thdrew her favour from the pair. Not long after, the prediction
which foretold misfortune to Atalanta, in the event of her marriage, was
verified, for she and her husband, having strayed unsanctioned into a
sacred grove of Zeus, were both transformed into lions.

The trophies of the ever-memorable boar-hunt had been carried by Atalanta
into Arcadia, and, for many centuries, the identical hide and enormous
tusks of the Calydonian boar hung in the temple of Athene at Tegea. The
tusks were afterwards conveyed to Rome, and shown there among other
curiosities.

A forcible instance of the manner in which Artemis resented any intrusion
on her retirement, is seen in the fate which befell the famous hunter
Actaeon, who happening one day to see Artemis and her attendants bathing,
imprudently ventured to approach the spot. The goddess, incensed at his
audacity, sprinkled him with water, and transformed him into a stag,
whereupon he was torn in pieces and devoured by his own dogs. {92}

EPHESIAN ARTEMIS.

The Ephesian Artemis, known to us as "Diana of the Ephesians," was a very
ancient Asiatic divinity of Persian origin called Metra,[33] whose worship
the Greek colonists found already established, when they first settled in
Asia Minor, and whom they identified with their own Greek Artemis, though
she really possessed but one single attribute in common with their home
deity.

Metra was a twofold divinity, and represented, in one phase of her
character, all-pervading love; in the other she was the light of heaven;
and as Artemis, in her character as Selene, was the only Greek female
divinity who represented celestial light, the Greek settlers, according to
their custom of fusing foreign deities into their own, seized at once upon
this point of resemblance, and decided that Metra should henceforth be
regarded as identical with Artemis.

In her character as the love which pervades all nature, and penetrates
everywhere, they believed her also to be present in the mysterious Realm of
Shades, where she exercised her benign sway, replacing to a certain extent
that ancient divinity Hecate, and partly usurping also the place of
Persephone, as mistress of the lower world. Thus they believed that it was
she who permitted the spirits of the departed to revisit the earth, in
order to communicate with those they loved, and to give them timely warning
of coming evil. In fact, this great, mighty, and omnipresent power of love,
as embodied in