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 Aphrodite Aphrodisias Sanctuary of Aphrodite Aphrodisias The Sanctuary of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias was a sanctuary in ancient Aphrodisias dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. The site was a local cult center centered around a local fertility goddess since at least the 7th century BC. In the hellenistic period, the local goddess came to be identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in a similar manner as the Artemis of Ephesus was originally a local goddess who came to be identified with Artemis, and the city became a pilgrimage for people from across Anatolia and the Aegean sea. The first sanctuary is dated to the