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Astronomical unit

The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to $1.496 m$. Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its modern redefinition in 2012.

The astronomical unit is used primarily for measuring distances within the Solar System or around other stars. It is also a fundamental component in the definition of another unit of astronomical length, the parsec. One au is equivalent to 499 light-seconds to within 10 parts per million.

History of symbol usage
A variety of unit symbols and abbreviations have been in use for the astronomical unit. In a 1976 resolution, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) had used the symbol A to denote a length equal to the astronomical unit. In the astronomical literature, the symbol AU is common. In 2006, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) had recommended ua as the symbol for the unit, from the French "unité astronomique". In the non-normative Annex C to ISO 80000-3:2006 (later withdrawn), the symbol of the astronomical unit was also ua.

In 2012, the IAU, noting "that various symbols are presently in use for the astronomical unit", recommended the use of the symbol "au". The scientific journals published by the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society subsequently adopted this symbol. In the 2014 revision and 2019 edition of the SI Brochure, the BIPM used the unit symbol "au". ISO 80000-3:2019, which replaces ISO 80000-3:2006, does not mention the astronomical unit.

Development of unit definition
Earth's orbit around the Sun is an ellipse. The semi-major axis of this elliptic orbit is defined to be half of the straight line segment that joins the perihelion and aphelion. The centre of the Sun lies on this straight line segment, but not at its midpoint. Because ellipses are well-understood shapes, measuring the points of its extremes defined the exact shape mathematically, and made possible calculations for the entire orbit as well as predictions based on observation. In addition, it mapped out exactly the largest straight-line distance that Earth traverses over the course of a year, defining times and places for observing the largest parallax (apparent shifts of position) in nearby stars. Knowing Earth's shift and a star's shift enabled the star's distance to be calculated. But all measurements are subject to some degree of error or uncertainty, and the uncertainties in the length of the astronomical unit only increased uncertainties in the stellar distances. Improvements in precision have always been a key to improving astronomical understanding. Throughout the twentieth century, measurements became increasingly precise and sophisticated, and ever more dependent on accurate observation of the effects described by Einstein's theory of relativity and upon the mathematical tools it used.

Improving measurements were continually checked and cross-checked by means of improved understanding of the laws of celestial mechanics, which govern the motions of objects in space. The expected positions and distances of objects at an established time are calculated (in au) from these laws, and assembled into a collection of data called an ephemeris. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory HORIZONS System provides one of several ephemeris computation services.

In 1976, to establish an even precise measure for the astronomical unit, the IAU formally adopted a new definition. Although directly based on the then-best available observational measurements, the definition was recast in terms of the then-best mathematical derivations from celestial mechanics and planetary ephemerides. It stated that "the astronomical unit of length is that length (A) for which the Gaussian gravitational constant (k) takes the value $9.296 mi$ when the units of measurement are the astronomical units of length, mass and time". Equivalently, by this definition, one au is "the radius of an unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the sun of a particle having infinitesimal mass, moving with an angular frequency of $4.848 pc$"; or alternatively that length for which the heliocentric gravitational constant (the product G) is equal to ($1.581 ly$)2 au3/d2, when the length is used to describe the positions of objects in the Solar System.

Subsequent explorations of the Solar System by space probes made it possible to obtain precise measurements of the relative positions of the inner planets and other objects by means of radar and telemetry. As with all radar measurements, these rely on measuring the time taken for photons to be reflected from an object. Because all photons move at the speed of light in vacuum, a fundamental constant of the universe, the distance of an object from the probe is calculated as the product of the speed of light and the measured time. However, for precision the calculations require adjustment for things such as the motions of the probe and object while the photons are transiting. In addition, the measurement of the time itself must be translated to a standard scale that accounts for relativistic time dilation. Comparison of the ephemeris positions with time measurements expressed in Barycentric Dynamical Time (TDB) leads to a value for the speed of light in astronomical units per day (of $215.03 solar radius$). By 2009, the IAU had updated its standard measures to reflect improvements, and calculated the speed of light at $149,597,870,700 metres$ (TDB).

