Diana and Actaeon which might have been better called "Diana and Endymion," is still performed today as a spectacular showpiece for a ballerina and her partner. Diana and Actaeon The myth of Diana and Actaeon can be found in Ovid’s "Metamorphoses". The tale recounts the unfortunate fate of a young hunter named Actaeon, who was a grandson of Cadmus, and his encounter with chaste Artemis, known to the Romans as Diana, goddess of the hunt. The latter is nude and enjoying a bath in a spring with help from her escort of nymphs when the mortal man unwittingly stumbles upon the scene. The
Tsar Kandavl or Le Roi Candaule not lovers, but had one association when he stumbled upon her bathing naked with her nymphs, after which, she transformed him into a stag and he was hunted down and killed by his own hunting dogs. However, Petipa's original scheme and Bryullov's painting also contain a mythological inaccuracy in that they both erroneously portray Endymion as the lover of Diana; this is an inaccuracy that appears in several ballets, including Léo Delibes's "Sylvia". In actual fact, Endymion was the lover of Luna the Roman Goddess of the Moon (Selene in Greek mythology) and never had any association with Diana at