ATALANTA

in Greek mythology, a renowned and swift-footed huntress, probably a parallel and less important form of the goddess Artemis. Traditionally, she was the daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia or of Iasus and Clymene of Arcadia. Her complex legend includes the following incidents: at her father's instance she was left to die at birth but was suckled by a she-bear; she took part in the Calydonian boar hunt; she offered to marry anyone who could outrun herbut those whom she overtook she speared. In one race Hippomenes (or Milanion) was given three of the golden apples of the Hesperides (q.v.) by the goddess Aphrodite; when he dropped them, Atalanta stopped to pick them up and so lost the race. Their son was Parthenopaeus, who later was one of the Seven who fought against Thebes after the death of King Oedipus. Atalanta and her husband, proving ungrateful to Aphrodite, were led to profane a shrine of the goddess Cybele (or of Zeus), for which they were turned into lions.