In 1983, the CIPM modified the International System of Units (SI) to make the metre defined as the distance travelled in a vacuum by light in 1 / $0.017$ s. This replaced the previous definition, valid between 1960 and 1983, which was that the metre equalled a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. (The reason for the change was an improved method of measuring the speed of light.) The speed of light could then be expressed exactly as c0 = $0.017 radians per day$, a standard also adopted by the IERS numerical standards. From this definition and the 2009 IAU standard, the time for light to traverse an astronomical unit is found to be τA = $0.017$, which is slightly more than 8 minutes 19 seconds. By multiplication, the best IAU 2009 estimate was A = c0τA = $86,400 s$, based on a comparison of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and IAA–RAS ephemerides.

In 2006, the BIPM reported a value of the astronomical unit as $173.145 au/d$. In the 2014 revision of the SI Brochure, the BIPM recognised the IAU's 2012 redefinition of the astronomical unit as $299,792,458$.

This estimate was still derived from observation and measurements subject to error, and based on techniques that did not yet standardize all relativistic effects, and thus were not constant for all observers. In 2012, finding that the equalization of relativity alone would make the definition overly complex, the IAU simply used the 2009 estimate to redefine the astronomical unit as a conventional unit of length directly tied to the metre (exactly $299,792,458 m/s$). The new definition recognizes as a consequence that the astronomical unit has reduced importance, limited in use to a convenience in some applications.

 * {| style="border-spacing:0"

 * rowspan=7 style="vertical-align:top; padding-right:0"|1 astronomical unit
 * = $499.005 s$ metres (by definition)
 * = 1 au (exactly)
 * ≈ 1 au
 * ≈ 1 au/s light-seconds
 * ≈ 1 au
 * ≈ 1 au
 * }
 * ≈ 1 au/s light-seconds
 * ≈ 1 au
 * ≈ 1 au
 * }
 * ≈ 1 au
 * }

This definition makes the speed of light, defined as exactly $149,597,870,700 m$, equal to exactly $1.496 m$ × $149,597,870,700 m$ ÷ $149,597,870,700 m$ or about $149,597,870,700$ au/d, some 60 parts per trillion less than the 2009 estimate.

Usage and significance
With the definitions used before 2012, the astronomical unit was dependent on the heliocentric gravitational constant, that is the product of the gravitational constant, G, and the solar mass,. Neither G nor can be measured to high accuracy separately, but the value of their product is known very precisely from observing the relative positions of planets (Kepler's third law expressed in terms of Newtonian gravitation). Only the product is required to calculate planetary positions for an ephemeris, so ephemerides are calculated in astronomical units and not in SI units.

The calculation of ephemerides also requires a consideration of the effects of general relativity. In particular, time intervals measured on Earth's surface (Terrestrial Time, TT) are not constant when compared with the motions of the planets: the terrestrial second (TT) appears to be longer near January and shorter near July when compared with the "planetary second" (conventionally measured in TDB). This is because the distance between Earth and the Sun is not fixed (it varies between $299,792,458 m/s$ and $299,792,458$) and, when Earth is closer to the Sun (perihelion), the Sun's gravitational field is stronger and Earth is moving faster along its orbital path. As the metre is defined in terms of the second and the speed of light is constant for all observers, the terrestrial metre appears to change in length compared with the "planetary metre" on a periodic basis.

The metre is defined to be a unit of proper length. Indeed, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) notes that "its definition applies only within a spatial extent sufficiently small that the effects of the non-uniformity of the gravitational field can be ignored". As such, a distance within the Solar System without specifying the frame of reference for the measurement is problematic. The 1976 definition of the astronomical unit was incomplete because it did not specify the frame of reference in which to apply the measurement, but proved practical for the calculation of ephemerides: a fuller definition that is consistent with general relativity was proposed, and "vigorous debate" ensued until August 2012 when the IAU adopted the current definition of 1 astronomical unit = $86,400$ metres.

The astronomical unit is typically used for stellar system scale distances, such as the size of a protostellar disk or the heliocentric distance of an asteroid, whereas other units are used for other distances in astronomy. The astronomical unit is too small to be convenient for interstellar distances, where the parsec and light-year are widely used. The parsec (parallax arcsecond) is defined in terms of the astronomical unit, being the distance of an object with a parallax of $149,597,870,700$. The light-year is often used in popular works, but is not an approved non-SI unit and is rarely used by professional astronomers.

When simulating a numerical model of the Solar System, the astronomical unit provides an appropriate scale that minimizes (overflow, underflow and truncation) errors in floating point calculations.

