Diana (mythology) in the context of "Ludgate Hill"

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Artemis (/ˈɑːrtɪmɪs/; Ancient Greek: Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. In later times, she was identified with Selene, the personification of the Moon. She was often said to roam the forests and mountains, attended by her entourage of nymphs. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent.

In Greek tradition, Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo. In most accounts, the twins are the products of an extramarital liaison. For this, Zeus's wife Hera forbade Leto from giving birth anywhere on solid land. Only the island of Delos gave refuge to Leto, allowing her to give birth to her children. In one account, Artemis is born first and then proceeds to assist Leto in the birth of the second twin, Apollo.

In Greek and Roman mythology, several goddesses are distinguished by their perpetual virginity. These goddesses included the Greek deities Hestia, Athena, and Artemis, along with their Roman equivalents, Vesta, Minerva, and Diana. In some instances, the inviolability of these goddesses was simply a detail of their mythology, while in other cases virginity was also associated with their worship and religious rites.

In ancient Roman religion, Lucina was a title or epithet given to the goddess Juno, and sometimes to Diana, in their roles as goddesses of childbirth who safeguarded the lives of women in labor.

The title lucina (from the Latin lux, lucis, "light") links both Juno and Diana to the light of the Moon, the cycles of which were used to track female fertility as well as measure the duration of a pregnancy. Priests of Juno called her by the epithet Juno Covella on the new moon. The title might alternatively have been derived from lucus ("grove") after a sacred grove of lotus trees on the Esquiline Hill associated with Juno, later the site of her temple.

Phosphorus (Ancient Greek: Φωσφόρος, romanized: Phōsphoros) is the god of the planet Venus in its appearance as the Morning Star. Another Greek name for the Morning Star is "Eosphorus" (Ancient Greek: Ἑωσφόρος, romanized: Heōsphoros), which means "dawn-bringer". The term "eosphorus" is sometimes met in English. As an adjective, the word "phosphorus" is applied in the sense of "light-bringing" (for instance, the dawn, the god Dionysus, pine torches and the day) and "torch-bearing" as an epithet of several gods and goddesses, especially of Hecate but also of Artemis/Diana and Hephaestus. Seasonally, Venus is the "light bringer" in the northern hemisphere, appearing most brightly in December (an optical illusion due to shorter days), signalling the "rebirth" of longer days as winter wanes.

The Temple of Artemis or Artemision (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον; Turkish: Artemis Tapınağı), also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a localised form of the goddess Artemis (equated with the Roman goddess Diana). It was located in Ephesus, near modern day Selçuk in Turkey). While it had been destroyed and rebuilt many times in ancient history, the last incarnation of the temple was destroyed in 401 CE. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain in the present day.

The beginning of the history of the temple is unclear. It is known, however, that the earliest version of the temple was destroyed by a flood in the 7th century BCE. A more elaborate reconstruction of the temple began around 550 BCE under the leadership of the Greek architect from Crete Chersiphron, funded by Croesus of Lydia. This version of the temple lasted until 356 BCE, when it was burned down by an arsonist, popularly identified as Herostratus.

Diana and Actaeon is a large painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Titian, finished in 1556–1559, and is considered amongst Titian's greatest works. It portrays the moment in which the hunter Actaeon comes across the goddess Diana and her nymphs as they are bathing. Diana is furious, and will turn Actaeon into a stag, who is then pursued and killed by his own hounds, a scene Titian later painted in his The Death of Actaeon (National Gallery).

The story is typically located in woodland with very few structures aside from small works like walls and fountains. Titian adjusts this traditional setting by placing his characters in the arched stone ruins of a forest temple. Diana is the pale woman second from the right. She is wearing a crown with a crescent moon on it and is being covered by the dark skinned woman at the extreme right who may be her servant. The nymphs display a variety of reactions, and a variety of nude poses.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Phoebe (/ˈfiːbi/ FEE-bee; Ancient Greek: Φοίβη, romanized: Phoíbē, lit. 'bright') was one of the Titans, the children of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). She is a goddess of intellect and prophecy. With her brother and husband Coeus she had two daughters, Leto and Asteria. She is thus the grandmother of Apollo, Artemis and Hecate.

According to the myth, she was the original owner of the site of the Oracle of Delphi before gifting it to her grandson Apollo. Her name, meaning "bright", was also given to a number of lunar goddesses like Artemis and later the Roman goddesses Luna and Diana, but Phoebe herself was not actively seen as a moon goddess in her own right in ancient religion or mythology.

In Sabine and ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna (Latin: Lūna [ˈluːna]) is the divine embodiment of the Moon. She is often presented as the female complement of the Sun, Sol, conceived of as a god. Luna is also sometimes represented as an aspect of the Roman triple goddess (diva triformis), along with Diana and either Proserpina or Hecate. Luna is not always a distinct goddess, but sometimes rather an epithet that specializes a goddess, since both Diana and Juno are identified as moon goddesses.

In Roman art, Luna attributes are the crescent moon plus the two-yoke chariot (biga). In the Carmen Saeculare, performed in 17 BC, Horace invokes her as the "two-horned queen of the stars" (siderum regina bicornis), bidding her to listen to the girls singing as Apollo listens to the boys.

Diana Nemorensis ("Diana of Nemi"), also known as "Diana of the Wood", was an Italic form of the goddess who became Hellenised during the fourth century BC and conflated with Artemis. Her sanctuary is on the northern shore of Lake Nemi beneath the rim of the crater and the modern city Nemi.

The worship of Diana at Nemi was supposedly instituted by Orestes, who fled with his sister Iphigenia to Italy, bringing with him the image of the Tauric Diana hidden in a mound of sticks. After his death, the myth has it, Orestes' bones were transported from Aricia to Rome and buried in front of the Temple of Saturn, on the Capitoline slope, beside the Temple of Concord.