"Dicte" redirects here. For the fairy longhorn moth genus, see Dicte (moth).

Britomartis (Βριτόμαρτις), was the Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...

  goddess of mountains and hunting. She is among the Minoan goddess figures that passed through the Mycenaeans' culture into classical Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, with transformations that are unclear in both transferrals. For the Greeks Britomartis (Cretan dialect for "sweet maiden", "sweet virgin") or Diktynna (derived by Hellenistic writers as from diktya, "hunting nets") was a mountain nymph

Nymph

A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...

 (an oread

Oread

In Greek mythology, an Oread or Orestiad was a type of nymph that lived in mountains, valleys, ravines. They differ from each other according to their dwelling: the Idae were from Mount Ida, Peliades from Mount Pelia, etc...

) whom Greeks recognized also in Artemis

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

 and in Aphaea

Aphaea

Aphaea was a Greek goddess who was worshipped almost exclusively at a single sanctuary on the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. She originated as early as the 14th century BCE as a local deity associated with fertility and the agricultural cycle...

, the "invisible" patroness of Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

.

Britomartis ("sweet maid") is an epithet

Epithet

An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

 that does not reveal the goddess's name, nor her character, for it has the ring of an apotropaic euphemism

Euphemism

A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

. The goddess addressed as "Britomartis" was worshipped in Crete as an aspect of Potnia

Potnia

Potnia , Ancient Greek for "Mistress, Lady", title of a goddess. The word was inherited by Classical Greek from Mycenean Greek with the same meaning and it was applied to several goddesses. A similar word is the title Despoina, "the mistress", which was given to the nameless chthonian goddess of...

, the "Mistress". The oldest aspect of the Cretan goddess was as Mother of Mountains, who appears on Minoan seal

Minoan seal-stones

Minoan seal-stones are gemstones, or near-gem-quality stones produced in the Minoan civilization. They were found in quantity at specific sites, for example the Citadel of Mycenae....

s with the demonic features of a Gorgon

Gorgon

In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...

, accompanied by the double-axes of power

Labrys

Labrys is the term for a symmetrical doubleheaded axe originally from Crete in Greece, one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization; to the Romans, it was known as a bipennis....

 and gripping divine snake

Serpent (symbolism)

Serpent in Latin means: Rory Collins :&, in turn, from the Biblical Hebrew word of: "saraf" with root letters of: which refers to something burning-as, the pain of poisonous snake's bite was likened to internal burning.This word is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context,...

s. Her terror-inspiring aspect was softened by calling her Britomartis, the "good virgin", a euphemism

Euphemism

A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

 to allay her dangerous aspect.

Every element of the classical myths that told about Britomartis served to reduce her power and scope, even literally to entrap her in nets (but only because she "wanted" to be entrapped). The traditional patriarchal bias of Greek writers even made her the "daughter" of Zeus (see below), rather than his patroness when he was an infant in her cave on Mount Dikte, and they made her own tamed, "evolved" and cultured Olympian aspect, the huntress Artemis

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

, responsible for granting Britomartis status as a goddess, a mythic inversion expressed by the Romanized Greek Pausanias, in the 2nd century CE: "She was made a goddess by Artemis," Pausanias asserts (2.30.3), "and she is worshipped, not only by the Cretans but also by the Aiginetans

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

" (see Aphaea, below). But the ancient goddess never quite disappeared and remained on the coins of Cretan cities, as herself or as Diktynna, the goddess of Mount Dikte, Zeus' birthplace. As Diktynna, winged and now represented with a human face, she stood on her ancient mountain, and grasped an animal in each hand, in the guise of Potnia Theron

Potnia Theron

Potnia Theron is a term first used by Homer and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals...

, the mistress of animals. The Greeks could only conceive a mistress of animals as a huntress, but on the early seals she suckles griffon

Griffon

Griffon is a type of dog, a collection of breeds of originally hunting dogs. There are three recognized lines of the griffon type Fédération Cynologique Internationale FCI, the griffon vendéens, the wirehaired pointers, and the smousje...

s. Archaic representations of winged Artemis show that she evolved from Potnia Theron.

