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.
Diana and Actaeon choreographed by Marius Petipa to music by Cesare Pugni, included a "pas de trois" for dancers portraying Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt, and chastity; Endymion, a beautiful shepherd, and a Satyr. This "divertissement" told of a poetic encounter in which Diana (or Selene, another name for the moon goddess) looked down upon the sleeping youth, descended to earth, kissed him, and fell in love. In a production mounted in the early twentieth century, Anna Pavlova was among those who danced Diana, and Vaslav Nijinsky appeared as the Satyr. In 1917, George Balanchine, then Balanchivadze, also danced