[139] Herodotus, iv. 34 sq. According to Herodotus, each grave contained the dust of a pair of Hyperborean damsels.
[140] Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae, 16.
[141] Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa’s Real-Encyclopädie der class. Altertumswissenschaft, ii. 1339. This general statement the writer supports with a wealth of detailed evidence, to which I can only refer the reader.
[142] This appears from the name Partheniai applied at Sparta to the men who were born of the parthenoi (unmarried women) during the absence of the married men at the Messenian war. See Ephorus, cited by Strabo, vi. 3. 3, p. 279. Whether this explanation was historically correct or not (and other explanations of it were given, see W. L. Newman on Aristotle, Politics, vii. (v.) 7, p. 1306 b 29), it proves that in Greek of the best period parthenos did not connote chastity. Compare what Herodotus says of the Thracians (v. 6): τὰς δὲ παρθένους οὐ φυλάσσουσι, ἀλλ’ ἐῶσι τοῖσι αὐταὶ βούλονται ἀνδράσι μίσγεσθαι. As to the worship of unmarried goddesses in Western Asia, Sir W. M. Ramsay observes: “It is, in fact, probable, though with our present knowledge not susceptible of proof, that the term Parthenos in connection with the Anatolian system should be rendered simply as ‘the Unmarried,’ and should be regarded as evidence of the religious existence of the pre-Greek social system. The Parthenos goddess was also the Mother; and however much the Parthenoi who formed part of her official retinue may have been modified by Greek feeling, it is probable that originally the term indicated only that they were not cut off by marriage from the divine life” (Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, i. p. 96). Similarly in a celebrated passage of Isaiah (vii. 14) the Hebrew word (עַלְמָה) which is translated “virgin” in our English version means no more than “young woman.” A correct translation would have obviated the necessity for the miracle which so many generations of devout but unlearned readers have discovered in the text; for while it would unquestionably be a miracle if a virgin were to conceive and bear a son, there is nothing whatever miraculous or even unusual about a young woman doing so.
[143] L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, ii. 444. The whole of Dr. Farnell’s treatment of this subject is excellent (pp. 442–449). He suggests doubtfully that the epithets Peitho, Hegemone, and Eukleia may possibly refer to marriage. But clearly “persuasion,” “leader,” and “good fame” do not in themselves imply any allusion to wedlock. The passage of Euripides referred to in the text is Supplices, 958 sq.: οὐδ’ Ἄρτεμις λοχία προσφθέγξαιτ’ ᾶν τὰς ἀτέκνους.
[144] Thus she was identified with Anaitis (Plutarch, Artoxerxes, 27; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscr. Graec.² No. 775), and with Nana (Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, iii. 131), or Nanaea, the goddess of Elymais (2 Maccabees, i. 13 and 15, compared with Polybius, xxxi. 11, and Josephus, Antiquit. Jud. xii. 9). This Nanaea was sometimes identified with Aphrodite instead of with Artemis (Appian, Syriace, 66). She seems to have been the old Babylonian goddess Nana, Nanai, or Nannaia, who was identical with the Ishtar (Astarte) of Erech. See H. Zimmern, in Schrader’s Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,³ p. 422; R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature (New York, 1901), pp. 116 sq., 245; W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iii. 4 sq. s.v. “Nana.” For the identification of Artemis with another Semitic mother-goddess, see W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia² (London, 1903), p. 298. As to the dissolute worship of Anaitis, see Strabo, xi. 14, 16, p. 532. And as to the identification of Artemis with Asiatic goddesses of this type see L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, ii. 478 sqq.; Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa, Encycl. d. class. Alter. ii. 1369 sqq.
[145] Pausanias, iv. 31. 8; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscript. Graecarum,² No. 656.
[146] The statues on which this description is based are in the Vatican, the Lateran, and the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol at Rome. The first of these is figured and described in Baumeister’s Denkmäler, i. 130 sq., and the second is described by O. Benndorf and R. Schoene, Die antiken Bildwerke des Lateranischen Museums, pp. 260 sq. See also Roscher’s Lexik. d. griech. und röm. Myth. i. 588 sqq.; S. Reinach, Répertoire de la Statuaire grecque et romaine, i. pp. 298, 299, 300, 302, ii. pp. 321 sq. Both the Vatican and the Lateran statues have the necklace of acorns, and the Lateran copy (No. 768) has in addition a circlet of acorns hanging on the bosom. The acorns probably refer to the oak-tree under which the Amazons were said to have set up the image of the goddess at Ephesus (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 237 sqq.). The statue in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (No. 47) has serpents twined round the arms. The many breasts of the Ephesian Artemis are mentioned by Minucius Felix (Octavius, xxii. 5). On the worship of the Ephesian Artemis continued as that of the Virgin Mary see Sir W. M. Ramsay, “The Worship of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus,” The Expositor, June 1905, pp. 401 sqq.
[147] Strabo, xiv. I. 23, p. 641. That a goddess of fertility should be served by such ministers may strike us as a contradiction. Yet it is typical of the Oriental worship of the great Mother Goddess. I have suggested an explanation of the custom elsewhere. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 236 sqq.
[148] Pausanias, vii. 2. 7 sq.; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie, i. 329; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, ii. 480 sqq.