History
The book On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, which is ascribed to Aristarchus, says the distance to the Sun is 18 to 20 times the distance to the Moon, whereas the true ratio is about $173.145$. The latter estimate was based on the angle between the half-moon and the Sun, which he estimated as $0.983$ (the true value being close to $1.017 au$). Depending on the distance that van Helden assumes Aristarchus used for the distance to the Moon, his calculated distance to the Sun would fall between $149,597,870,700$ and $1 arcsecond$ Earth radii.

According to Eusebius in the Praeparatio evangelica (Book XV, Chapter 53), Eratosthenes found the distance to the Sun to be "σταδιων μυριαδας τετρακοσιας και οκτωκισμυριας" (literally "of stadia myriads 400 and $389.174$) but with the additional note that in the Greek text the grammatical agreement is between myriads (not stadia) on the one hand and both 400 and $87 deg$ on the other: all three are accusative plural, while σταδιων is genitive plural ("of stadia") . All three words (or all four including stadia) are inflected. This has been translated either as $89.853 deg$ stadia (1903 translation by Edwin Hamilton Gifford), or as $380$ stadia (edition of Édourad des Places, dated 1974–1991). Using the Greek stadium of 185 to 190 metres,  the former translation comes to $1,520$ to $80,000 arcsecond$, which is far too low, whereas the second translation comes to 148.7 to 152.8 billion metres (accurate within 2%). Hipparchus also gave an estimate of the distance of Earth from the Sun, quoted by Pappus as equal to 490 Earth radii. According to the conjectural reconstructions of Noel Swerdlow and G. J. Toomer, this was derived from his assumption of a "least perceptible" solar parallax of $80,000$.

A Chinese mathematical treatise, the Zhoubi Suanjing (c. 1st century BCE), shows how the distance to the Sun can be computed geometrically, using the different lengths of the noontime shadows observed at three places $4,080,000$ li apart and the assumption that Earth is flat.

In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy estimated the mean distance of the Sun as $804,000,000$ times Earth's radius. To determine this value, Ptolemy started by measuring the Moon's parallax, finding what amounted to a horizontal lunar parallax of 1° 26′, which was much too large. He then derived a maximum lunar distance of $754,800 km$ Earth radii. Because of cancelling errors in his parallax figure, his theory of the Moon's orbit, and other factors, this figure was approximately correct. He then measured the apparent sizes of the Sun and the Moon and concluded that the apparent diameter of the Sun was equal to the apparent diameter of the Moon at the Moon's greatest distance, and from records of lunar eclipses, he estimated this apparent diameter, as well as the apparent diameter of the shadow cone of Earth traversed by the Moon during a lunar eclipse. Given these data, the distance of the Sun from Earth can be trigonometrically computed to be $775,200 km$ Earth radii. This gives a ratio of solar to lunar distance of approximately 19, matching Aristarchus's figure. Although Ptolemy's procedure is theoretically workable, it is very sensitive to small changes in the data, so much so that changing a measurement by a few per cent can make the solar distance infinite.

After Greek astronomy was transmitted to the medieval Islamic world, astronomers made some changes to Ptolemy's cosmological model, but did not greatly change his estimate of the Earth–Sun distance. For example, in his introduction to Ptolemaic astronomy, al-Farghānī gave a mean solar distance of $7 arcminute$ Earth radii, whereas in his zij, al-Battānī used a mean solar distance of $1,000$ Earth radii. Subsequent astronomers, such as al-Bīrūnī, used similar values. Later in Europe, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe also used comparable figures ($13 arcmin$ and $24 arcsec$ Earth radii), and so Ptolemy's approximate Earth–Sun distance survived through the 16th century.

Johannes Kepler was the first to realize that Ptolemy's estimate must be significantly too low (according to Kepler, at least by a factor of three) in his Rudolphine Tables (1627). Kepler's laws of planetary motion allowed astronomers to calculate the relative distances of the planets from the Sun, and rekindled interest in measuring the absolute value for Earth (which could then be applied to the other planets). The invention of the telescope allowed far more accurate measurements of angles than is possible with the naked eye. Flemish astronomer Godefroy Wendelin repeated Aristarchus’ measurements in 1635, and found that Ptolemy's value was too low by a factor of at least eleven.

