Artemis is bathing as Aktaion secretly watches Artemis is the daughter of Leto and Zeus. She is the virgin huntress, the goddess of things wild. She is also the protector of maidenhood and pregnancy in women. She is depicted with a sliver of moon in her hair and bow and arrows in her hand. The Homeric and later conception of Artemis is, that she is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin-sister and counterpart of Apollo. Artemis was born the day before Apollo on the 6th of the month. Tradition assigns them different birthplaces, Apollo in Delos and Artemis in Ortygia. Artemis is the protectress of chastity and the young men and women who defy Aphrodite. Like her brother, she not only deals out death, but she is also a healing and purifying Goddess. The derivation of her name is not well understood. Ancient Sparta referred to her as Artemos the cook, which is the preferred derivation. Dividing the name as Ar-temis seems more promising. This might give a meaning in Indo-European of rite of darkness. This goes well with her sacrificial nature. It seems likely that the name Artemis came from the Minoan pantheon because her nature is much like the goddess pictured as Potnia Theron or Mistress of the Animals. It is possible that her name comes from Minoan words we do not understand, but it is also possible she was given an Indo-European name that describes her Minoan character. Artemis has five sacred deer, with golden horns and hooves of bronze. Four of these deer pull the Goddess's chariot, and they are tended to by nymphs called Amnisiades. The fifth deer is known as the Kerynean Hind. It roamed free and could not be captured. It was this deer that Hercules was sent after in the third of his twelve quests. It took him an entire year to find the Hind and bring it back to King Eurystheus. The King then returned the deer to Artemis, to avoid her wrath. Agamemnon shot and killed a deer while in a forest dedicated to Artemis. As a result, Artemis stilled the winds on the seas of Greece. For the return of the winds, Artemis demanded that Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia. This brought him great pain, but his army was rebellious, so he consented to the sacrifice. Just as Iphigeneia was to be killed, Artemis stole her away from the altar and left a deer in her place. Actaeon happened into a sacred grove of Artemis, while he was out hunting, and saw her naked as she prepared for a bath. To preserve her virtue, she turned Actaeon into a stag and set her dogs on him. Another version of this tale, is that Actaeon had boasted about his hunting skills being superior to those of Artemis, and that is how he earned his punishment. Agamemnon watches as his daughter is to be sacrificed The myths of Artemis appear to have begun in Anatolia with a fertility festival. Following the suggestions that the fertility festival appears to have involved the mating of a divine pair who have been selected perhaps for their beauty. Because of the fact that the divine pair will be married they are to undergo an initiation ceremony. The initiation of the boy involves his conversion from an object for woman, to both a warrior and a father. To prepare the boy a dance of the men occurs to welcome him to their group and a visit with an older woman takes place, who educates him in the way of sex. This has all the trappings of a death and rebirth, the death of the boy as part of a woman and the birth of a warrior as father and warrior. Likewise there is a dance of the women to welcome the girl. She dies as a virgin and maiden, to be reborn as a mother. Finally the two are united as a married pair. The fruitfulness of this pair assured the fruitfulness of nature. At first the festival involved real young people with totem animals, that seem to unite. As a part of the festival, examples of the totems are sacrificed so that the power of the totem can be passed to those who partake. Later the festival is interpreted as dramatizing the same activity, but by divine beings. The sacrifice is then interpreted as a gift of influence to the gods in return for their favor and power. Because the object of the festival is the fertility of all nature the range of sacrifice increases. Some have argued that the profusion of nature justifies sacrifice as a proof of this profusion. But the transition from a situation where the power of a totem animal was asimiliated to one where the same power was achieved by a gift to the goddess seems more likely. It is Artemis in the past that seemed to demand sacrifice in exchange for power or other things. Even human sacrifice was called for by Artemis in the form of Iphigenia to let the ships sail to Troy. This seems strikingly related to the initiation of the maiden in the original fertility rite. Artemis is one of the three virgin Goddesses, strong, independent and apart from men. She is known as the "Goddess of the three forms": Selene, the moon in the sky, Hecate of the underworld and Artemis the huntress and maiden goddess. The cypress is sacred to her, as are all animals, particularly the deer, the quail, the lioness, the boar and the bear. Artemis personifies the independent feminine spirit. In art, she was typically portrayed with a crescent moon above her head and her bow and arrows, created by Hephaestus and the Cyclopes. These arrows, in contrast to her role as goddess of childbirth, were said to be the cause of women dying in childbirth. Her brother Apollo exhibited contradiction as well, as he was a god of healing who brought on leprosy, rabies and gout. The Roman name for Artemis was Diana. She became a favorite subject of sculpture and paintings. She is usually seen carrying her bow and is accompanied by one or more of her many dogs