names Artaÿntes, son of ITHAMITRES, as commander of the Pactyicans (7.67.2). He is not otherwise attested.
SEE ALSO: Artaÿntes son of Artachaees; Pactyica
FURTHER READING
1 Schmitt, Rüdiger. 2007. “Zu einigen Perser‐Namen bei Herodot.” BN 42.4: 381–405.
ARTEMBARES (Ἀρτεμβάρης, ὁ) the Mede
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
In the account he chooses to give (1.95.1) of the upbringing of the first Persian king, CYRUS (II), Herodotus describes Artembares as a man of good repute among the MEDES; it is his son who complains about his treatment by Cyrus while the boys are playing at “the king and his court” (1.114.3). In taking the complaint to the Median king ASTYAGES, Artembares sets in motion the discovery of Cyrus’ true identity.
In the story found in Nicolaus of Damascus (FGrHist 90 F66.1–7, probably taken from CTESIAS), Artembares is Astyages’ cup‐bearer. Cyrus attaches himself to Artembares as he works his way up through the Median court hierarchy, and Artembares, a EUNUCH, adopts Cyrus as his son before his death (see Kuhrt 2007, 97–98). Several men by this name are attested in the ancient sources (Schmitt, IPGL 118–19 (no. 77a for this Artembares)).
SEE ALSO: Artembares the Persian; Games; Sources for Herodotus
REFERENCE
1 Kuhrt, Amélie. 2007. The Persian Empire. A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London and New York: Routledge.
ARTEMBARES (Ἀρτεμβάρης, ὁ) the Persian
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
In the final chapter of the Histories (9.122), Herodotus provides an anecdote concerning advice which a certain Artembares—an ancestor of the Persian governor ARTAŸCTES, whose death at the hands of the Athenians has just been related—supposedly gave to CYRUS (II). Artembares proposed that the Persians use their newly gained power to move to better land than the harsh one they currently inhabit; Cyrus rejects the advice, since, as he says, “soft lands produce soft men.” This Artembares is otherwise unknown and is most likely not identical with the Artembares (a Mede) who appears in the story of Cyrus’ upbringing, though perhaps the echo is intentional (see Demand 1990, 184 n. 11).
SEE ALSO: Advisers; Artembares the Mede; End of the Histories; Migration; Ring Composition; Softness
REFERENCE
1 Demand, Nancy H. 1990. Urban Relocation in Archaic and Classical Greece: Flight and Consolidation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
FURTHER READING
Schmitt, IPGL, 118–19 (no. 77c).
ARTEMIS ( Ἄρτεμις, ἡ)
ELIZABETH KOSMETATOU
University of Illinois–Springfield
Virgin Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon, associated with forests, wild animals, childbirth, fertility, and chastity, daughter of ZEUS and LETO, and twin sister of APOLLO. She may be the goddess that HOMER identifies as potnia therōn, and in the East, including at EPHESUS, she was worshipped as a great mother goddess that was sometimes associated with CYBELE. Indeed, depending on the MYTH, Artemis and Apollo were either born on DELOS or in Ephesus.
Herodotus mentions seven sanctuaries of Artemis. The first features in the SIEGE of Ephesus by CROESUS in 560 BCE (1.26), when the Ephesians dedicated their city to the goddess by tying a rope from her temple to the city wall, a distance of 7 stades (approx. 4,081 feet). Herodotus also identifies the Egyptian Bastet, patroness of BUBASTIS, with Artemis who was honored with a popular FESTIVAL there (2.59, 137). He further associates the sanctuary of HORUS and Bubastis at BUTO with Apollo and Artemis and follows a different mythological tradition on the birth of twin gods than the most prevalent in Greece, according to which the divine twins were children of DIONYSUS and ISIS (or DEMETER according to the Greeks), while Leto (Eg. Wadjet) was only their nurse and savior (2.155–56).
The sanctuary of Artemis in SAMOS is mentioned in connection with an episode of the Corinthian and Spartan expedition against Samos in 525 (3.48; cf. Callim. Hymn 5.225–36). At that time, the tyrant PERIANDER of CORINTH sent 300 sons of CORCYRA’s prominent families through Samos to SARDIS to be castrated, and the Samians saved them by making them SUPPLIANTS through contact with the sacred ground of the sanctuary of Artemis.
Next, Herodotus mentions the Artemision of Delos, which also housed the presumed tomb and cult of the HYPERBOREANS, which is discussed in some detail (4.33–36). It involved a rite of passage performed by boys and girls, who cut off their HAIR in honor of the maidens. Evidence for that RITUAL may be found in the extant Late classical and Hellenistic inventory lists of the Delian Artemision. There are also short references to: the sanctuary of Artemis in BYZANTIUM, where one could see two marble pillars, inscribed in Assyrian and Greek with the names of all peoples that contributed troops to the expedition of DARIUS I against the SCYTHIANS, c. 513 (4.87), as well as the sanctuaries of the goddess in THRACE (5.7) and at BRAURON in Attica (6.138).
SEE ALSO: Artemisium; Egypt; Potniae; Religion, Greek; Temples and Sanctuaries
FURTHER READING
1 Fischer‐Hansen, Tobias, and Birte Poulsen, eds. 2009. From Artemis to Diana: The Goddess of Man and Beast. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.
2 Romm, James. 1989. “Herodotus and Mythic Geography: The Case of the Hyperboreans.” TAPA 119: 97–113.
3 Stephens, Susan. 2003. Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, 114–17. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
4 Tsakos, K. 2007. “Die Stadt Samos in der geometrischen und archaischen Epoche.” In Frühes Ionien: Eine Bestandsaufnahme, edited by J. Cobet, V. von Graeve, W.‐D. Niemeier, and K. Zimmermann, 189–99. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.
ARTEMISIA (Ἀρτεμισίη, ἡ)
ANGUS BOWIE
Queen’s College, Oxford
Daughter of Lygdamis, the TYRANT of HALICARNASSUS (Herodotus’ hometown), and a Cretan mother, Artemisia was one of the best fighters at the Battle of SALAMIS in 480 BCE. On the death of her husband, she became ruler of Halicarnassus and of COS, NISYROS, and CALYDNA on behalf of her young son Pisindelis, who is said to have succeeded her (Suda s.v. Ἡρόδοτος (Η 536)). Herodotus gives her prominence at the very end of the CATALOGUE of XERXES’ forces, where she brings five ships, “not out of compulsion but a courageous spirit”; these were the best on the Persian side after those of SIDON. She arouses Herodotus’ particular wonder, “as a woman going to war against Greece’”(7.99.1).
