphigenia.

The worship of both these goddesses spread to other places, to the north of the Ægean sea. Thus on the coast of Byzantium there was an altar of Artemis Orthosia;[1601] and opposite to it, at Chrysopolis, was the tomb of Chryses, the son of Agamemnon, who, in his search after Iphigenia, was said to have died there.[1602] It is evident that this system of religious names was arbitrarily transferred to the genealogy of the Lacedæmonian [pg 387] kings, and most curiously interwoven with the Trojan mythology. The Greeks first became acquainted with Tauria by their voyages to Miletus; and they gave it a name already celebrated in their mythology. They found there some sanguinary rites of a goddess, which, by partly softening the name, they called Oreiloche;[1603] they also found human sacrifices, which they supposed to be offered to Iphigenia;[1604] their own worship of that deity bore so many marks of ancient barbarism, that they were willing to consider the northern barbarians as its authors. Yet it is certain that the Tauric Artemis was no more derived from the Taurians, than the Æthiopian Artemis from the Æthiopians,[1605] &c. In Asia Minor[1606] also there were modes of worship, which the Greeks compared with the rites of the Orthosian Artemis, of the similarity of which we shall presently treat.

7. Hitherto we have merely collected the fabulous narrations of the ancients, and attempted to show their connexion; we shall next speak of the ceremonies which attended the worship of this goddess or goddesses.

In the first place we will treat of the meaning and character of this truly mystical worship.[1607] We have [pg 388] a goddess adored with frantic and enthusiastic orgies, certain signs of an elementary religion, as well as with human sacrifices, which the character of the Greeks endeavoured only to moderate and to ennoble; it appears to have originally resembled the Arcadian worship of Callisto; but that it acquired at Lemnos, from the proximity of the Asiatic religion, a wilder and more extravagant form, which it retained after its return to Attica and Laconia. It cannot be a matter of doubt that Artemis Tauropolus is nearly identical with the Taurian goddess; this name of the goddess was established in Samos (where cakes of sesamy and honey were offered to her on solemn festivals),[1608] in the neighbouring island of Icarus,[1609] and at Amphipolis.[1610] The ceremonies were undoubtedly enthusiastic, as the goddess herself was considered as striking the mind with madness;[1611] and bloody, because the worship at Aricia was considered like it.[1612]

8. We are now to consider those temples of Artemis which had a purely Asiatic, and not a Grecian origin, and are wholly distinct, not only from the Doric, but also from the Arcadian worship of Artemis.

The Ephesian Artemis was doubtless found by the Ionians, when they settled on that coast, as already an object of worship, in her temple,[1613] situated in a marshy valley of the Cayster.[1614] From some real or accidental resemblance in the attributes of the Munychian and Ephesian goddesses, they called the latter “Artemis;” yet, wherever her worship spread, she was always distinguished by the additional title of “Ephesian.”[1615] Every thing that is related of the worship of this deity is singular and foreign to the Greeks. Her constant symbol is the bee, which is not otherwise attributed to Artemis; the other attributes, which adorned her statues in later times, are too far-fetched to admit of any conclusion being drawn from them. The bee, however, appears originally to have been the symbol of nourishment;[1616] the chief priest himself was called ἐσσὴν, or the king-bee: some of the other sacerdotal names are of barbarous, and not Greek derivation.[1617] The gods, by whom this great goddess[1618] was surrounded, must also have been of a peculiar description. It is not probable that Latona was originally called [pg 390] her mother,[1619] as Apollo is never joined with her.[1620] Her nurse appears to have been called Ammas.[1621] Hercules is said to have proclaimed her birth from mount Ceryceum.[1622] This Hercules may perhaps be some native demigod, possibly one of the Idæan Dactyli, whose names were, according to some, contained in Ephesian incantations, which were inscribed at the foot of her statues.[1623]

9. Thus much concerns the character of this worship, which appears, like an isolated point, projecting from a religious system, otherwise confined to the western parts of Greece.

As to its origin, the unanimous tradition of antiquity is that it was founded by the Amazons, This legend had probably been mentioned in some of the ancient epic poems before it was alluded to by Pindar;[1624] and that it was also preserved on the spot appears from the celebrated contest of Phidias, Polycleitus, and other artists, to make statues of Amazons for the Ephesian temple: lately also a sarcophagus was found near [pg 391] Ephesus representing the battle of the Amazons.[1625] The traditions respecting the foundation of the cities of Smyrna, Cume, Myrlea, Myrina, Æolis, Priene, Mytilene, and Pitane also make mention of the Amazons.[1626] With respect to the meaning of Amazons, it has rightly (in my opinion) been supposed that the idea of them was suggested by the sight of the innumerable female slaves (ἱερόδουλοι) who were employed about the temples of Asia Minor.[1627] According to Callimachus also the Amazons danced to the sound of the pipe round the statue which had been newly raised on the trunk of an elm-tree. It is also stated as an historical fact, that, even in the times of the Ionians, women of the Amazon race dwelt round the temple;[1628] although virgins only were permitted to enter the sanctuary itself.[1629] It appears therefore that the goddess upon whom these Amazons attended, being represented as a beneficent and nourishing deity, was likewise supposed to have the attributes of war and destruction; a double and opposite character, which we have traced in other branches of the worship of Artemis. As to the native country of the Amazons, who were supposed to have founded this worship, it does not seem to have been Phrygia, as they are stated in the Iliad to have come from the east of the Sangarius, and to have [pg 392] fought with the Phrygians.[1630] The Syrians, however, bordered on that people: and Pindar, who says that the Amazons led the Syrian army,[1631] fully coincides with those who fix their origin on the banks of the Thermodon, Chadesius and Lycastus along the coast of Themiscyra.[1632] The striking agreement of several authors in this statement, and its singular precision, render it of double importance. And what country could have been more probably the native place of the Ephesian Artemis, as well as of the warlike Hierodulæ, than Cappadocia; where there were, in the historical age, large numbers of sacred slaves, both male and female; where also there was an elementary religion, with frantic rites, and the principal divinity was at the same time a Bellona and a Magna Mater?

This same oriental worship had also been in other places adopted by the Greeks of Asia Minor. Among these are Leucophryne, who was worshipped in Phrygia, near a warm spring,[1633] and thence particularly honoured along the banks of the Mæander in Magnesia; and therefore also by Themistocles.[1634] She was represented in the same form as the Ephesian goddess.[1635] Her sacred animal was the buffalo.[1636] The Artemis of Sipylus was worshipped with wanton games, from which she [pg 393] was also called at Olympia (according to Pausanias) Cordaca.[1637] The Pergæan Artemis known all over Greece by her itinerant priests,[1638] and of the same form as the Artemis Leucophryne;[1639] with many others.[1640] It was in the true spirit of this worship that the musician Timotheus called Artemis “the raging and foaming, like a Bacchanalian;”[1641] and the tragic poet Diogenes in a beautiful though not a very accurate passage of his Semele speaks of the Lydian and Bactrian virgins, who with soft strains worshipped the Tmolian Artemis on the banks of the Halys.[1642]

I have now endeavoured to give the reader a general view of the different branches and forms of the worship of Artemis; in which some difficult and doubtful questions have of necessity been passed over: but I have preferred rather to reckon on the acquiescence of the reader in some uncertain propositions than to weary his patience by a detailed examination of all the debatable points.