March 24: Women's Month

When Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, came across the young huntress Rhodopis, she was impressed by the maiden’s agility. Rhodopis was only too eager to join Artemis’ retinue and took the required oath of chastity without giving it a second thought. Now, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, didn’t like how her gift of togetherness and pleasure was nonchalantly dismissed. She added a nice youngster to the mix and convinced her son Eros to hit both of them with his arrows of passion. So they discovered love’s delights after all and now of course, Artemis was furious. The fate of the young man is unknown, but Rhodopis was transformed into a fountain. With one special trait: it would recognise a maiden. A woman suspected of impurity could be made to step into the water. If virgin as claimed, the water would only reach her knees, if not, it would rise to her neck. Fun fact: in the only surviving account of such a trial, Rhodopis the fountain works with Aphrodite to cover up the misstep of the accused woman…