Inancient Greek religionArtemis Caryatis[1] (Καρυᾶτις) was anepithet ofArtemis that was derived from the smallpolis ofCaryae inLaconia;[2] there an archaic open-airtemenos was dedicated toCarya, theLady of the Nut-Tree, whose priestesses were called thecaryatides, represented on theAthenian Acropolis as the marblecaryatids supporting the porch of theErechtheum. The late accounts[3] made of theeponymousCarya a virgin who had been transformed into a nut-tree, whether for her unchastity (withDionysus) or to prevent her rape.[4] The particular form of veneration of Artemis at Karyai[5] suggests that in pre-classical ritualCarya wasgoddess of the nut tree[6] who was later assimilated into the Olympian goddess Artemis.Pausanias noted that each year women performed a dance called thecaryatis at a festival in honor of Artemis Caryatis called theCaryateia.[7]
- ^Diana Caryatis, noted inServius scholium on Virgil'sEclogue viii.30.
- ^References to Karyai are collected in Graham Shipley, "'The other Lakedaimonians': the dependent Perioikicpoleis of Laconia and Messenia" in M.H. Hanson, ed.The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community, (symposium) Copenhagen 1997:189-281.
- ^Virgil,Eclogues 8.30 andServius' commentary;Athenaeus 3.78b;Eustathius of Thessalonica, commentary on Homer, 1964.15, call noted in Pierre Grimal and A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop,The Dictionary of Classical Mythology,s.v. "Carya".
- ^Sarah Iles Johnston,Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1999:227.
- ^The feminine plural of the placename suggests an archaic "sisterhood of Karya"; see William Reginald Halliday, ed.,The Greek Questions of Plutarch, 1928:181; Jennifer K. McArthur,Place-names in the Knossos Tablets: Identification and Location, 1993:26.
- ^Comparedryads and the ash-tree nymphs calledmeliai.
- ^The festival is attested byHesychius,s.v. "Caryai".
