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

by Karl Otfried Müller

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]