Outline: How Artemis Affected Greek History

506 Words3 Pages

Thesis: Artemis effected Greek history by influencing significant events and impacting the daily lives of her followers even though she was a lesser known goddess.

Initially, the Greek Goddess required many things of her followers and failure to obey these orders resulted in severe punishment.

A. For instance, the followers of Artemis were required to be virgin and sexually pure.

One of Artemis’ loyal followers was forced to go against this order when Zeus fell in love with her; however, the goddess placed the blame on her follower shooting her, not Zeus.

Furthermore, this shows the goddess’ lack of sympathy and forgiveness to her followers' wrongdoings.

B. Although not required, Artemis also preferred her …show more content…

Nevertheless, despite her strict nature she offered help to her followers and believers at times.

According to Ellen Switzer and Costas, women would pray to the goddess when their superiors pressured them into marriage and the goddess would change them into objects like a flower, a tree, or a deer.

Women at the time would much rather be transformed into one of these objects than to be with a man they did not love (Switzer and Costas 30).

In addition, Artemis affected various events in Greek history with her actions.

A. Artemis also waged in the Trojan War when Agamemnon killed one of her deer and bragged that Artemis could not have even shot as well as he did.

This infuriated the goddess and led her to avert the Greek ships from sailing back to Ithaca until Agamemnon gave up one of his most appealing daughters, Iphigenia (118-119 and 76).

B. Likewise, a hunter named Actaeon stumbled across her when she was bathing.

Artemis responded by turning him into a deer and letting his hounds feast on his body (Hansen 119 and Buxton 76).

C. Lastly, Artemis was used in Homer's Odyssey to compare the goddess' virginal beauty with those of Nausikaa (Buxton