A somewhat more accurate estimate can be obtained by observing the transit of Venus. By measuring the transit in two different locations, one can accurately calculate the parallax of Venus and from the relative distance of Earth and Venus from the Sun, the solar parallax $7 arcmin$ (which cannot be measured directly due to the brightness of the Sun ). Jeremiah Horrocks had attempted to produce an estimate based on his observation of the 1639 transit (published in 1662), giving a solar parallax of $12 arcsec$, similar to Wendelin's figure. The solar parallax is related to the Earth–Sun distance as measured in Earth radii by
 * $$A = \cot\alpha \approx 1\,\textrm{radian}/\alpha.$$

The smaller the solar parallax, the greater the distance between the Sun and Earth: a solar parallax of $256.5$ is equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of $477.8$ Earth radii.

Christiaan Huygens believed that the distance was even greater: by comparing the apparent sizes of Venus and Mars, he estimated a value of about $0.011$ Earth radii, equivalent to a solar parallax of $0.02$. Although Huygens' estimate is remarkably close to modern values, it is often discounted by historians of astronomy because of the many unproven (and incorrect) assumptions he had to make for his method to work; the accuracy of his value seems to be based more on luck than good measurement, with his various errors cancelling each other out.

Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini measured the parallax of Mars between Paris and Cayenne in French Guiana when Mars was at its closest to Earth in 1672. They arrived at a figure for the solar parallax of $21 arcsec$, equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of about $10,000$ Earth radii. They were also the first astronomers to have access to an accurate and reliable value for the radius of Earth, which had been measured by their colleague Jean Picard in 1669 as $0.426$ toises. This same year saw another estimate for the astronomical unit by John Flamsteed, which accomplished it alone by measuring the martian diurnal parallax. Another colleague, Ole Rømer, discovered the finite speed of light in 1676: the speed was so great that it was usually quoted as the time required for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth, or "light time per unit distance", a convention that is still followed by astronomers today.

A better method for observing Venus transits was devised by James Gregory and published in his Optica Promata (1663). It was strongly advocated by Edmond Halley and was applied to the transits of Venus observed in 1761 and 1769, and then again in 1874 and 1882. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, but less than one pair every century, and observing the transits in 1761 and 1769 was an unprecedented international scientific operation including observations by James Cook and Charles Green from Tahiti. Despite the Seven Years' War, dozens of astronomers were dispatched to observing points around the world at great expense and personal danger: several of them died in the endeavour. The various results were collated by Jérôme Lalande to give a figure for the solar parallax of $7 arcmin$. Karl Rudolph Powalky had made an estimate of $490$ in 1864.

Another method involved determining the constant of aberration. Simon Newcomb gave great weight to this method when deriving his widely accepted value of $0.021$ for the solar parallax (close to the modern value of $21 arcsec$), although Newcomb also used data from the transits of Venus. Newcomb also collaborated with A. A. Michelson to measure the speed of light with Earth-based equipment; combined with the constant of aberration (which is related to the light time per unit distance), this gave the first direct measurement of the Earth–Sun distance in metres. Newcomb's value for the solar parallax (and for the constant of aberration and the Gaussian gravitational constant) were incorporated into the first international system of astronomical constants in 1896, which remained in place for the calculation of ephemerides until 1964. The name "astronomical unit" appears first to have been used in 1903.

The discovery of the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros and its passage near Earth in 1900–1901 allowed a considerable improvement in parallax measurement. Another international project to measure the parallax of 433 Eros was undertaken in 1930–1931.

Direct radar measurements of the distances to Venus and Mars became available in the early 1960s. Along with improved measurements of the speed of light, these showed that Newcomb's values for the solar parallax and the constant of aberration were inconsistent with one another.

Developments

The unit distance $10,000$ (the value of the astronomical unit in metres) can be expressed in terms of other astronomical constants:
 * $$A^3 = \frac{G M_\odot D^2}{k^2},$$

where $0.426$ is the Newtonian constant of gravitation, is the solar mass, $1,210$ is the numerical value of Gaussian gravitational constant and $0.052$ is the time period of one day. The Sun is constantly losing mass by radiating away energy, so the orbits of the planets are steadily expanding outward from the Sun. This has led to calls to abandon the astronomical unit as a unit of measurement.

As the speed of light has an exact defined value in SI units and the Gaussian gravitational constant $15 arcsec$ is fixed in the astronomical system of units, measuring the light time per unit distance is exactly equivalent to measuring the product $14,000$× in SI units. Hence, it is possible to construct ephemerides entirely in SI units, which is increasingly becoming the norm.

