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The present article will deal with the attested cult of the Goddess Παρθένος as represented in the Tauric Chersonesus1 in the iconography of which the Greek apoikioi saw their Artemis without ever giving her that name. Of course, the questions aroused shall be more than the answers found since the attention here is focused upon the emergence and the development of the cult in these parts of the Black Sea area compared to the images on the artifacts and the epigraphic monuments.
At this stage the study of the Tauric Chersonesus is precluded with the well-known “not many things are clear in the study of the relations between Greeks and natives… especially for the Northern Black Sea”2 (translation mine, R.P.). Most of the conclusions about the ethnic contacts and interactions have been reached without taking into consideration the historic and cultural situation in the area and in the metropolis; as to the so-called religious problems3, they have never been looked up within the context of the concrete political situation. As a result, the phenomena pile up and appear isolated, independent from each other.
The early studies do not doubt the contacts and the ensuing interactions at the time of the emergence of this new social and cultural milieu. Latyshev is the first to adopt such an approach: according to him the founders of Chersonesus, for some political reasons borrowed from their neighboring Taures the cult to a female deity, called by the name of Παρθένος as an image summarizing the evolution of the different aspects of Artemis4 .