Amanda Mims

After reading this it took a while for me to find anything that it reminded me of. I was drawn to the classic story of the beautiful Helen as well as the sacrifice of Iphigenia for some sort of success. Sacrifices were critical to religion back then and certain religions such as Santeria still practice it today, however they only use animal sacrifices. This intrigues me so I decided to research sacrifices as well as the god Artemis to see if sacrificing certain things made the gods happier than other things. It seems as though she would not allow any deed to go unpunished, she loved revenge. The only sacrifice that Artemis would receive would be that of a virgin girl. She was pure and valued her virginity, when she was a young girl she asked her father, Zeus, to grant her eternal virginity. One of the most interesting things I found about Artemis was from www.pantheon.org , it said: “When young girls reached puberty they were initiated into her cult, but when they decided to marry, which Artemis was not against, they were asked to lay in front of the altar all the paraphernalia of their virginity, toys, dolls and locks of their hair, they then left the domain of the virgin goddess.” This fascinates me the way that there is such a large transition between being a virgin and no longer being one, because in every society it is a critical moment, but Artemis made that moment so much more serious.