A 2004 analysis of radiometric measurements in the inner Solar System suggested that the secular increase in the unit distance was much larger than can be accounted for by solar radiation, +$0.597$ metres per century.

The measurements of the secular variations of the astronomical unit are not confirmed by other authors and are quite controversial. Furthermore, since 2010, the astronomical unit has not been estimated by the planetary ephemerides.

Examples
The following table contains some distances given in astronomical units. It includes some examples with distances that are normally not given in astronomical units, because they are either too short or far too long. Distances normally change over time. Examples are listed by increasing distance.

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Artist

An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (although less often for actors). "Artiste" (French for artist) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. The use of the term "artist" to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts such as critics' reviews.

Dictionary definitions
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the older broad meanings of the term "artist":

 * A learned person or Master of Arts.
 * One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry.
 * A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice.
 * A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic.
 * One who makes their craft a fine art.
 * One who cultivates one of the fine arts – traditionally the arts presided over by the muses.

History of the term
The Greek word "techně", often translated as "art", implies mastery of any sort of craft. The adjectival Latin form of the word, "technicus", became the source of the English words technique, technology, and technical.

In Greek culture, each of the nine Muses oversaw a different field of human creation:
 * Calliope (the 'beautiful of speech'): chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry
 * Clio (the 'glorious one'): muse of history
 * Erato (the 'amorous one'): muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs
 * Euterpe (the 'well-pleasing'): muse of music and lyric poetry
 * Melpomene (the 'chanting one'): muse of tragedy
 * Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the '[singer] of many hymns'): muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing, and rhetoric
 * Terpsichore (the '[one who] delights in dance'): muse of choral song and dance
 * Thalia (the 'blossoming one'): muse of comedy and bucolic poetry
 * Urania (the 'celestial one'): muse of astronomy

No muse was identified with the visual arts of painting and sculpture. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour.

The word art derives from the Latin "ars" (stem art-), which, although literally defined means "skill method" or "technique", also conveys a connotation of beauty.

During the Middle Ages the word artist already existed in some countries such as Italy, but the meaning was something resembling craftsman, while the word artisan was still unknown. An artist was someone able to do a work better than others, so the skilled excellency was underlined, rather than the activity field. In this period, some "artisanal" products (such as textiles) were much more precious and expensive than paintings or sculptures.

The first division into major and minor arts dates back at least to the works of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472): De re aedificatoria, De statua, De pictura, which focused on the importance of the intellectual skills of the artist rather than the manual skills (even if in other forms of art there was a project behind).

With the academies in Europe (second half of 16th century) the gap between fine and applied arts was definitely set.

Many contemporary definitions of "artist" and "art" are highly contingent on culture, resisting aesthetic prescription; in the same way, the features constituting beauty and the beautiful cannot be standardized easily without moving into kitsch.

Training and employment
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies many visual artists as either craft artists or fine artists. A craft artist makes handmade functional works of art, such as pottery or clothing. A fine artist makes paintings, illustrations (such as book illustrations or medical illustrations), sculptures, or similar artistic works primarily for their aesthetic value.

The main source of skill for both craft artists and fine artists is long-term repetition and practice. Many fine artists have studied their art form at university, and some have a master's degree in fine arts. Artists may also study on their own or receive on-the-job training from an experienced artist.

The number of available jobs as an artist is increasing more slowly than in other fields. About half of US artists are self-employed. Others work in a variety of industries. For example, a pottery manufacturer will employ craft artists, and book publishers will hire illustrators.

In the US, fine artists have a median income of approximately US$50,000 per year, and craft artists have a median income of approximately US$33,000 per year. This compares to US$61,000 for all art-related fields, including related jobs such as graphic designers, multimedia artists, animators, and fashion designers. Many artists work part-time as artists and hold a second job.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Artist


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Actaeon

Actaeon (Ἀκταίων Aktaiōn), in Greek mythology, was the son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, and a famous Theban hero. Through his mother he was a member of the ruling House of Cadmus. Like Achilles, in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron.

He fell to the fatal wrath of Artemis (later his myth was attached to her Roman counterpart Diana), but the surviving details of his transgression vary: "the only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his pathos, and what Artemis did: the hunter became the hunted; he was transformed into a stag, and his raging hounds, struck with a 'wolf's frenzy' (Lyssa), tore him apart as they would a stag."

