each time Atalanta caught up with Hippomenes, he would toss another apple, ultimately winning the race and Atalanta herself. Atalanta bore a son, Parthenopaios (who may have been fathered by Meleager or Ares), who became one of the Seven against Thebes. Metamorphoses into lions After the footrace, Hippomenes had forgotten to thank Aphrodite for her aid, and while the couple were out hunting the goddess afflicted them with sexual passion so that they had sex in a sanctuary belonging to either Zeus or Rhea. They were turned into lions for their sacrilege by either Artemis (angered by Atalanta losing her virginity), the goddess Cybele, or Zeus himself. The belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards; therefore Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be able to have “intercourse of love”. This view has been criticized, however. In her book The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World, Adrienne Mayor argues there is no evidence to support the notion that the Ancient Greeks believed male and female lions could not engage in sexual intercourse. Rather, Mayor contends the transformation of Atalanta and her lover into lions occurred at a moment of emotional and sexual bliss, which can be interpreted as divine sympathy for a couple who defied traditional Greek gender roles, and thus turning them into lions enabled the lovers to hunt and mate together for all eternity outside of Greek society, which would not have accepted their relationship. Modern The Italian football club Atalanta, based in Bergamo, took its name from the heroine, and the club's crest depicts her face. The English football club Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies F.C. also named after the heroine. A version of Atalanta's story appears in the multimedia children's entertainment project Free to Be... You and Me. She is also the focus of the 2017 historical novel For the Winner, by the British Classicist and author Emily Hauser, which retells the story of Atalanta's voyage with the Argonauts. In the light novel Fate/Apocrypha, Atalanta is summoned as the Archer-class Servant of the Red faction. Olympic-medal-winning javelin thrower Fatima Whitbread said that she took up an interest in track and field events after being inspired by the myth of Atalanta, "whom no man could outrun except by cheating, and whose javelin killed a terrible monster." Gallery Explanatory notes Citations General and cited sources Aelian: Various