Statue of Hunted Artemis (Diana) 2nd century AD

Statue of Hunted Artemis (Diana) 2nd century AD Travel photography Family-friendly: true
Artemis was a powerful goddess, sovereign over nature and holding in her hands the life and death of living beings. She lived in the wilds of nature together with the wild animals. She was a virgin goddess who wandered about and entertained herself with the nymphs in the forests and brooks. The deer was the animal sacred to the goddess. She was always depicted carrying a golden bow and arrows. The Bow, arrow, horse and carriage were her symbols. She also shoots humans with her arrows and kills them, as does Apollo. Artemis shoots her arrows sometimes for revenge, at other times to punish. It was believed that instantaneous death came to women from Artemis arrows and this kind of death was accepted as a sweet kind of death. It was also believed that women who died while giving birth were also killed by arrows fired by Artemis.
Artemis was furious that Meleagros father didn't make a sacrifice to her and so she sent a dreadful boar to ravage his country. She stipulated that Agamemnon's daugther should make a sacrifice to her, as Agamemnon had killed Artemis holy deer while he was hunting and he was proud of this.
Akteion, the grandson of Kadmos, the King of Thebai, claimed that he was a better hunter than the Goddess Artemis and further, that he had seen the goddss nude while she was bathing herself in a stream. The goddess, who was furiours with this insolence, converted Akteion into a deer and then let her hunting dogs rip him to pieces.