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5. Artemis (Diana).

As a virgin goddess she was especially venerated by young maidens, whose patroness she remained till their marriage, and to whom she afforded an example of chastity. The story of Actæon, who was changed into a stag and then torn to pieces by his own dogs, shows that she did not suffer any injury to her virgin modesty to go unpunished. (For this story see the Theban legends.)

Originally, Artemis appears to have been the goddess of the moon, just as her brother Apollo is unmistakably identical with the sun. This conception, however, continued to grow fainter and fainter, until, in the later days of confusion of religions, it was again revived. Artemis was frequently confounded with Selene or Phœbe (Luna).

The national Artemis of the Greeks was originally quite distinct from the Artemis Orthia, a dark and cruel deity, to whom human sacrifices were offered in Laconia. Lycurgus abolished this barbarous custom, but caused instead a number of boys to be cruelly whipped before the image of the goddess on the occasion of her annual festival. This is the same Artemis to whom Agamemnon was about to offer, in Aulis, his daughter Iphigenia, previous to the departure of the Greeks for Troy. The Scythians in Tauris likewise had a goddess whom they propitiated with human sacrifices. This caused her to be confounded with Artemis Orthia, and the story arose that Iphigenia was conveyed by the goddess to Tauris, from which place she subsequently, assisted by her brother Orestes, brought the image of the goddess to Greece.