Statue of Artemis the Huntress, Roman copy of Imperial age (I-II century A.D.) from a Greek original, attributed to the Athenian sculptor Leochares, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of the woodlands, was particularly associated with the wild beasts and is frequently represented accompanied by deer, panthers and other animals. Particularly in Arcadia, she was worshiped as Lady of the Mountains and her retinue were the Nymphs of the woods. The goddess was associated with the generative power: as patroness of childbirth she was called Lochia (“Lady of Birth”) and identified with Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Furthermore, she presided over the ceremonies introducing the young boys and girls into adult life (Graf 2005c). Perhaps, the most well-known of these rituals was the one performed at Brauron, in the sanctuary dedicated to Artemis, where the girls, imitating the movements of the bear, animal sacred to the goddess, took possession of its powers and identified themselves with an aspect of the goddess herself. The “she-bears” of Brauron approached, in this way, the moment to enter thoroughly into the polis as future wives and mothers.


[Source: http://happylifelog.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/the-louvre-mythical-figures-i/]