Actaeon 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." 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<br> Who was always
Actaeon 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. In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is thought by many, including Hans Biedermann, to symbolize ritual human sacrifice in attempt to please a God or Goddess. In the case of Actaeon, the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice. Actaeon also may symbolize a human curiosity or irreverence. The myth is seen by Jungian psychologist Wolfgang Giegerich as a symbol of spiritual transformation and/or