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
Artemis in Attica was supposed to have been brought from the Taurians by Iphigenia. Tauropolia was also a festival of Artemis in Athens. There was a "Tauropolion", a temple in a "temenos" sacred to Artemis Tauropolos, in the north Aegean island of Doliche (now Ikaria). There is a Temple to 'Artemis Tauropolos' (as well as a smaller temple to an unknown goddess about south, on the beach) located on the eastern shore of Attica, in the modern town of Artemida (Loutsa). An aspect of the Taurian Artemis was also worshipped as Aricina. Artemis was born on the sixth day, which made