8. We are now to consider those temples of Artemis which had a purely Asiatic, and not a Grecian origin, and are wholly distinct, not only from the Doric, but also from the Arcadian worship of Artemis.
The Ephesian Artemis was doubtless found by the Ionians, when they settled on that coast, as already an object of worship, in her temple,(1613) situated in a marshy valley of the Cayster.(1614) From some real or accidental resemblance in the attributes of the Munychian and Ephesian goddesses, they called the latter “Artemis;” yet, wherever her worship spread, she was always distinguished by the additional title of “Ephesian.”(1615) Every thing that is related of the worship of this deity is singular and foreign to the Greeks. Her constant symbol is the bee, which is not otherwise attributed to Artemis; the other attributes, which adorned her statues in later times, are too far-fetched to admit of any conclusion being drawn from them. The bee, however, appears originally to have been the symbol of nourishment;(1616) the chief priest himself was called ἐσσὴν, or the king-bee: some of the other sacerdotal names are of barbarous, and not Greek derivation.(1617) The gods, by whom this great goddess(1618) was surrounded, must also have been of a peculiar description. It is not probable that Latona was _originally_ called her mother,(1619) as Apollo is never joined with her.(1620) Her nurse appears to have been called _Ammas_.(1621) Hercules is said to have proclaimed her birth from mount Ceryceum.(1622) This Hercules may perhaps be some native demigod, possibly one of the Idæan Dactyli, whose names were, according to some, contained in Ephesian incantations, which were inscribed at the foot of her statues.(1623)
9. Thus much concerns the character of this worship, which appears, like an isolated point, projecting from a religious system, otherwise confined to the western parts of Greece.
As to its origin, the unanimous tradition of antiquity is that it was founded by the Amazons, This legend had probably been mentioned in some of the ancient epic poems before it was alluded to by Pindar;(1624) and that it was also preserved on the spot appears from the celebrated contest of Phidias, Polycleitus, and other artists, to make statues of Amazons for the Ephesian temple: lately also a sarcophagus was found near Ephesus representing the battle of the Amazons.(1625) The traditions respecting the foundation of the cities of Smyrna, Cume, Myrlea, Myrina, Æolis, Priene, Mytilene, and Pitane also make mention of the Amazons.(1626) With respect to the meaning of Amazons, it has rightly (in my opinion) been supposed that the idea of them was suggested by the sight of the innumerable female slaves (ἱερόδουλοι) who were employed about the temples of Asia Minor.(1627) According to Callimachus also the Amazons danced to the sound of the pipe round the statue which had been newly raised on the trunk of an elm-tree. It is also stated as an historical fact, that, even in the times of the Ionians, women of the Amazon race dwelt round the temple;(1628) although virgins only were permitted to enter the sanctuary itself.(1629) It appears therefore that the goddess upon whom these Amazons attended, being represented as a beneficent and nourishing deity, was likewise supposed to have the attributes of war and destruction; a double and opposite character, which we have traced in other branches of the worship of Artemis. As to the native country of the Amazons, who were supposed to have founded this worship, it does not seem to have been Phrygia, as they are stated in the Iliad to have come from the east of the Sangarius, and to have fought with the Phrygians.(1630) The Syrians, however, bordered on that people: and Pindar, who says that the Amazons led the Syrian army,(1631) fully coincides with those who fix their origin on the banks of the Thermodon, Chadesius and Lycastus along the coast of Themiscyra.(1632) The striking agreement of several authors in this statement, and its singular precision, render it of double importance. And what country could have been more probably the native place of the Ephesian Artemis, as well as of the warlike Hierodulæ, than Cappadocia; where there were, in the historical age, large numbers of sacred slaves, both male and female; where also there was an elementary religion, with frantic rites, and the principal divinity was at the same time a _Bellona_ and a _Magna Mater_?