Temple of Artemis image carried through the streets and surrounded by maidens. In the Roman Imperial era, the emperor Commodus lent his name to the festival games, and might have sponsored them. From the Greek point of view, the Ephesian Artemis is a distinctive form of their goddess Artemis. In Greek cult and myth, Artemis is the twin of Apollo, a virgin huntress who supplanted the Titan Selene as goddess of the Moon. At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was venerated in an archaic, pre-Hellenic cult image that was carved of wood (a "xoanon") and kept decorated with jewelry.
Apaturia (Greek mythology) Apaturia (Greek mythology) Apaturia () was an epithet given to more than one goddess in Greek mythology. The name meant "the deceitful". The name Apaturia was given to the goddess Athena by Aethra, the mother of Theseus, who received a dream from Athena urging her to travel to the island of Sphairia to pour a libation for a charioteer of Pelops. After Aethra awoke she traveled to the island and was there raped by the god Poseidon. Aethra later established there a temple to this aspect of the goddess, and started a custom where brides would offer up their maidenhood