Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Artemis Orthia in her aspect of Potnia Theron

The Goddess, Artemis, as the Mistress of the Wild Beasts.



Plato, Plutarch, and Pausanias described the cult of Artemis Orthia in Sparta as including the ritual flogging of young boys and epheboi, sometimes even to death, as a blood sacrifice. This was a test of fitness, strength, and endurance; an important part of the elite Spartiate education, without which no one had full rights as a citizen in Sparta. An echo of this practice survived in elite British Imperial education (until fairly recent times), where it was said to give one
"a good bottom".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistress_of_the_Animals

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