APHRODITE

One of the great Olympian divinities, according to the popular and poetical notions of the Greeks, the goddess of love and beauty.

Some traditions stated that she had sprung from the foam of the sea, which had gathered around the mutilated parts of Uranus, that had been thrown into the sea by Cronus after he had unmanned his father. (Theogony of Hesiod 190)

With the exception of the Homeric hymn on Aphrodite there is no trace of this legend in Homer, and according to him Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Later traditions call her a daughter of Cronos and Eurynome, or of Uranus and Hemera. According to Hesiod and the Homeric hymn on Aphrodite, the goddess after rising from the foam first approached the island of Cythera, and thence went to Cyprus, and as she was walking on the sea-coast flowers sprang up under her feet, and Eros and Himeros accompanied her to the assembly of the other great gods, all of whom were struck with admiration and love when she appeared, and her surpassing beauty made every one desire to have her for his wife.

Aphrodite and Ares accompanied by Eros.
From a 1st century AD Roman wall painting,

According to the cosmogonic views of the nature of Aphrodite, she was the personification of the generative powers of nature, and the mother of all living beings. A trace of this notion seems to be contained in the tradition that in the contest of Typhon with the gods, Aphrodite metamorphosed herself into a fish, which animal was considered to possess the greatest generative powers. ( Metamorphoses V)

But according to the popular belief of the Greeks and their poetical descriptions, she was the goddess of love, who excited this passion in the hearts of gods and men, and by this power ruled over all the living creation.

Ancient mythology furnishes numerous instances in which Aphrodite punished those who neglected her worship or despised her power, as well as others in which she favoured and protected those who did homage to her and recognized her sway. Love and beauty are ideas essentially connected, and Aphrodite was therefore also the goddess of beauty and gracefulness.

In these points she surpassed all other goddesses, and she received the prize of beauty from Paris; she had further the power of granting beauty and invincible charms to others.

Youth is the herald, and Peitho, the Horae, and Charites, the attendants and companions of Aphrodite.

Marriages are called by Zeus her work and the things about which she ought to busy herself.

As she herself had sprung from the sea, she is represented by later writers as having some influence upon the sea. (The Aeneid. Book VIII)

During the Trojan war, Aphrodite, the mother of Aeneas, who had been declared the most beautiful of all the goddesses by a Trojan prince, naturally sided with the Trojans. She saved Paris from his contest with Menelaus, but when she endeavoured to rescue her darling Aeneas from the fight, she was pursued by Diomedes, who wounded her in her hand. In her fright she abandoned her son, and was carried by Iris in the chariot of Ares to Olympus, where she complained of her misfortune to her mother Dione, but was laughed at by Hera and Athena.

She also protected the body of Hector, and anointed it with ambrosia.

According to the most common accounts of the ancients, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus (Odyssey VIII), who, however, is said in the Iliad Iliad to have married Cliaris. Her faithlessness to Hephaestus in her amour with Ares, and the manner in which she was caught by the ingenuity of her husband, are beautifully described in the Odyssey, (Odyssey of Homer VIII)

By Ares she became the mother of Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, and, according to later traditions, of Eros and Anteros also. But Ares was not the only god whom Aphrodite favoured; Dionysus, Hermes, and Poseidon likewise enjoyed her charms. By the first she was, according to some traditions, the mother of Priapus and Bacchus, by the second of Hermaphroditus ( Metamorphoses IV), and by Poseidon she had two children, Rhodes and Herophilus.

As Aphrodite so often kindled in the hearts of the gods a love for mortals, Zeus at last resolved to make her pay for her wanton sport by inspiring her too with love for a mortal man. This was accomplished, am Aphrodite conceived an invincible passion for Anchises, by whom she became the mother of Aeneas and Lyrus. Respecting her connexions with other mortals see Adonis and Butes

Aphrodite possessed a magic girdle which had the power of inspiring love and desire for those who wore it; hence it was borrowed by Hera when she wished to stimulate the love of Zeus. The arrow is also sometimes mentioned as one of her attributes. In the vegetable kingdom the myrtle, rose, apple, poppy, and other were sacred to her. The animals sacred her, which are often mentioned as drawing her chariot or serving as her messengers, are the sparrow, the dove, the swan, the swallow, and a bird called iynx.

As Aphrodite Urania the tortoise, the symbol of domestic modesty and chastity, and as Aphrodite Pandemos the ram was sacred to her. When she was represented as the victorious goddess, she had the attributes of Ares, a helmet, a shield, a sword or a lance, and an image of Victory in one hand. The planet Venus and the spring month of April were likewise sacred to her.

All the surnames and epithets given to Aphrodite are derived from places of her worship, from events connected with the legends about her, or have reference to her character and her influence upon man, or are descriptive of her extraordinary beauty and charms.

The principal places of her worship in Greece were the islands of Cyprus and Cythera. At Cnidus in Caria she had three temples, one of which contained her renowned statue by Praxiteles. Mount Ida in Troas was an ancient place of her worship, and among the other places we may mention particularly the island of Cos, the towns of Abydos, Athens, Thespiae, Megara, Sparta, Sicyon, Corinth, and Eryx in Sicily.

The sacrifices offered to her consisted mostly of incense and garlands of flowers (The Aeneid I), but in some places animals, such as pigs, goats, young cows, hares, and others, were sacrificed to her. In some places, as at Corinth, great numbers of females belonged to her, who prostituted themselves in her service.

The worship of Aphrodite was undoubtedly of eastern origin, and probably introduced from Syria to the islands of Cyprus, Cythera, and others, from whence it spread all over Greece. It is said to have been brought into Syria from Assyria. Aphrodite appears to have been originally identical with Astarte, called by the hebrews Ashtoreth, and her connexion with kdonis clearly points to Syria. But with the exception of Corinth, where the worship of Aphroite had eminently an Asiatic character, the whole worship of this goddess and all the ideas concerning her nature and character are so entirely Greek, later its introduction into Greece must be assigned to the very earliest periods.

The elements were irived from the East, but the peculiar developent of it belongs to Greece. Respecting the Roman goddess Venus and her identification with the Greek Aphrodite, see Venus.

Aphrodite, the ideal of female grace and beauty, frequently engaged the talents and genius of the ancient artists. The most celebrated representations of her were those of Cos and Cnidus. Those which are still extant are divided by archaeologists into serveral classes, accordingly as the goddess is represented in a standing position and naked, as the Medicean muse, or bathing, or half naked, or as the victorious goddess in arms, as she is represented in the temples of Cythera, Sparta and Corinth.