ARTEMIS PAGE FIVE
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Artemis was also associated with the moon, and called Phoebe and Selene (Luna in Latin), neither of which name originally belonged to her.

Phoebe was a Titan, one of the elder gods that preceded the reign of Zeus and the Olympians. So was Selene, a moon-goddess and sister of Helios, the sun-god often confused with Artemis’ brother, Apollo.

Artemis was called The Maiden of the Silver Bow and her silver bow indeed stood for the new moon.

In the later poems Artemis became associated with another goddess, Hecate, the dark and awful goddess of the lower world.

Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark of the Moon, the black nights when the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the Crossways, which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic and awful divinity.

Thus Artemis in essence became "the goddess with three forms," Selene in the sky, Artemis on earth and Hecate in the lower world as well as in the world above, when it is wrapped in darkness.

In Artemis is shown most vividly the uncertainty between good and evil which exists in every god. Ironically, this contrast is least apparent in her brother, the God of Light, Apollo.

Artemis absorbed some cults that involved human sacrifice, such as that practiced in Tauris. Where Apollo was considered the sun, she was associated with the moon.

Artemis was held in honor and the greatest esteem in all the wild and mountainous areas of Greece, in Arcadia and in the country of Sparta, in Laconia on Mount Taygetus and in Elis. These are all regions where hunting was essential for the survival of the ancients. Her most famous shrine was at Ephesus.

Ephesus is located on the Aegean coast of Turkey, what the ancients called Asia Minor, about 200 miles south of Ancient Troy. Ephesus controlled the narrow entrance from the Aegean to a large lake and the surrounding beautiful and fertile mountains and hills. Ephesus was a rich and important settlement for at least eight thousand years - all of recorded history - and before.

When the Romans succeeded the Greeks, the worship remained unchanged except in name; the Greek Artemis became the Roman Diana.

The legendary Temple of Artemis no longer stands. The wonder of the ancient world was built after the death of Alexander the Great, about 320 B.C., and stood for a thousand years, only to be destroyed by the Goths, a Germanic people, who swept across Europe and across the Bosporus into Asia Minor.

The marble from the temple was later used in the construction of local buildings, as well as the important church of St. Sofia in Istanbul. The wonder of the world was the fourth temple to Artemis to be built on the same site.

Ivory and gold votive objects have been excavated from beneath the foundations of the first of these temples, indicating the likelihood of even earlier worship and earlier structures. These foundations now lie well below the water table, making further excavation very difficult. The third temple was also very grand, financed in part by the king of Lydia, Croesus.

A temple column with an inscription from Croesus (whose wealth was the proverbial "rich as Croesus") is now in the British Museum in London. This third temple was burned down by a madman, Eristratos, on the night of Alexander the Great's birth. Local legend had it that Artemis, being in attendance at Alexander's birth, was unable to defend her temple.

ARTEMIS

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