The many depictions both in ancient art and in the Renaissance and post-Renaissance art normally show either the moment of transgression and transformation, or his death by his own hounds.

Story
Among others, John Heath has observed, "The unalterable kernel of the tale was a hunter's transformation into a deer and his death in the jaws of his hunting dogs. But authors were free to suggest different motives for his death." In the version that was offered by the Hellenistic poet Callimachus, which has become the standard setting, Artemis was bathing in the woods when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seeing her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Once seen, Artemis got revenge on Actaeon: she forbade him speech – if he tried to speak, he would be changed into a stag – for the unlucky profanation of her virginity's mystery.

Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he cried out to them and immediately transformed. At this, he fled deep into the woods, and doing so he came upon a pond and, seeing his reflection, groaned. His own hounds then turned upon him and pursued him, not recognizing him. In an endeavour to save himself, he raised his eyes (and would have raised his arms, had he had them) toward Mount Olympus. The gods did not heed his desperation, and he was torn to pieces. An element of the earlier myth made Actaeon the familiar hunting companion of Artemis, no stranger. In an embroidered extension of the myth, the hounds were so upset with their master's death, that Chiron made a statue so lifelike that the hounds thought it was Actaeon.

There are various other versions of his transgression: The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and pseudo-Apollodoran Bibliotheke state that his offense was that he was a rival of Zeus for Semele, his mother's sister, whereas in Euripides' Bacchae he has boasted that he is a better hunter than Artemis:

According to the Latin version of the story told by the Roman Ovid having accidentally seen Diana (Artemis) on Mount Cithaeron while she was bathing, he was changed by her into a stag, and pursued and killed by his fifty hounds. This version also appears in Callimachus' Fifth Hymn, as a mythical parallel to the blinding of Tiresias after he sees Athena bathing.

The literary testimony of Actaeon's myth is largely lost, but Lamar Ronald Lacy, deconstructing the myth elements in what survives and supplementing it by iconographic evidence in late vase-painting, made a plausible reconstruction of an ancient Actaeon myth that Greek poets may have inherited and subjected to expansion and dismemberment. His reconstruction opposes a too-pat consensus that has an archaic Actaeon aspiring to Semele, a classical Actaeon boasting of his hunting prowess and a Hellenistic Actaeon glimpsing Artemis' bath. Lacy identifies the site of Actaeon's transgression as a spring sacred to Artemis at Plataea where Actaeon was a  hero archegetes ("hero-founder") The righteous hunter, the companion of Artemis, seeing her bathing naked in the spring, was moved to try to make himself her consort, as Diodorus Siculus noted, and was punished, in part for transgressing the hunter's "ritually enforced deference to Artemis" (Lacy 1990:42).

Names of dogs

Notes:

 * Names of dogs were verified to correspond to the list given in Ovid's text where the names were already transliterated.
 * ? = Seven listed names of dogs in Hyginus' Fabulae, was probably misread or misinterpreted by later authors because it does not correspond to the exact numbers and names given by Ovid:
 * Arcas signifies Arcadia, place of origin of three dogs namely Pamphagos, Dorceus and Oribasus
 * Cyprius means Cyprus, where the dogs Lysisca and Harpalos originated
 * Gnosius can be read as Knossus in Crete, which signify that Ichnobates was a Knossian breed of dog
 * Echnobas, Elion, Aura and Therodanapis were probably place names or adjectives defining the characteristics of dogs

The "bed of Actaeon"
In the second century AD, the traveller Pausanias was shown a spring on the road in Attica leading to Plataea from Eleutherae, just beyond Megara "and a little farther on a rock. It is called the bed of Actaeon, for it is said that he slept thereon when weary with hunting and that into this spring he looked while Artemis was bathing in it."

"As to Actæon there is a tradition at Orchomenus, that a spectre which sat on a stone injured their land. And when they consulted the oracle at Delphi, the god bade them bury in the ground whatever remains they could find of Actæon: he also bade them to make a brazen copy of the spectre and fasten it with iron to the stone. This I have myself seen, and they annually offer funeral rites to Actæon."

Parallels in Akkadian and Ugarit poems
In the standard version of the Epic of Gilgamesh (tablet vi) there is a parallel, in the series of examples Gilgamesh gives Ishtar of her mistreatment of her serial lovers: You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherd                                                                                Who was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you,                                                                                And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day. But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,                                                                                His own herd-boys hunt him down And his dogs tear at his haunches. Actaeon, torn apart by dogs incited by Artemis, finds another Near Eastern parallel in the Ugaritic hero Aqht, torn apart by eagles incited by Anath who wanted his hunting bow.

