Temple of Artemis image carried through the streets and surrounded by maidens. In the Roman Imperial era, the emperor Commodus lent his name to the festival games, and might have sponsored them. From the Greek point of view, the Ephesian Artemis is a distinctive form of their goddess Artemis. In Greek cult and myth, Artemis is the twin of Apollo, a virgin huntress who supplanted the Titan Selene as goddess of the Moon. At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was venerated in an archaic, pre-Hellenic cult image that was carved of wood (a "xoanon") and kept decorated with jewelry.
Timeline of the name "Palestine" strong similarity between the word Palestine and the Greek word "palaistês" (wrestler/rival/adversary), which has the same meaning as the word "Israel". This was expanded by David Jacobson to theorize the name being a portmanteau of the word for Philistines with a direct translation of the word Israel into Greek (in concordance with the Greek penchant for punning on place names. a. †Coele-Syria b. †Syria Palaestina c. †Achaemenid Empire Timeline of the name "Palestine" This article presents a list of notable historical references to the name Palestine as a place name in the Middle East throughout the history of the region,