Artemis
The children of Zeus and
Leto, she and Apollo were born on the Island of Delos. Both are associated with the bow.
Apollo is said to use the curved bow and Artemis uses the
silver bow. She is one of only three who are immune to the enchantments of Aphrodite (the
other two are Hestia and Athene).
She is a friend to mortals, and dances
through the countryside in her silver sandals giving her divine protection to the wild
beasts, particularly the very young. She rides her silver chariot across the sky and
shoots her arrows of silver Moonlight to the earth below.
She, like the other Olympians, has
favorites among the mortals but she could not protect the fine huntsman, Skamandros, from
the spear of Menelaos at the battle for Troy.
Unlike her brother Apollo, Artemis is not skilled in warcraft but she can punish and kill as
the will of Zeus dictates. In The Iliad (24.603), her mother, Leto, was
insulted by a woman named Niobe. Niobe boasted that she had twelve children and Leto only
had two. As punishment, Apollo killed Niobes six sons and Artemis killed her six
daughters.
In The Odyssey (15.403),
Odysseus was told the story of a wonderful island, Syria, where hunger and grim old age
have no dominion. When the Fates determined that the noble inhabitants of this island were
at the end of their lives, Artemis and Apollo would swoop
down and painlessly kill them with their silver bows.
She is sometimes confused with the Roman goddess, Diana.