Критская богиня гор и охоты: Бритомартида и ее культ.

Cretan goddess of mountains and hunting

Britomartis (///b//r//ɪ//t//oʊ//'//m//ɑːr//t//ɪ//s/;) was a Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete. She was sometimes believed to be an oread, or a mountain nymph, but she was often conflated or syncretized with Artemis and Aphaea, the "invisible" patroness of Aegina. She is also known as Dictynna or as a daughter of Dictynna (Δίκτυννα). In the 16th century, the naming of a character identified with English military prowess as "Britomart" in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic The Faerie Queene led to a number of appearances by "Britomart" figures in British art and literature.

According to Solinus, the name 'Britomartis' is from a Cretan dialect; he also says that her name means virgo dulcis, or "sweet virgin". Solinus also identifies her explicitly as the Cretan Artemis. Hesychius of Alexandria also equates the Cretan word βριτύ (britý) with Greek γλυκύ (glyký) 'sweet'. Other scholars have argued that Britomartis ("sweet maid") is an epithet that does not reveal the goddess's name, nor her character, instead arguing that it may be a noa name.

A xoanon, a wooden cult statue, of Britomartis, allegedly carved by Daedalus, sat in the temple of Olous. 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 coins of Kydonia, Polyrrhenia and Phalasarna 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 of specimens manufactured by Aegina. Temples dedicated to her existed in Athens, Sparta, Massalia and between Ambrosus and Anticyra in Phocis, where, as Artemis Diktynna, her cult object was a black stone worked by Aeginetans, but she was primarily a goddess of local importance in Western Crete, such as Lysos 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 near Cydonia.

Britomartis was worshipped as Aphaea primarily on the island of Aegina, where the temple "Athena Aphaea" stood. A temple dedicated to her also existed at the Aspropyrgos on the outskirts of Athens.

Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic The Faerie Queene, where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity, representing English virtue—in particular, English military power—through a folk etymology that associated Brit , as in Briton, with Martis, here thought of as "of Mars", the Roman war god. In Spenser's allegory, Britomart connotes the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I of England. In his retelling of the King Arthur legends, Arthur Rex, author Thomas Berger suggests that Queen Guinevere may have become a powerful female knight known as Britomart after the death of the King.