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This article is about the mythological figure. For other meanings, see Callisto.

In Jupiter and Callisto by François Boucher, Zeus takes the form of Artemis/Diana (Pushkin Museum, Moscow)

In Greek mythology, Callisto ("most beautiful") was a nymph of Artemis.

As a follower of Artemis, Callisto, whom Hesiod said^[1] was the daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, took a vow to remain a virgin, as did all the nymphs of Artemis. But to have her, Zeus disguised himself, some say as Apollo, some as Artemis herself, in order to lure her into his embrace and rape her. Callisto was then turned into a bear, as Hesiod had told it:

According to Ovid^[2], it was Jove (the Roman Zeus) who took the form of Artemis so that he might evade his wife Juno’s detection, forcing himself upon Callisto while she was separated from Diana and the other nymphs, her pregnant condition discovered nine months later while bathing with Diana and her fellow nymphs. Upon this, Artemis was enraged and expelled Callisto from the group, and subsequently she gave birth to Arcas. Juno then took the opportunity to avenge her wounded pride and transformed the nymph into a bear. Sixteen years later Callisto, still a bear, encountered her son Arcas hunting in the forest. Just before Arcas killed his own mother with his javelin, Jove averted the tragedy by placing mother and son amongst the stars as Ursa Major and Minor, respectively. Juno, enraged that her attempt at revenge had been frustrated, appealed to Ocean that the two might never meet his waters, thus providing a poetic explanation as their circumpolar positions.

Titian (1559) has taken the moment when Callisto's pregnancy is discovered (National Gallery of Scotland).

The name Kalliste, "most beautiful", may be recognized as an epithet of the goddess herself, though none of the inscriptions at Athens that record priests of Artemis Kalliste, date before the third century BCE.^[3] Artemis Kalliste was worshipped in Athens in a shrine which lay outside the Dipylon gate, by the side of the road to the Academy.^[4] W. S. Ferguson suggested^[5] that Artemis Soteira and Artemis Kalliste were joined in a common cult administered by a single priest. The bearlike character of Artemis herself was a feature of the Brauronia.

The myth in Catasterismi may be derived from the fact that a set of constellations appear close together in the sky, in and near the Zodiac sign of Libra, namely Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Boötes, and Virgo.

Boötes, since it resembles a male stick-figure, is in some versions of the myth explicitly identified as Arcas (untransformed), and was in myths elsewhere said to represent a male god. Virgo, since it resembles a female, was usually considered to be a significant female goddess, though not identified as to whom.

The combination of a god and goddess and two bears in the same area of sky may have led to a transformation myth, associating the bears either as the god and goddess transformed, or as some thing they have cast out. The circumpolarity of the bears adding an extra detail to the myth.

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Callisto (mythology)

• Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke iii.8.2.
• Hyginus, attrib., Poeticon astronomicon, ii.1: the Great Bear
• Hesiod, Astronomy, quoted by the Pseudo-Eratostenes, Catasterismi: e-text (English)
• Richard Wilson's 'Landscape with Diana and Callisto' at the Lady Lever Art Gallery