Apanchomene (Ancient Greek: Ἀπαγχομένη) was in Greek mythology an epithet for the goddess Artemis that meant "the strangled goddess" or "she who hangs herself".[1] The origin of this name is thus related by Pausanias:[2] in the neighborhood of the town of Caphyae in Arcadia, in a place called Condylea, there was a sacred grove of Artemis Condyleatis. On one occasion when some boys were playing in this grove, they put a string around the goddess's statue, and said in their jokes they would strangle Artemis. Some of the inhabitants of Caphyae who found the boys engaged in their sport, stoned them to death.

After this occurrence, all the women of Caphyae had premature births, and all the children were brought dead into the world. This calamity did not cease until the boys were honorably buried, and an annual sacrifice to their manes was instituted in accordance with the command of an oracle of Apollo. The epithet of Condyleatis was then changed into Apanchomene.

Many modern scholars view this curious epithet as being related to Greek traditions where icons and puppets of a vegetation goddess would be hung in a tree (aiora).[3] Classics scholar Helen King however connects the myth to beliefs about female reproductive health, and points to signs of Artemis being an asexual goddess.[4][5]

Notes

  1. ^ Johnston, Sarah Iles (2013). Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. University of California Press. p. 235. ISBN 9780520922310. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
  2. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.23.5
  3. ^ Dowden, Ken (2013). European Paganism. Routledge. p. 284. ISBN 9781134810222. Retrieved 2016-02-17.
  4. ^ Cole, Susan Guettel (2005). "Domesticating Artemis". In Blundell, Sue; Williamson, Margaret (eds.). The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece. Routledge. p. 28. ISBN 9781134799862. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
  5. ^ Ogden, Daniel (2010). A Companion to Greek Religion. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 271. ISBN 9781444334173. Retrieved 2016-02-16.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Apanchomene". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 219.

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