Hey dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! Today I would like to talk a little about Roman mythology and hope you are able to expand your knowledge a little.
You can see here a detailed sculpture depicting the goddess of the hunting Diana from the Roman Mythology, which is also known as the Greek equivalent of Artemis. In addition to the goddess of hunting, Diana is also associated as a moon goddess and was also considered very faithful to nature and her brother is also the god of light or arts Apollo and he sometimes accompanies her on the hunt. The two are also twins and as their parents are known the god of thunder Jupiter as well as Leto and first Diana came into the world who was already so developed at the time that she had even helped her mother with the birth of Apollo. Diana especially liked to go hunting at full moon to use the light of the night and she was always accompanied by some nymphs who had to swear their chastity and often it happened that some of them were distracted by men and as her most loyal companion was known Callisto which was so beautiful that even Jupiter fell in love with her. Despite her chastity, Callisto often had fanaticism with men and it even happened that she became pregnant at the time and she could have hidden this from Diana for a long time until one day she noticed it and then Diana was so disappointed that she decided to go hunting without her. Diana is not only considered the leader of the forest and was also often associated with medicinal plants which were collected especially for her and she was also considered a goddess of the vegetation as well as a protector of women and a great cult has arisen around her and Diana did not only help with the birth of her brother but she often appears in this context and has helped numerous pregnant women with childbirth.
In rural areas, she was also often revered as goddesses of nature by some farmers and some hunters decided to make sacrifices to her before hunting so that they were more successful. In her honor there were some places of worship and the most famous was probably the temple in the city of Rome which was built for her and also in Spain a magnificent temple was built in her honor in the city of Mérida and numerous sculptures can be found around the globe. By the way, the arrows of her bow were created by the god of fire and the blacksmith's Vulcan who also worked for her brother Apollon and produced his arrows. Diana herself was probably a virgin and there is an interesting legend about the hero Actaeon who saw her naked one day and then died. One day Diana was together with her nymphs bathing in a spring when Actaeon passed her during a visit to the forest and according to tradition he was first transformed by Diana into a deer which was then eaten by dogs and about this legend there are numerous works in the visual art. In general, Diana can often found in art and numerous well-known artists have oriented themselves to her and one of the best-known painters was the artist of the Dutch school Jan Vermeer (1632 - 1675) but this is only one of the numerous artists who used Diana as a role model.
Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about mythology! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!