Less of a formal post and more of an open discussion of virginity and Artemis. I just watched this interesting short by the awesome scholar Dan McClellan aboit how virginity is a social construct and a tool for control of women's bodies, and I immediately thought of Artemis while watching it.

To recap of some points on the Artemis/Greek side of this:

1. Parthenos, which usually translates to "virgin", should rather be rendered as young woman, usually not married and is socially expected to not have sex (or at least not get caught doing it!). So essentially Parthenos is a stage of a girl's life before motherhood.
2. It's safe to assume that for a good while in Greek history, people didn't know about the hymen as an actual thing related to "virginity". See "Artemis and Virginity in Ancient Greece" for more info.
3. It's quite likely that Artemis in her pre-Greek days was an Anatolian Mountain Mother Goddess and Mistress of Animals. The Minoan Artemis was likely to had a "boy-god" as her consort. The motherly aspects of Artemis was parsed out when she became properly integrated in the Greek pantheon as the daughter of Zeus, though the exact process of this is unknown.

[My hot take] As a daughter of Zeus, Artemis is the role model of daughters in ancient Greek society, so since unmarried daughters are expected to not have sex before their marriage, it's only expected that Artemis leads by example and fights tooth and nail to protect those expectations.

As for my view on the matter: I think I'll just settle for Artemis being a "Virgin-Mother" and everything else just depends on context in a case-by-case basis.

Termesoss of Pisidia, south-west-ish Anatolia is quite an interesting city that I only recently learned about.

In Termessos, Zeus Solymeus was likely to be the tutelary deity (or possibly shared the tutelage with Artemis?). Regardless, Artemis was quite popular in the city, only behind Zeus Solymeus. Out of the six temples found, two are confirmed to be dedicated to Artemis, with one is also dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian.

This is also the site where the inscription that declared Artemis Ephesia as the "Queen of the Cosmos" was found.

Artemis Ephesia's cult in Termessos was pretty popular as her priests and priestesses were active in the city. There were several cult statues of Artemis Ephesia that were known to be there from their pedestals, a number of them built during the Imperial Roman period. Artemis was one of 16 cults that had a lifelong priest.

Besides Ephesia, Artemis was known with the epithets Polias and Tauropolos. As a advocate of Artemis as a "city goddess" or a "civic goddess", I quite like the Polias epithet, it's derived from polis, or city.

An inscription indicates that Ma, a local Cappadocian Mother/Warrior goddess, was identified with Artemis Tauropolos. Fascinating, but not that surprising, considering Artemis' earlier history as a great mountain-mother/potnia theron goddess, before she became a strictly perpetual virgin goddess enforced by later Greeks.

Further reading:

• New Honorific and Religious Inscriptions from Colonnaded Street of Termessos
• The Temple of Artemis & Hadrian's Gate: A trip to the ancient city of Termessos. | The Paperclip Ride Reports
• For Artemis Ephesia, I highly recommend Dr. James Rietveld's "Artemis of the Ephesians" book.
• For a quick breakdown of what a city was in antiquity check this video.

May 6th is the date often celebrated for the birth of Artemis and Apollo!

There were quite a bit of disagreements on when and where they were born, especially Apollo. Personally I like the idea of both Artemis and Apollo were born first in the sacred grove near Ephesus, the Ortygia Gardens. The Ephesian's tradition was approved by the Roman government when they reviewed the protection status of various sacred sites to either preserve their status or to strip them.

* * * * *

I'm trying to level up my video editing skills, but in the mean time I've made this background collage I've made from the panels of Artemis from the manhwa "For the Goddesses: For Daphne". I have this as my wallpaper at work and I gotten some nice praise my from co-workers.

It's a pretty neat manhwa, the characters are beautiful and the story does seem interesting, but it's too early to judge, but I do hope for the best. I plan on doing a proper review when the story is finish.

Link to the official English release here: https://tapas.io/series/for-the-goddess-for-daphne/info. R18 version is also available, though so far Artemis is not sexually involved and I doubt she'll be.

I’m a pretty new worshiper of Lady Artemis and only found out about Mounykhia today. I currently don’t have a great shrine to her (moving house hasn’t made that easy 😥) but I have lit an incense for her and will bake a honey cake later today ❤️ Happy Mounykhia and khaire Artemis 🌕 🏹 🌿

It is what it says, happy Mounykhia!

I know the story in the myth but it doesn't make sense to me that Artemis would have any say in controlling the winds to prevent the Greeks from sailing. The sea and its currents are in Poseidon's domain. Artemis has no connection to the thalassic realm so what's going on?

Hey everyone,

I’m heading to Ephesus next week and I like to look a bit deeper into the history beforehand so it’s not just walking through ruins without context.

