Chapter 17, The Return from Troy
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♠ Proklos, Kypria Summary PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 41, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987. See also Early Greek Myth p. 582 Lower
♠ Hesiod, Ehoiai (Catalogue of Women) fr 23a.25-26 MW – Fragmenta Hesiodea, p. 13, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Oxford 1967.
And now the races of men upon the hearth call her Artemis of the wayside, <the attendant of the famous> showerer of arrows. (Transl. T. Gantz)
♠ Stesichoros, Oresteias 215 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 115, ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
♠ Euripides, Iphigeneia among the Tauroi
Before the great temple of Artemis of the Taurians. A blood-stained altar is prominently in view. Iphigenia, clad as a priestess, enters from the temple.
Iphigenia
Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses, married Oenomaus’ daughter, and she gave birth to Atreus, whose children are Menelaus and Agamemnon; from him I was born, [5] his child Iphigenia, by the daughter of Tyndareus. Where Euripus rolls about its whirlpools in the frequent winds and twists the darkening waves, my father sacrificed me to Artemis for Helen’s sake, or so he thought, in the famous clefts of Aulis. [10] For there lord Agamemnon mustered his expedition of a thousand ships of Hellas, wanting to take the crown of Troy in glorious victory and avenge the outrage to Helen’s marriage, doing this favor for Menelaus. [15] But when he met with dreadful winds that would not let him sail, he went to burnt sacrifices, and Calchas had this to say: “”Lord and general of Hellas, Agamemnon, you will not set free your ships from land until Artemis has your daughter Iphigenia [20] as a victim. For you once vowed to sacrifice to the torch-bearing goddess the most beautiful creature brought forth that year; then your wife, Clytemnestra, bore a child in your house—ascribing the prize of beauty to me—whom you must sacrifice.” And by the craft of Odysseus, [25] they took me from my mother, pretending a marriage with Achilles. I came to Aulis; held up high over the altar, I, the unhappy one, was about to die by the sword; but Artemis gave the Achaeans a deer in exchange for me and stole me from them; conducting me through the bright air, [30] she settled me here in the land of the Taurians. A barbarian rules this land of barbarians: Thoas, who runs as quickly as the flight of birds, and so he received his name for his swiftness of foot. Artemis has made me the priestess in this temple. [35] Here I begin the rites, which the goddess delights in, of a banquet noble in name only—I am silent as to the rest, for I fear the goddess— [for I sacrifice, by a custom of the city established earlier, any Hellene who comes to this land.] [40] But others carry out the sacrifices, not to be spoken of, within the temple of the goddess. Continue Reading Greek Text
♠ Strabo, Geography 9.1.22
then to Prasia, to Steiria, to Brauron, where is the temple of the Artemis Brauronia, to Halae Araphenides, where is the temple of Artemis Tauropolus. Greek Text
♠ Euripides, Iphigeneia among the Tauroi 1448-57
go away with the statue and your sister; and when you come to Athens, built by the gods, [1450] there is a place on the farthest borders of the Attic land, neighbor to the ridge of Carystia, sacred, and my people call it Halae. There build a temple and set up the image in it; it will have its name from the Tauric land and from your labors, [1455] which you have endured, wandering through Hellas and goaded by the Furies. And mortals will in future times celebrate Artemis Tauropolos with hymns. Greek Text
♠ Herodotos, Historiae 4.103
Among these, the Tauri have the following customs: all ship-wrecked men, and any Greeks whom they capture in their sea-raids, they sacrifice to the Virgin goddess as I will describe: after the first rites of sacrifice, they strike the victim on the head with a club; [2] according to some, they then place the head on a pole and throw the body off the cliff on which their temple stands; others agree as to the head, but say that the body is buried, not thrown off the cliff. The Tauri themselves say that this deity to whom they sacrifice is Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia. Greek Text
Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2023
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