Born Old or Never Young?

Students and scholars of the classical world, when leafing through books on the mythology and art of ancient Greece, do not have to turn the pages very far before meeting stories and pictures which tell of the birth of many of the Greek gods and, more rarely, of the goddesses. ² Dionysos, Athene, Hermes, Aphrodite, Zeus, Artemis, Apollo and Asklepios each emerge into being at their own, often extraordinary, nativity. On closer examination and reflection, however, a peculiar dichotomy becomes apparent between the presentation of the male and female figures within this group. For while the gods are born as infants and subsequently experience a phase of childhood, the goddesses Athene and Aphrodite begin their lives as adults. Further, though Artemis does very occasionally in the fourth century appear as an infant, her experience of childhood has, as we shall see, little or no innate significance and, according to one version of the myth, she matures with sufficient rapidity to assist Leto at the birth of her twin brother Apollo.