Diana (mythology) more revered as a goddess not of the wild woodland but of the "tame" countryside, or "villa rustica", the idealization of which was common in Greek thought and poetry. This dual role as goddess of both civilization and the wild, and therefore the civilized countryside, first applied to the Greek goddess Artemis (for example, in the 3rd century BCE poetry of Anacreon). By the 3rd century CE, after Greek influence had a profound impact on Roman religion, Diana had been almost fully combined with Artemis and took on many of her attributes, both in her spiritual domains and in the
Artemis was a survival of very old totemic and shamanistic rituals and formed part of a larger bear cult found further afield in other Indo-European cultures (e.g., Gaulish Artio). It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshipped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, Britomartis. While connection with Anatolian names has been suggested, the earliest attested forms of the name "Artemis" are the Mycenaean Greek , "a-te-mi-to" /Artemitos/ and , "a-ti-mi-te" /Artimitei/, written in Linear B at Pylos. R. S. P. Beekes suggested that the "e"/"i" interchange points to a Pre-Greek origin. Artemis was venerated in