Callimachus says she asked Zeus for virginity, received her bow from Hephaestus and the Cyclops, her dogs from Pan and captured golden horned deer for her chariot herself. She was a goddess of childbirth and a protector of young females until they were old enough to marry. She could also bring disease and sudden death to all women. She was also the patron goddess of the Amazons.
In the myth of Persephone, she and Athena were given as Persephone's companions when Persephone was abducted by Hades. During the war of the Gigantes she slayed Aigaion.
She was fiercely protective of her and her companions' chastity. Alpheus/Alpheios a river god fell in love with her and tried to woo her. When he failed he planned to abduct her but the goddess was suspicious and so covered herself with mud so that he did not recognise her. Sipriotes, a mortal, saw her bathing and was turned into a girl as punishment. The hunter Actaeon/Aktaion, a grandson of Apollo, also saw her bathing and she turned him into a stag as punishment. He was hunted and killed by his own dogs. Chiron made a statue of Actaeon for the grieving hounds. Hesiod and Apollodorus say he rivalled Zeus for Semele, who was his aunt, sister to his mother Autonoe. In another version of the tale he boasted that he was a better hunter than Artemis and met the same fate. The Aloadai/Aloadae were two giant brothers who planned to abduct Artemis and Hera for their wives. Artemis turned into a deer and jumped between them, when they tried to shoot her they killed each other.
Orion was a giant huntsman, either a son of Poseidon and the princess Euryale, or a creation of Poseidon, Zeus and Hermes in response to Hyrieus asking for sons. Some sources say Artemis killed him for trying to rape her or seduce her companion Opis. Other sources say Gaia or Apollo killed him with a scorpion or that Apollo tricked Artemis into killing him. These sources say Artemis had fallen in love with the hunter and that Apollo wanted him dead to protect his sister's chastity.
Callisto/Kallisto was a companion of Artemis' raped or seduced by Zeus when he took Artemis' form. When Artemis noticed she was pregnant she turned her into a bear.
She was quick to punish people who offended her, her brother or her mother. She killed Leimos for refusing to give her mother sanctuary when she was pregnant and for killing his brother to hide his guilt, and she and her brother killed the giant Tityos for trying to rape their mother. When the Queen Niobe boasted that was superior to Leto because she had fourteen children, Artemis killed the girls and Apollo the boys as punishment, although some say that two were spared. Niboe's husband Amphion killed himself in grief and Niobe turned to stone.
Artemis from Xena: Warrior Princess
Chione was a lover of Apollo and Hermes and boasted of being more beautiful than Artemis, as a result Artemis killed her for her hubris. Koronis was a princess loved by Apollo who betrayed him by sleeping with someone else, Artemis killed her as a result. Aura, a virgin goddess of the breeze was a hunting companion of Artemis who was said to have claimed Artemis' curves too womanly for her to be a virgin. In vengeance with the help of Nemesis Artemis brought about Aura's rape by Dionysus. She went mad, had twins and devoured one, whilst the other was saved by Artemis. Other sources say Dionysus loved her and Aphrodite inspired her to love him back but when she gave birth to twins she went mad and killed one.
Ankaios was a prince who boasted that not even Artemis could stop him from slaying a boar, so she had the boar slay him. Broteas was a prince and brother to the ill-fated Niobe, he boasted he was a better hunter than Artemis and she drove him mad as a result and he threw himself into a fire.
King Agamemnon brought about her wrath by killing a deer in her sacred grove, as a result when he went to sail to Troy there were no winds. So he had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to her. At the last minute Artemis switched the girl for a deer.
During the Trojan War she fought on the side of the Trojans. Hera beat her with her own quiver and sent her crying to Zeus during this war.
Artemis could also show favour to people as well as vengeance. She gifted Daphne the ability to shoot straight, gave dogs to Kyrene/Cyrene, who may have been her brother's lover and Prokris/Procris a spear that always struck and a dog that never failed to catch its prey. In the Bibliotheca it is actually Minos who gives Prokris these things for curing him of his wife's curse.
Aspalis hung herself to escape rape and was turned into a statue by the goddess or her body simply disappeared. She was mentioned in Melite (Malta) as a hunting goddess, and was also a Semitic hunting goddess. Arethusa was a Nereid who bathed in the river of Alpheus causing him to fall in love with her. She wanted to remain a virgin servant of Artemis and so Artemis hid her in a cloud and then turned her into a spring to save her. Britomartis//Diktynna/Dicte was a Minonian hunting goddess or a nymph or a daughter of Zeus and Carme/Karme who to escape rape from Minos either threw herself into fishermen's nets or was rescued by Artemis and became her companion. Polyboea was a woman who died a young virgin and was taken either by Artemis to be a companion or by Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite with her brother, Hyacinth/Hyacinthus, a lover of Apollo, to the heavens. She also gave the princess Philonoe/Phylonoe immortality. Erigone, a daughter of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, she was saved from being slain by her older half-brother Orestes by Artemis who made her a priestess.
Pirene was a nymph who had a son with Poseidon, her son, Cenchrias, was killed by Artemis accidentally, she was so agrieved that Artemis turned into a fountain. The fountain became sacred to the Muses and is said to be where Bellerophon tamed Pegasus. The sisters of Meleager she turned into guineafowl when they were grieving over his death.
She is usually portrayed as a young huntress with a dog or deer, holding a bow and arrow and dressed in a short tunic. Sometimes she is depicted with a crescent moon. Her animals are hunting dogs, guineafowl, deer, buzzard hawk, bear and boars and her symbols are the bow and arrow, and the crescent moon. Plants sacred to her are the asphodel, palm, cypress and amaranth.
She was linked to the moon titaness Selene and was occasionally given as part of a trinity with Selene and Hecate.
Her Roman counterpart is Diana, a goddess of the moon, hunt and birthing, who had a trinity with Egeria a nymph linked with childbirth, and Viribus, the Roman equivalant of Hippolytus, Theseus' ill-fated son. The Romans believed that Artemis asked Asclepius to resurrect him as he was a loyal subject of hers. Diana was initially just a wilderness goddess before supplanting Luna as the moon goddess. Oak trees were sacred to her.
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