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.
Twins in mythology identities. Many cultures have mythic or folkloric explanations for how twins are conceived. In Greek mythology, some twins were conceived when a woman slept with both a mortal and a god on the same day, like Alcmene for example. One of her offspring, Heracles, had godlike qualities such as immense strength and stamina, while his twin brother, Iphicles, was to be an ordinary mortal. In many Native American cultures, eating certain foods were thought to increase the likelihood of twins. These foods included double almonds and bananas, and were typically avoided by Native American women because birthing twins was frowned