Artemis Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth. The "Iliad" reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. A poem by Callimachus to the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" imagines some charming vignettes. Artemis, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her several wishes: Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo.
Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia 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, it probably came after the cult to the city-goddess Athena ("Polioũkhos") "protectress of the city" or Χαλκίοικος / "Khalkíoikos" "of the bronze house". The sanctuary is located in a natural basin