The religious confraternity of Sappho on Lesbos in the VIIth-VIth centuries B.C..: new observations

Since the epithet ijo>kolpov («with a violet breast») is attested not only, as it commonly believed, in Sapphic's lyrics, but also in a inscription of Athenian Artemis Agrotera's altar (IG II (2), No. 4573), we can better understand the religious world outlook of poetess as well as the social work of the Sapphic's confraternity on Lesbos. A comprehensive analysis of the sources allows us to conclude, that the poetess was a priestess of Artemis Thermia (Aethiopia), who was an ancient patroness of the island, and that she was bound with her by ties of «sacred marriage».