Note 115 — Chapter I · LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.
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The birth of Apollo and Artemis from Zeus and Lêtô is among the oldest and most generally admitted facts in the Grecian divine legends. Yet Æschylus did not scruple to describe Artemis publicly as daughter of Dêmêtêr (Herodot. ii. 156; Pausan. viii. 37, 3). Herodotus thinks that he copied this innovation from the Egyptians, who affirmed that Apollo and Artemis were the sons of Dionysos and Isis.
The number and discrepancies of the mythes respecting each god are attested by the fruitless attempts of learned Greeks to escape the necessity of rejecting any of them by multiplying homonymous personages,—three persons named Zeus; five named Athênê; six named Apollo, etc. (Cicero. de Natur. Deor. iii. 21: Clemen. Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 17).