Cat his "History of Animals" that "female cats are naturally lecherous." The Greeks later syncretized their own goddess Artemis with the Egyptian goddess Bastet, adopting Bastet's associations with cats and ascribing them to Artemis. In Ovid's "Metamorphoses", when the gods flee to Egypt and take animal forms, the goddess Diana (the Roman equivalent of Artemis) turns into a cat. Cats eventually displaced ferrets as the pest control of choice because they were more pleasant to have around the house and were more enthusiastic hunters of mice. During the Middle Ages, many of Artemis's associations with cats were grafted onto the Virgin
Dali (goddess) and the Greeks, noting that the Svan homeland is close to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Colchis, a region with close trading connections to Greece. Some sources have noted a similarity to the Greek goddess Artemis, who was also a patron of wild animals and hunting, although unlike Dali she was known for prudishness rather than promiscuity. Both were associated with transitions and boundaries, especially between civilization and the wilderness. Writing in the 1940s, the Georgian author Demna Shengelaya examined Dali as an equivalent of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, identifying themes of matriarchy struggling against patriarchal values reflected in the