This ancient goddess commanded a Wonder of the World – but why did she have thirty breasts?
The strange and powerful symbol at the heart of one of history’s greatest temples reveals the importance of the goddess Artemis in ruling fertility, childbirth and nature
When we think of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may be the first examples that come to mind. However, the oldest-known versions of the list start with a landmark that is often forgotten: the Temple of Artemis.
Located in the ancient city of Ephesus (near modern-day Selçuk, Turkey), this remarkable place of worship was renowned for its size and scale, standing at least 20 metres tall and boasting an enormous tile-covered roof supported by 127 marble columns. With a floor plan of some 6,000 square metres, the temple was also nearly three times as large as the famous Parthenon in Athens.
But some of the most startling archaeological evidence from Ephesus isn’t concerned with the dimensions of the temple, nor its complicated history of destruction and rebuilding. Instead, much attention has been directed towards a collection of statues depicting the temple’s patron deity, Artemis.
Rather than portraying the goddess as a conventional Greek beauty, the sculptures display Artemis in an altogether different guise. And, according to classicist and broadcaster Bettany Hughes, these statues bear a particularly striking physical characteristic.
- Read more | On the steps of a sacred temple, Cleopatra's feud with her sister came to a blood-soaked end
“[This] is not the Artemis that you probably have in your heads… this image of a beautiful young woman in a tiny Greek chiton, artfully pulling a bow and arrow,” reveals Hughes on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast.
“She is a huge, towering figure, covered in birds and bees, goats and curious figures. But what none of you will miss… is that she looks as though she has 30 or so breasts.”
Thirty breasts… or testicles?
What need did Artemis have for 30 breasts?
As well as being the goddess of hunting and the moon, Artemis was also revered as a deity of fertility and childbirth. Having a multitude of breasts would therefore be a fitting attribute for a goddess so intrinsically connected with fecundity and womanhood.
In fact, even alternative theories – which suggest that the ‘breasts’ are actually bulls’ testicles or sacks of honey – bolster Artemis’s association with abundance. Both motifs have also been used as symbols of procreation in Greek art, so the ambiguity was likely deliberate. “These ancient craftsmen are likely playing a game with us,” says Hughes.
Ultimately, the ancient Greeks believed that Artemis was so potent in her fertility that “she didn’t need anything as mundane as sex to procreate”.
A goddess of power and procreation
It’s not just the features on the statue[s] itself that suggest Artemis’s importance – the location where they were discovered is notable too. Ephesus was situated on the eastern edge of the ancient Greek world, where Artemis’s association with fertility and childbirth was perhaps stronger than elsewhere.
“The Artemis who was worshipped in Ephesus was an ‘eastern Artemis’ – a direct descendant of the great nature goddesses of the eastern world,” says Hughes. “Any ancient traveller who went to visit the temple would have been left in no doubts of how extremely strong and potent she was.”
While Artemis was regarded as a powerful goddess for all, she was particularly important to women. Care of the temple was entrusted to high priestesses, a system that Hughes likens to a “hive buzzing around, serving the queen bee”. Overall, maleness was not well tolerated at the site; it was intended to be devoted to female presence and power.
An offer of sanctuary
But it wasn’t just the high priestesses who devoted themselves to Artemis. Countless ordinary women also dedicated themselves to this bastion of fertility, travelling from far and wide to give offerings.
“Poor female pilgrims would beat a path to Artemis’s door, and some of them would leave extraordinary gifts [and] beautiful gold offerings,” says Hughes. “They were left as temple dedications and then buried as hoards.”
In some cases, the poorest pilgrims would simply leave a seashell for Artemis instead. They merely offered whatever they could, in the hope that the goddess would provide protection and preparation for marriage and childbirth.
Crucially, the Temple of Artemis wasn’t solely a place for worship – it also functioned as a place of refuge for the oppressed.
Hughes adds, “If you were being persecuted politically, and even if you were a woman escaping domestic abuse, you could go to sanctuary at the temple.”
A forgotten legacy
The Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World for good reason. Its sheer scale and beauty were matched only by the power of the goddess it honoured.
To the modern eye, her many breasts might seem slightly mystifying. But – whether seen as symbols of fertility, abundance or simply a playful riddle set by ancient craftsmen – they remind us of the complexity and depth of her worship.
Bettany Hughes was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.