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
Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia was marked by an intense focus on stratigraphy. The 1924–1928 campaign in Sparta also included a cleanup of the Orthia site in 1928. Other sanctuaries devoted to Artemis: Other Spartan festivals: Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, an Archaic site devoted in Classical times to Artemis, was one of the most important religious sites in the Greek city-state of Sparta, and continued to be used into the fourth century CE. The cult of Orthia (Greek ) was common to the four villages originally constituting Sparta: Limnai, in which it is situated, Pitana, Kynosoura and Mesoa. Chronologically speaking,