Apanchomene () was in
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
an
epithet
An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...
for the goddess
Artemis
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...
that meant "the strangled goddess" or "she who hangs herself". The origin of this name is thus related by
Pausanias: in the neighborhood of the town of
Caphyae in
Arcadia, in a place called Condylea, there was a sacred grove of Artemis Condyleatis. On one occasion when some boys were playing in this grove, they put a string around the goddess's statue, and said in their jokes they would strangle Artemis. Some of the inhabitants of Caphyae who found the boys engaged in their sport, stoned them to death.
After this occurrence, all the women of Caphyae had premature births, and all the children were brought dead into the world. This calamity did not cease until the boys were honorably buried, and an annual sacrifice to their ''
manes
In ancient Roman religion, the ''Manes'' (, , ) or ''Di Manes'' are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the '' Lares'', '' Lemures'', '' Genii'', and '' Di Penates'' as deities ...
'' was instituted in accordance with the command of an oracle of
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
. The epithet of Condyleatis was then changed into Apanchomene.
Many modern scholars view this curious epithet as being related to Greek traditions where icons and puppets of a vegetation goddess would be hung in a tree (''aiora''). Classics scholar
Helen King however connects the myth to beliefs about female reproductive health, and points to signs of Artemis being an asexual goddess.
Notes
{{DGRBM, author=LS, title=Apanchomene , volume=1, page=219, url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/acl3129.0001.001/234
Epithets of Artemis