Artemis at The Louvre, Paris

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The legend of huntress Artemis as a virgin holds a double origin- Boeotian and Arcadian roots. Her father, Schoenée, son of Athamas, credits his ancestry to Minyas' daughter Clymene. The other account points to LASOS, Lycurgus' son, who attempted to abandon the girl because her father didn't want a female child. A bear collected her first, then hunters did. This accounts for her masculine side. Rhoecos and Hylaeos Centaurs met their end at Artemis' hands when they tried raping her, making her a candidate to join the Argo crew alongside Jason's team of Argonauts on a quest for the Golden Fleece. Jason denied having only one woman on board, but Atalanta proved her worth by defeating Peleus in the funeral games organized by the Argonauts in Greece. Her intervention led Meleager to join Artemis in hunting the Calydonian Boar despite Ancaeus and Cepheus' hostility. She shot an arrow into the animal before it was killed by Meleager, who offered her its remains as thanks. However, Meleager killed his uncles for trying to seize the trophy, prompting Althea to punish him by forbidding him from marrying Artemis. Her father would later require her to marry that man willing to beat her in a running competition with death as the price of failure. All contenders lost their lives despite obstacles placed before them. A young man (Milanion in Arcadia, Hippomenes in Boeotia) received three golden apples from Aphrodite's orchard in Tamasos, Cyprus, and launched them during the competition. Artemis was defeated when she stopped to pick up the apples. The pretender who dared to eat his union within a temple's walls was transformed into a lion. Another tradition claims Artemis is the mother of Parhénopaeos, described as "son of a virgin," whom she abandoned with peasants.