Agrotera

:"For the genus of crambidae (grass moths) called Agrotera, see , or subfamily spilomelinae."Agrotera (Gr. polytonic|Ἀγροτέρα, "the huntress") was an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis, [Homer, "Iliad" xxi. 471] [Xenophon, "Cynegeticus" 6.13] [Bacchylides, 11.37-42] and the most important goddess to Attic hunters.

At Agrae [a town or district in the southeast of Athens] on the Ilissos, where she was believed to have first hunted after her arrival from Delos, Artemis Agrotera had a temple, dating to the 5th century BC, with a statue carrying a bow. [Pausanias, "Description of Greece" i. 19. § 7] During the Boedromia, on the seventh day of Boedromion (roughly, the beginning of September), an armed procession would take 600 goats to this temple, [Plutarch, "On the Malice of Herodotus" 26, 862a] [Aristophanes, in "The Knights", places the number of sacrificed goats at 1000, while Aelian records it as 300] where they would all be sacrificed by the polemarch in honor of the victory at the Battle of Marathon. This rite derived from a vow made before the Battle of Marathon, which in turn derived from the custom of making a "slaughter sacrifice", or "sphagion" (polytonic|σφάγιον), to Artemis Agrotera before a battle. The temple was destroyed in 1778,cite book | last = Parker | first = Robert | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Polytheism and Society in Athens | publisher = Oxford University Press | date = 2005 | location = | pages = 56, 178, 400, 419 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=EkXh9roRTC0C | doi = | id = | isbn = 0-19-921611-8] when the Ottoman forces occupying Athens set about demolishing ancient sites for building material to construct a wall around the city. [cite news | last = Petropoulos | first = Thrasy | coauthors = | title = Demolition begins on priceless site | work = | pages = A05 | language = | publisher = Athens News | date = 2006-01-12 | url = http://www.athensnews.gr/athweb/nathens.print_unique?e=C&f=13211&m=A05&aa=1&eidos=S | accessdate = 2008-06-05]

Under this name she was also worshiped at Aigeira, [Pausanias, "Description of Greece" vii. 26. § 2] Sparta, and elsewhere. [Xenophon, "Hellenica" iv. 2. 20] The name Agrotera is synonymous with the epithet Agraea, but Eustathius derives it from the town of Agrae. [Eustathius, "On the Iliad" p. 361] [Concerning the worship of Artemis Agrotera at Athens, see "Dict. of Ant. s.v." polytonic|Ἀγροτέρας ζυσία, p. 31.] Citation | last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | author-link = | contribution = Agrotera | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 83 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | place = Boston | year = 1867 | contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0092.html ]

This epithet was also sometimes applied to the nymph Cyrene. [Pindar, "Pythian Odes" 9.6]

References

External links

* [http://www.artemisagrotera.org/en/ ArtemisAgrotera.org] - information on the archaeological site of the temple of Artemis Agrotera