By Hellenistic and Roman times, Britomartis was given a genealogical setting that fitted her into a Classical context:

"Britomartis, who is also called Diktynna, the myths relate, was born at Kaino in Crete of Zeus and Karme

Carme (mythology)

Carme, the Latinized form of Greek Karmê , was a female Cretan spirit who assisted the grain harvest of Demeter's Cretan predecessor. According to the Olympian mythology, she was the mother, by Zeus, of the virginal huntress Britomartis, also called Diktynna, whom she bore at Kaino...

, the daughter of Euboulos

Eubuleus

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Eubuleus is a god known primarily from devotional inscriptions for mystery religions. The name appears several times in the corpus of the so-called Orphic gold tablets spelled variously, with forms including Euboulos, Eubouleos and Eubolos...

 who was the son of Demeter

Demeter

In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...

; she invented the nets [diktya] which are used in hunting."

The third hymn to Artemis by Callimachus

Callimachus

Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...

 tells how she was pursued by Minos

Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every year he made King Aegeus pick seven men and seven women to go to Daedalus' creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by The Minotaur. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades. The Minoan civilization of Crete...

 and, as Diktynna, "Lady of the Nets", threw herself into fishermen's nets to escape him; thus rescued, she was taken by the fishermen to mainland Greece. She was also known as Dicte. This myth element "explains" the spread of the Cretan goddess's cult to Greece. Didorus Siculus found it less than credible: "But those men who tell the tale that she has been named Diktynna because she fled into some fishermen’s nets when she was pursued by Minos, who would have ravished her, have missed the truth; for it is not a probable story that the goddess should ever have got into so helpless a state that she would have required the aid that men can give, being as she is the daughter of the greatest one of the gods." Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 notes she was venerated as Diktynna only in western Crete, in the region of Cydonia

Cydonia (Ancient Greece)

Cydonia or Kydonia was an important ancient city-state on the northwest coast of the island of Crete. It is at the site of the modern-day Greek city of Chania...

, where there was a Diktynnaion , or temple of Diktynna. "Oupis [Artemis], O queen, fairfaced Bringer of Light, thee too the Kretans name after that Nymph," Callimachus says. "She passed her time in the company of Artemis, this being the reason why some men think Diktynna and Artemis are one and the same goddess," Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...

 (5.76.3) suggested.

In Minoan art, and on coins, seals and rings and the like throughout Greece, Britomartis is depicted with demonic features, carrying a double-handed axe and accompanied by feral animals.

As Diktynna

A xoanon

Xoanon

A xoanon was an Archaic wooden cult image of Ancient Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whether aniconic or effigy, with the legendary Daedalus. Many such cult images were preserved into historical times, though none have survived to the modern day, except where their image...

, a cult wooden statue, of Britomartis, made by Daedalus

Daedalus

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful craftsman and artisan.-Family:...

, sat in the temple of Olous

Olous

Olous or Olus is an ancient, sunken city situated at the present day town of Elounda, Crete, Greece.-History:After continuing boundary disputes with the hillfort of Lato, the citizens of Olous eventually entered into a treaty with those of Lato...

. In Chersonesos and Olous, she was often portrayed on coins, showing that she was worshipped in those cities; the festival Britomarpeia was held in her honor. As Diktynna, her face was pictured on Cretan

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 coins of Kydonia, Polyrrhenia

Polyrrhenia

Polyrrhenia , is some 7km inland from Kissamos in the prefecture of Chania of Crete. It was an important Archaic Period settlement co-temporaneous with Lato and Prinias....

 and Phalasarna

Phalasarna

Falasarna/Phalasarna is an ancient Greek harbor town on the northwest coast of Crete. The currently visible remains of the city were built around 335 BCE and include several imposing sandstone towers and bastions, with hundreds of meters of fortification walls protecting the town and a closed harbor...