The virginal Artemis of classical times is not directly comparable to Ishtar of the many lovers, but the mytheme of Artemis shooting Orion, was linked to her punishment of Actaeon by T.C.W. Stinton; the Greek context of the mortal's reproach to the amorous goddess is translated to the episode of Anchises and Aphrodite. Daphnis too was a herdsman loved by a goddess and punished by her: see Theocritus' First Idyll.

Symbolism regarding Actaeon
In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is widely thought to symbolize ritual human sacrifice in attempt to please a God or Goddess: the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice.

Actaeon may symbolize human curiosity or irreverence.

The myth is seen by Jungian psychologist Wolfgang Giegerich as a symbol of spiritual transformation and/or enlightenment.

Actaeon often symbolizes a cuckold, as when he is turned into a stag, he becomes "horned". This is alluded to in Shakespeare's Merry Wives, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and others.

Cultural depictions
The two main scenes are Actaeon surprising Artemis/Diana, and his death. In classical art Actaeon is normally shown as fully human, even as his hounds are killing him (sometimes he has small horns), but in Renaissance art he is often given a deer's head with antlers even in the scene with Diana, and by the time he is killed he has at the least this head, and has often completely transformed into the shape of a deer.

 * Aeschylus and other tragic poets made use of the story, which was a favourite subject in ancient works of art.
 * There is a well-known small marble group in the British Museum illustrative of the story, in gallery 83/84.
 * Two paintings by the 16th century painter Titian (Death of Actaeon and Diana and Actaeon).
 * Actéon, an operatic pastorale by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley suggests a parallel between his alter-ego and Actaeon in his elegy for John Keats, Adonais, stanza 31 ('[he] had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness/ Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray/ .../ And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,/ Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.')
 * The aria "Oft she visits this lone mountain" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, first performed in 1689 or earlier.
 * Giordano Bruno, Gli Eroici Furori.
 * In canto V of Giambattista Marino's poem Adone the protagonist goes to theater to see a tragedy representing the myth of Actaeon. This episode foreshadows the protagonist's violent death at the end of the book.
 * In Act I Scene 2 of Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, Actaeon is Diana (Artemis)'s lover, and it is Jupiter who turns him into a stag, which puts Diana off hunting. His story is relinquished at this point, in favour of the other plots.
 * Ted Hughes wrote a version of the story in his Tales from Ovid.
 * Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux from Marius Petipa's ballet, Le Roi Candaule, to the music by Riccardo Drigo and Cesare Pugni, later incorporated into the second act of La Esmeralda (ballet).
 * In Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Orsino compares his unrequited love for Olivia to the fate of Actaeon. "O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence, That instant was I turned into a hart, and my desires like fell and cruel hounds e'er since pursue me." Act 1 Scene 1.
 * In Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II, courtier Piers Gaveston seeks to entertain his lover, King Edward II of England, by presenting a play based on the Actaeon myth. In Gaveston's version, Diane is played by a naked boy holding an olive branch to hide his loins, and it is the boy-Diane who transforms Actaeon into a hart and lets him be devoured by the hounds. Thus,  Gaveston's (and Marlowe's) interpretation adds a strong element of homoeroticism, absent from the original myth.
 * Paul Manship in 1925 created a set of copper statute of Diane and Actaeon, which in the Luce Lunder Smithsonian Institution.
 * French based collective LFKs and his film/theatre director, writer and visual artist Jean Michel Bruyere produced a series of 600 shorts and "medium" films, an interactive 360° installation, Si poteris narrare licet ("if you are able to speak of it, then you may do so") in 2002, a 3D 360° installation La Dispersion du Fils (from 2008 to 2016) and an outdoor performance, Une Brutalité pastorale (2000) all about the myth of Diana and Actaeon.
 * In Matthew Barney's 2019 movie Redoubt set in the Sawtooth Mountains of the U.S. state of Idaho and an accompanying traveling art exhibition originating at the Yale University Art Gallery the myth is retold by the visual artist and filmmaker via avenues of his own design.
 * Seamus Heaney's collection North contains an aisling concerning the myth of Diana and Actaeon.

title: Actaeon