Actaeon / Aktaion. Actaeon, in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. According to the myth, Actaeon was a hunter who accidentally came upon the goddess Diana while she was bathing in a forest stream. Diana was outraged by this intrusion and splashed water in Actaeon's face, transforming him into a stag. Actaeon was then hunted down and killed by his own hounds, who did not recognize their master in his new form. He is typically portrayed at the moment of his transformation, with his body contorted and his arms outstretched as he begins to sprout antlers and take on the form of a stag. One of the most famous depictions of Actaeon is a sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, created in the 17th century. Bernini's sculpture captures the moment of Actaeon's transformation with incredible detail and realism, showing the hunter's muscles tensing and his skin stretching as he begins to change. Other notable depictions of Actaeon in art include paintings by Titian, Rubens, and Poussin, among others. These works often depict Actaeon in a wooded landscape, with Diana and her nymphs in the background. The figure of Actaeon is typically shown in a state of shock or horror, as he realizes the fate that has befallen him. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to the fatal wrath of Artemis, 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', tore him apart as they would a stag. This is the iconic motif by which Actaeon is recognized, both in ancient art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance depictions. 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 toward Mount Olympus. The gods did not heed his plea, 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: Look at Actaeon's wretched fate who by the man-eating hounds he had raised, was torn apart, better at hunting than Artemis he had boasted to be, in the meadows. Further materials, including fragments that belong with the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and at least four Attic tragedies, including a Toxotides of Aeschylus, have been lost.