 as the nurse of Zeus. On Crete, she was connected with the mountain where Zeus was said to have been born--Mount Dikte. On some early Britomartis coins of Kydonia, the coin was manufactured as an overstrike

Overstrike

In typography, overstrike is a method of printing characters that are missing from the printer's character set. It was widely used around the early 1990s...

 of specimens manufactured by Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

.
Temples dedicated to her existed in Athens, Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

, Massalia and between Ambrosus and Anticyra

Anticyra

Anticyra, or Antikyra the ancient name of a city in Phokis, Greece.-Name and Mycenaean past:Mod. name Antikyra; until the early 20th century it was called "Aspra Spitia", a name given after 1960 to a wholly new adjacent settlement, 3 km to the East; in Phocis, on the bay of Anticyra, in the...

 in Phocis, where, as Artemis Diktynna, her cult object was a black stone worked by Aeginetans

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

, but she was primarily a goddess of local importance in Western Crete, such as Lysos

Lysos

Lysos is a village in Cyprus, about 36 kilometres from Paphos. The population was 160 in 2001....

 and West of Kydonia. Her temples were said to be guarded by vicious dogs stronger than bears. A temple dedicated to the goddess was erected in ancient times on Mount Tityros

Mount Tityros

Mount Tityros is a hill landform in western Crete in the vicinity of the modern day city of Chania, Greece. In ancient times Mount Tityros was associated with the early Cretan city of Kydonia. Residents of the ancient city of Kydonia dedicated a temple to the goddess Britomartis on Mount Tityros....

 near Cydonia.

As Aphaea

Britomartis was worshipped as Aphaea (Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, 2.30.3) primarily on the island of Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

 in Mycenaean

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...

 times, where the temple "Athena Aphaea" was later located. With the coming of Athenian control over Aegina, a temple to her also existed on the outskirts of Athens, at the Aspropyrgos

Aspropyrgos

Aspropyrgos is a suburb of Athens, and a municipality in the West Attica regional unit, Attica, Greece. It is located 20 km NW of the city center of Athens in the Thriasian plain...

.

Spenser's "Britomart"

Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

's knightly epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...

, where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity

Chastity

Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....

, representing English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 virtue—in particular, English military power—through a folk etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 that associated Brit-, as in Briton

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

, with Martis, here thought of as "of Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

", the Roman war god. In Spenser's allegory, Britomart connotes the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

.

In his retelling of the King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

 legends, Arthur Rex, author Thomas Berger

Thomas Berger

Thomas Berger may refer to:* Thomas Berger , American author* Thomas R. Berger , Canadian politician...

 suggests that Queen Guinevere

Guinevere

Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...

 may have become a powerful female knight known as Britomart after the death of the King.

In popular culture

A warrior version of Britomart appears alongside Robin Hood and his men in "The Last Castle," an installment of the Eisner-award-winning graphic novel Fables

Fables (comics)

Fables is a comic book series created by writer Bill Willingham, published by DC Comics's Vertigo imprint beginning in 2002. The series deals with various characters from fairy tales and folklore – referring to themselves as "Fables" – who have been forced out of their Homelands by "The...

.

She is mentioned in the beginning of A S Byatt's novel The Virgin in the Garden where, the Poet-Playwright character Alexander Wedderburn likens Lady Antonia Fraser to Belphoebe

Belphoebe

Belphoebe or Belphebe is a huntress in The Faerie Queene, based on Queen Elizabeth, conceived of, however, as a pure, high-spirited maiden, rather than a queen. It is suggested that she is a member of Poseidon's family, and it is known that she is a virgin huntress, possibly resembling the...

 and the heroine of the Quartet,( consisting of the novelsThe Virgin in the Garden, Still Life

Still life

A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...

, Babel Tower & A Whistling Woman ), Frederica Potter to "Britomart" .