Artemis

Goddess of chastity, virginity, hunting and wilderness, Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and Apollo’s twin sister. Like her brother, she hunts with silver arrows. She is associated to the moon.

When she was just a child, Artemis asked Zeus to give her eternal virginity; all her companions, mostly nymphs (lovely female spirits of nature) were as well virgins. She was very protective of her and her friends’ purity and severely punished every man who tried to attempt or dishonour her and them.

The goddess was very possessive and punished with great anger and wrath everyone who disobeyed her wishes. The great king Agamemnon was one of her victims; after he killed one of her sacred deer, she stopped the winds when he tried to sail for the Trojan war; the only way for him to undo the spell was to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess; at the last minute, Artemis exchanged the girl with one of her deer and took her to the land of the Taurus to serve her as a priestess.

One of her most elaborated temples was in Ephesus.