Apollo and ArtemisWe will examine two of Zeus’s most important offspring, the twins Apollo and

Artemis, including their characteristic functions and associations, beginning with Apollo. Apollo, the god of reason and moderation, is also the god of disease,

plague, and sudden death for men, but is perhaps most important in his role as god of prophecy. We will look at his famous shrine at Delphi, where oracles are given by a priestess called the Pythia, the two crucial maxims (“Know yourself”

and “Nothing in excess”) that were carved on his temple there, and how the story of Niobe illustrates the importance of those maxims.

We will also look at the many-sided role of Artemis as a goddess of wildness and wild things, the patron of the hunt, the young of all creatures, and women in childbirth, who is herself a virgin. We will discuss an interpretation of Artemis

that unifies these apparently disparate characteristics. Finally, we will see how the story of Actaeon illustrates the danger of crossing a god and the irrelevance

of intentions compared to actions.

Two of the most important younger Olympians are Artemis and Apollo, twin children of Zeus and the

goddess Leto.

These deities play essential roles both in reference to the other gods and for the Greek construction of human experience.

Many dictionaries of classical mythology will say that Apollo is the sun god and his sister Artemis is the moon. Although both did come to have these associations eventually, they are much more complex than these identifications would indicate.

Apollo is a god of youth, medicine, healing, music, prophecy, and in general, moderation and ratonality; however, he is also

associated with sudden death for men and with plague.

Most of the younger generation of Olympians are depicted in art asa young adults in their twenties, but Apollo is represented as the youth par excellence, the ideal of manly beauty. Each generation of Olympians matures to its proper age and remains at that age.

Apollo is associated both with medicine and healing and with sudden death and with death through disease.

The double association of healer and plague-bringer gives a complete and rounded image of Apollo; is is not entirely beneficent towards humans, despite his positive qualities.

He is described as wearing a quiver and carrying a bow; when he soots men with these arrows, they die suddenly. His sister Artemis performs the same function for women.

As the patron of music and the arts, Apollo presides over the Muses.

Perhaps his most important role is as the main god of prophecy. He passes on prophecy from Zeus to selected humans.

Zeus too controls prophecy, but the most famous and important oracle of ancient Greece was in Delphi, sacred to Apollo.

Questioners could ask the god anything they wanted and would receive answers through the Pythia, his priestess at Delphi, inspired by Apollo himself.

Many of the oracles that we know of are so ambiguous as to be impossible to refute; however, the oracle at Delphi was taken extremel seriously by the Greeks and their neighbors. A priestess could be corrupted, but faith in Apollo was profound.

Apollo’s role as patron of prophecy at Delphi reflects his overall association with reason and moderation.

Greek religion had no prescriptive commandments, but two sayings carved on the temple at Delphi are crucial for understanding the underling presumptions of the religion. These sayings are gnothi sauton and meden agan: “Know yourself” and “Nothing in excess.”

“Know yourself” means know what kind of creature you are, remember your limitations, remember that you are not a god.

These two maxims encapsulate a theme that runs throughout Greek myth: that humans are liable to transgress the boundaries that separate them from the gods, which inevitably brings suffering.

Humans must remember their status and not seek to exceed it.

In particular, humans should avoid hubris, a word that is often translated as “excessive pride” but basically means insolence or wantonness; hubris is the kind of excessiveness that leads one to claim more than is one’s due.

The story of Niobe is a particularly good example of the importance of Apollo’s maxims and the dangers of hubris.

Niobe, queen of Thebes and sister of Tantalos, boasted that she was more worthy of worship that Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo, because Leto had only two children but she, Niobe, had fourteen.

Apollo and Artemis kill all Niobe’s children. When only one remains, Niobe begs for mercy, but even the last is killed.

Niobe has failed to remember both maxims; she has not known herself--the vulnerability of her humanity--and she has been misled by the excess of her good fortune.

She is associated with wildness and wild things, where he is associated with reason and civilization. She is a huntress, the patron of wild beasts, and the protector of the young of all species.

Artemis’s association with wild animals in various aspects dates back to the very early times.

Homer calls Artemis potnia heron, or “Mistress of Wild Beasts”; many artistic representations recall this title.

One of her most important sites of worship was at Ephesus, in modern Turkey, where her role as potnia theron seems to have predominated.

As a huntress, she carries a bow and wears a quiver; she is often shown in a short robe that would allow for running.

Like her brother Apollo, Artemis brings sudden death, but in other ways, she is her twin’s polar opposite.

Artemis is also associated wtih women in several ways.

She is a virgin and is particularly associated with young girls before and up to the time of their marriage.

She brings sudden death to women.

Artemis’s status as a virgin and her role as protector of women in childbirth may at first sight seem contradictory; however, both aspects of the goddess tie in to her essential wildness.

Women in childbirth are most vulnerable to and most caught up in their animal natures; only in the instant of death are humans so clearly allied to the rest of the animal kingdom. Ancient Greek society associates women with nature and men with culture.

Artemis’s virginity is not a rejection of sexuality per se; rather, it is a rejection of male domination in sexual intercourse.

Artemis’s rejection of sexuality is the impetus for the story of Actaeon, which illustrates the danger of crossing a god. Even unintentional violations of the boundaries between gods and humans can lead to disaster.

Actaeon inadvertently saw Artemis nude while he was out hunting.

Artemis turned him into a stag, but left his mind cognizant of what had happened to him.

Actaeon was torn to shreds by his own hunting hounds.

In the worldview represented by classical mythology, intentions are often irrelevant; what matters is actions. Our culture tend to make a strong distinction between actions according to their intent, but the ancient Greeks considered motives much less important.