Inscription from the temple of Artemis

The Monastery of the Theologian was built at the top of the second highest mountain of Patmos, a prestigious spot that had already been distinguished since ancient times, as most probably the temple of Artemis of Patmos was founded there. This is concluded by the testimony of Hosios Christodoulos, the founder of the monastery, who stated that a statue of Artemis, made from white marble, was found in the site of the Monastery and was destroyed by him. Additional evidence is provided by an inscription discovered on the floor of the Katholikon and the scarce architectural remains dated in the first centuries AD that survive in the Monastery. Two gods were primarily worshipped at Patmos: Artemis Patmia and Apollo Karneios The inscription belonged to the temple of “Patmian Artemis”, which stood where the Monastery is today and reads as follows: With good fortune. (Artemis) herself, the virgin huntress, chose as her priestess hydroforus Vera of Patmos, the noble daughter of Glaukios, to offer sacrifices of squirming new-born goats under favorable auspices. Vera was raised as a young girl in glorious Argos, but she was born and nourished in Patmos, the very venerable island of Letos' daughter (Artemis), which emerged from the depths of the sea and became Artemis' throne and she became its guardian, ever since the war-faring Orestes snatched her statue from Scythia and installed it here; and afterwards she calmed his terrible madness, caused by the murder of his mother. Now she, the tenth (priestess of Artemis), Vera, the daughter of the wise physician Glaukios, by the will of Scythian Artemis, crossed the perilous Aegean Sea in order to celebrate gloriously the feast and sacred meal, as the divine law prescribed. With good luck.