Greek Goddess Artemis and the Roman Goddess Diana Essay

The Roman empire developed much later than the Greek empire thus the Romans copied almost everything that the Greeks had developed over time, such as art, literature and Gods. However the Romans did give some of their Gods different names and duties than those of the Greek Gods. There are other differences, which is shown between the Greek Goddess Artemis and the Roman Goddess Diana. These two Goddesses are very similar, however some differences are apparent. The Greek Goddess Artemis is compared to her Roman equivalent Diana through genealogy, images and symbols, and modern connections. Artemis is the daughter of the Greek Gods Leto and Zeus, and the twin sister to the God Apollo. Although Artemis only has one sibling, she has many relationships with other Gods and had few enemies. One of these Gods is Orion, Artemis’s lover, who is a giant huntsman. Although Artemis ended up mistakenly killing her lover, she never married or had children. Artemis came upon many relationships through hunting, which is a common symbol for Greek Gods related to her. Other symbols associated with Artemis were most commonly directly connected with hunting. The bows and arrows are one of those symbols which resembles power and strength. However, Artemis usually used her power negatively by punishing people for their misdoings. One type of punishments was spreading the plague and transforming people into deers. A specific type of deer is the Kerynitian Hinds, which are deers larger than bulls with golden horns. These deers are also a symbol of Artemis because she used them for transformations often. A common image of Artemis that is recognized today is the moon. The moon is a present symbol that is on flags of several Muslim countries. However, the symbol didn’t have much more meaning other than representing the Gods associated with Greek Gods and their Roman counterparts. Because of the many symbols Artemis has, there is a vast majority of modern connections. The Artemis mission site by NASA is an example of how Artemis is connected with modern day science. The missions is run based on a spacecraft named Artemis that studies the moons relation to the sun. The Artemis spaceship bridge simulator is a game based on the spacecraft. Another association to modern science is through medicine. A human gene is also named after her. However, a lot of these association also apply to Artemis’s Roman equivalent Diana. The Roman Goddess Diana has many similar characteristics like those of the Greek Goddess Artemis. Diana is the twin sister of the Roman God Apollo and her parents are Leto and Zeus. Like Artemis, Diana has many relationships made through hunting. However she did not punish then due to the fact that she did not believe in punishment, especially not through transformations. Symbols that represent Diana are mostly associated with hunting. Bows and arrows represent power and strength, however they are not used negatively by Diana. She uses them as a sign of security. Nothing resembled to science can be associated with Diana, mainly because she is not well known in comparison to her Greek counterpart Artemis. As a modern connection, the moon is a similarity to Muslim countries, which is represented on several flags, however does not have any other meaning. The Roman Gods are a representation of strength and stability to the Muslim culture. The Roman Goddess Diana is very similar to her counterpart Artemis. Genealogy is identical due to the fact that the Romans based their Gods to the Greek Gods. This causes similar images and symbols, except that some Roman Gods weren’t as violent as the Greek Gods with their punishments. However, modern connections aren’t as similar as other aspects of these two Goddesses because the Greek Gods are more well known. Even though both the Greek Goddess Artemis and her Roman equivalent Diana have many similarities in genealogy, images and symbols, there are also differences in modern connections. Artemis’s parents are Leto and Zeus, and she only has one sibling, her brother Apollo. This is also true for Diana. Both these Goddesses have identical images and symbols, however Diana isn’t feared and she does not punish other Gods.. However, because of the Greeks being well known for their Gods and Goddesses, Artemis has more modern connection than Diana has.