Apollo and Artemis

myth lecture

1. Apollo and Artemis
We 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.