It is said in a legend that the goddess Artemis was born one day before her brother Apollo, on the island of Ortygia. Legend also has it that immediately after her birth, she helped her mother, Leto, cross the strait to Delos where Artemis helped her mother give birth to her brother. In Greek mythology, Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto as well as the goddess of hunting, wild animals, virginity and childbirth. In Roman mythology, there is a goddess named Diana, daughter of Jupiter and Latona and goddess of hunting, wild animals, virginity and childbirth. Artemis and Diana are Olympian goddesses, but their place and purpose in the Greco-Roman Parthenon can be interpreted in different ways from the seemingly inconsistent, varied, and complicated areas of responsibility of these goddesses. Artemis/Diana's place in the Greco-Roman Parthenon is to represent the powerful, independent woman and her feminine ideals in the Parthenon. Artemis/Diana can be seen as having the ideals of an independent woman through her natural tendencies due to her areas of responsibility and being the only goddess in the Parthenon to consistently be on the woman's side. This is also evident in the actions she took against Actaeon. In the story of Actaeon, he is walking in the forest when he meets Artemis, in the Greek version and Diana in the Roman version, bathing in a pool of water in a cave with some nymphs. Thus struck by her beauty, Actaeon says and looks at his bath for a moment. Artemis/Diane quickly notices that Actaeon is watching her. “Immediately, seeing a man, completely naked as they were, the nymphs, beating their breasts, filled the whole grove with sudden cries and gathered around Diana in the middle. of paper......and this can be seen this way by her encounter with Actaeon and his murder as well as the high level of chastity she maintains, her willingness to help all women and the fact that she is a one-of-a-kind goddess. All of these things show that Artemis/Diana's place in the Greco-Roman Parthenon is to represent the powerful, independent woman and her feminine ideals in the Parthenon. Works Cited • AD Melville. Ovid Metamorphoses. New York. Oxford University Press. 2008. • Jean Bolen. Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives. New York. Harper and Row Publishers. 1984. • Sarah B. Pomeroy. Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in classical antiquity. New York. Schocken Books Inc. 1995. • Tobias Fischer-Hansen and Birte Poulse. From Artemis to Diana: the goddess of man and beast. Denmark. Collegium Hyperborem and Tusculanum Press Museum. 2009.