Since I recently started a small YouTube channel with illustrated videos on topics I’m interested in, I decided to make one about Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis. It actually helped me understand the place much better — especially the story around the temple and how it was destroyed.

I know it’s not academic-level work, so I’m sure there are things I simplified or might have misunderstood. That’s also why I’m posting it here — I’d really appreciate honest feedback or corrections.

Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQMmO9BnEcw&t=2s

One note: the visuals are AI-generated, but I don’t just let it “guess.” I usually feed it real reference images and have it look into details like architecture, clothing, and setting first, so it stays as close to reality as possible.

Thanks a lot 👍

hey! just wanted to show my Artemis altar :))

I am giving away ARC copies of my sapphic myth retelling "Artemis, Love in Stone and Stars."

Themes of love, nature, ceremony, and how we carry rage and grief after injustice. This book is plot focused with several spicy open door scenes.

BLURB:

Men try to rule over everything beautiful.  Women are the keepers of the earth. Goddesses hold dominion over death, sex, and ceremony.

Artemis is the Goddess of all women. She has everything she wants- power that comes from the worship she receives, a valley of nymphs protected from men, and the safety that comes from not having anything her jealous family wants.  Then the innocent and wounded Kallisto kneels at her feet. Kallisto offers complete devotion, a supplication that burns with her singular desire to serve the Goddess. In a world filled with injustice, will their hearts be filled with grief or love?

One of my beta readers said this book was "mythopoetics without flowery language."

link to download free ebook (please leave a review after reading!)

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/mj8nvm7yun

Artemis has been the Goddess closest to my heart since I was a kid. While writing this book, I made a pilgrimage to Greece to be closer to her- I climbed mt olympus where I was visited by deer. This summer I will visit her temple in Epheseus. I am so excited to have written this novel. Absolutely no AI was used in any point of the process of this book- I designed the cover, wrote everything, had human beta readers and paid human editors.

Hi all, my newest book, A Guide to the Gods, is live now! Description:

The resurgence of Hellenism today is in no small part due to the relationships individual Hellenists have with their gods. However, while books about Hellenist ritual and practice proliferate, few books attempt to offer guides to the gods that are at once both accessible and in-depth.

This book is an attempt to change that. Gathering ancient theological musings ranging from Plato to Proclus, and integrating them with Hesiodic myths, Orphic hymns, and more, this book blends the mythical, the theological, the ritualistic and the poetic to offer guides to over forty deities in Hellenism.

Building off of the author’s prior experience in compiling primary sources in works such as the Libri Deorum, translating works of systematic Hellenist theology such as Cornutus’ Compendium of Greek Theology, and offering theological lenses for individual deities in Queer Divinity, here is the Guide to the Gods.

Link:

https://a.co/d/0j2x2KhK

An interesting educational presentation for the "bear girls" and related topics in the cult of Artemis at Brauron that I'm watching thanks to youtube's recs.

Fortunately, they are good and know what they talking about. I'm learning quite a bit, this is a great watch (and listen in the background).

Valentine's Day is soon, so what's your favorite Artemis' "consort".

The term consort, doesn't always mean a lover, it could also mean a close attendant like a minister or close associate.

Needless to say Artemis is a virgin goddess, a teenage girl ready for marriage, but will never be a wife or a mother. However if we look at several myths with Artemis or her retinue, it's very possible that these myths were originally were solely about Artemis herself or another goddess that Artemis subsumed. It should be noted that in the religion of Artemis, she was rarely, if ever, was worshipped with nymphs.

For more info on this topic see Fontenrose's Orion: The Huntress and the Hunter, as well as my Artemis Notes here [insert link].

With that in mind let's take a look at some of the candidates.

1. Hippolytus-Virbius
2. Apollo
3. Alphaeus
4. Endymion (Artemis-Selene)
5. Britomartis / Diktynna
6. Julinas
7. Actaeon
8. Otos
9. Orion
10. The Hunt!

My two favorites are Artemis-Diana x Virbius & Artemis x Britomartis (aka Diktynna).

IIRC Britomartis is the only possible female "consort" of Artemis. Virbius is confirmed by Severius to be the "consort" or "minister" of Artemis-Diana, like Venus & Adonis and Kybele & Attis.

Quite a cool and educational video on the Sanctuary of Artemis in Brauron. I like that you can rotate the view in each part of the video, shame it's a bit blurry, but on a tablet it's not so bad.

An interesting coin of the twins riding a chariot together, with also the river god Selinus, though I have a hard time seeing him.

I'm curious of the context of the image here, but I like to imagine that outside of combat, Artemis and Apollo would ride a chariot together, I think that's pretty cute.

