Artemis cult in Sicily and Southern Italy in the archaic and classical periods

I first studied Theology at school and despite deciding against reading it as an undergraduate, soon navigated my way back by selecting both Greek religion honours options in Ancient History for my MA. I was particularly drawn to the cult of Artemis and focused upon cataloguing the evidence for this goddess’ mainland cult in my MSc. I soon became frustrated by the dominance of Brauron in discussions of the goddess. The focus of this thesis was therefore always intended to be non-Attic, but I struggled in the early years to find the specific chronology and geography for my research. Pindar introduced me to the goddess’ cult in Syracuse and the Sicilian and Southern Italian angle soon became clear. From that point until now it has been a race against the clock to catalogue and research every reference, site, representation and coin relevant to this study. In this preface I would like to make a few points on format and style and then acknowledge the many colleagues, friends and family who have supported my journey and without whom this would never have been written.