Artemis

Niobe called on the people of Thebes to abandon their worship of Leto and offer sacrifices to her instead. She compared her seven sons and seven daughters with Leto's two children, Apollo and Artemis. Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus and the wife of Amphion, king of Thebes. She trusted her wealth, noble birth, power, and many children to protect her from both mortals and gods.

Leto was angered by Niobe's words and incited Apollo and Artemis against the children. Artemis entered the house and shot the daughters. Apollo attacked the sons while they were hunting on Mount Cithairon. The sons were Sipylos, Eupinytos, Ismenos, Damasichthon, Agenor, Phaidimos, and Tantalos. The daughters were Ethodaia, Cleodoxa, Astyoche, Phthia, Pelopia, Astycrateia, and Ogygia. Apollo and Artemis killed them with arrows. Amphion alone survived among the sons, and Chloris, the eldest daughter, survived among the girls.

Other accounts describe the attack differently. In one telling, Apollo killed all the sons and Artemis killed all the daughters except the youngest and most beloved. Niobe held that child in her arms and begged the gods to spare her. The deaths brought terror to the people and grief to the attendants. Amphion was overwhelmed by the loss and destroyed himself. Niobe's boast had ended with the destruction of her children and the ruin of her household.

Leto wandered through the world, seeking a place where she could give birth. Zeus had loved her, but abandoned her when she was about to bear his children, fearing Hera. Countries and islands refused to receive her. At last she reached Delos, a small, rocky island on the sea. It had no firm foundation and was driven about by waves and winds. When Leto set foot on it and asked for refuge, Delos welcomed her.

Four lofty pillars then rose from the sea and fixed the island in place. Leto gave birth to Artemis there, beside a date palm. The whole island filled with ambrosial fragrance. The earth rejoiced, and the depths of the sea shared in the joy. Artemis was born first, and the newborn goddess helped her mother deliver Apollo.

Artemis and Apollo were the children of Leto and Zeus. Apollo was also called Phoebus Apollo. Delos, once barren and insecure, became known as the heaven-built island. In later years, Apollo’s temple stood there, and people came to visit it from many parts of the world. The beauty of the date palm and the circular lake preserved something of the splendour associated with Leto’s labour.

After the births, Opis, also called Upis, and Arge came to Delos. They belonged to a legendary northern people and brought a thank-offering to Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth. The offering had been vowed in return for an easy labour for Leto.

Sitting on Zeus’s knees at the age of three, Artemis was asked what gifts she wanted. She requested eternal virginity, a bow and arrows like those of her brother Apollo, the office of bringing light, and as many names as Apollo. She also asked for a saffron hunting tunic with a red hem, sixty young Ocean nymphs as attendants, twenty river nymphs from Amnisus in Crete to care for her buskins and feed her hounds, all the mountains in the world, and one city of Zeus’s choosing. She intended to live chiefly in the mountains.

Artemis chose numerous nine year old nymphs for her attendants, and their mothers were pleased to release them. At Hephaestus’s invitation, she went to the Cyclopes on Lipara. They were making a horse trough for Poseidon. Brontes took Artemis on his knee, but she disliked his affection and tore a handful of hair from his chest. A bald patch remained there for the rest of his life. The nymphs feared the Cyclopes and the noise of the smithy, but Artemis was bold. She told them to leave Poseidon’s trough and make her a silver bow and a quiver of arrows. In return, they would eat the first prey she brought down.

Artemis then went to Arcadia, where Pan was engaged in work that the surviving passage does not describe. Later, the Amnisian nymphs cared for her hinds. They unyoked them, rubbed them down, fed them quick growing trefoil from Hera’s pasture, and gave them water in golden troughs. Artemis travelled across the mountains with her nymphs and hunted boars and swift hinds. She could send plague or sudden death among mortals and could also heal them. She protected little children and suckling animals, while keeping the chastity she demanded from her companions.

When the river god Alpheius pursued her, Artemis reached Letrini in Elis, or, in another account, Ortygia near Syracuse. She covered her face and the faces of her nymphs with white mud, so that Alpheius could not distinguish her from them. He withdrew as they laughed at him. Later, when Zeus had seduced Callisto, Artemis saw that Callisto was pregnant. She changed her into a bear and set the pack upon her. Zeus saved Callisto by carrying her up to heaven.

The Giants rose against the Olympians, and the Gigantomachy began. Artemis joined the Olympian side and took part in the fighting. The cause of the conflict remained unstated, and the Giants had no further identities in this telling. Artemis fought as one of the gods who opposed them, but the battle gave no separate encounter between her and a named Giant.

The Olympians defeated the Giants, and Artemis helped secure their victory. Her part belonged to the wider effort by the gods to overcome their enemies. The battle did not give her a named weapon, a described attack, or a specified opponent. She therefore remained an Olympian combatant whose contribution lay in taking part in the fighting and helping bring about the defeat of the Giants.

In one telling, Artemis killed Gration during the battle. In another, she did not receive that deed, and the account left her action without a named victim. Her place in the Gigantomachy therefore varied in detail, although she fought on the Olympian side in the battle. The story did not state whether she killed Gration before or after the other Olympians defeated the remaining Giants.