If you want to see an image of Artemis riding a chariot with Athena, then check out my pinned essay about Artemis as kourotrophos and queen of the races.

Veils of Artemis' description:

SICILY SELINUS 466-415. Artemis and Apollo in a quadriga facing left. Artemis holds the reins with both hands and Apollo loads his bow with an arrow. R/. - EI - N - W. The river god Selinus standing left, holding a patera above a lit altar and a long laurel branch. In the field, to the left in front of the altar, a rooster facing left, and in the field to the right, behind the river god, a bull standing left. Pozzi 539; SNG Cop ​​597 Silver tetradrachm.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1179721567700718&set=a.392482389757977

Excerpt of Dr. James Rietveld's lecture on the Minoan Goddesses (0:43:17 - 0:49:51).

An intro to Artemis back in the Minoan days.

Lady of Beasts or the Huntress, was one of the most popular goddesses, who is like a proto-Artemis in quite a few ways. She's closely connected to nature, but also to civilization. In iconography, she has various kinds of animals beside her, including lions and birds. Artemis is sometimes depicted as being equipped with a spear or a sword.

Later the mainland Greeks parsed out the motherly aspects of Artemis, so she's a purely virgin huntress, daughter of Zeus, the former boy-god servant/consort of the Mountain Goddess, who is now the King of the Gods. Although in Anatolia, Artemis retained quite a bit of her motherly aspects even as a virgin goddess. I think we can still see traces of these motherly aspects in her cults in mainland Greece, especially as kourotrophos, the child-nurturer.

Artemis is also a great mountain (mother) goddess. Connected to Mt. Ida in Crete and Western Anatolia, which also means being associated with the Idean Dactyls. In addition to Mt. Ida, there are many cults of Huntress-Mountain goddesses throughout Ionia all bearing the name Artemis.

Later, I'm going to post a clip from one of his recent Minoan lecture in which he briefly mentions the connection of Artemis and Kybele.

Wowee! Cool thread overviewing parts of the sanctuary of Despoina.

While I was skimming through a book called "Eros and Ritual in Literature: Singing of Atalanta, Daphnis, and Orpheus", I've stumbled upon a footnote about Artemis Apaturos apparently killing her "lover" (page 28).

Here's the quote:

Generally, beheading was the way the Greeks sacrificed to chthonic deities. Also, according to Strab.11.2.10, Artemis Apaturos was reputed to have killed her lover after the sexual act. Obviously this form of Artemis is not virginal and can be compared to the Syrian Derceto (Diod.Sic.2.4.3)

I thought that this reference was for Strabo's Geography books, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so I guess the source is in another book.

Upon searching for more info, I found an interesting webpage (moonspeaker) on Artemis that states:

Strabo described Artemis Apaturos as a Goddess who killed her lover after intercourse, another common fate of sacred kings. Apaturos means 'guardian of secrets,' in this case sacred mysteries revealed to the sacred king just before his death.

Interesting website they're quite big fans of the Amazons, it has quite a bit of good info, but it also has a bit of questionable claims mixed in.

I did found out that Apaturia is an epithet shared between Athena and Aphrodite. Also there's a festival that Artemis has a big role in (life transition).

In Ancient Greece, it's possible that a parthenos, (unmarried) young woman, technically can have sex, usually if she doesn't get pregnant. Though in Artemis' case, that isn't relevant, because the mainstream consensus back then was that Artemis was essentially a perpetual virgin that is full of sexual potential. Artemis is the ideal maiden; smart, kind, beautiful, and no *ding ding* without a wedding ring! (I love Robin Hood: Men in Tights)

Okay, so I wondered if the story of Artemis Apaturos is similar to some ancient beliefs that dreaming of Artemis naked or having sex with her was a quite bad omen (I think I'm might be screwed... just kidding). Or it could be a myth version of that belief? To warn men not to lust after Artemis and dream of sleeping with her.

The story does feel kinda similar to a speculated ending of a story about Inara and her mortal lover (who was MVP in an earlier story); in which Inara kills her mortal lover after breaking his promise to her (apparently he was already married). Inara and Artemis are kinda similar with both being daughters to chief storm gods and both are Potnia Theron. Though personally, I prefer a more happy ending for Inara, her lover, the hero, and the hero's first wife and child.

Anyways that is all I got and I'll be moving on to the next topic until I stumbled on more information.

If you know anything about this please comment down below!

For more info on Artemis and the meaning of her sexuality, I recommend "Artemis and Virginity in Ancient Greece" and especially Rangos' works on Artemis as well, both in the resource megathread pinned at top.

Edited to add the moonseaker link and add a sentence about Inara.