Condyleatis

A surname of Artemis, after a sacred grove at Condyleae near Caphyae (Καφύαι) in Arcadia.

According to tradition, some children, while playing about the sanctuary, found a rope and tied it around the neck of the goddess saying that the goddess was being strangled. The Caphyans discovered what the children had done and stoned them to death. Soon, a malady befell the Caphyan women and all their babies were stillborn. The Pythian priestess bade them to bury the bodies of the children and yearly sacrifice to them as if they were heroes, for they were wrongly put to death. The Caphyans obeyed the oracle and henceforth called the goddess the Strangled Lady, i.e. Aphrodite Apanchomene (Ἀπαγχομένη).

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