Aphrodite
Who is Aphrodite?
Where was Aphrodite born?
What does Aphrodite look like?
Who was Aphrodite married to?
Who are Aphrodite’s notable offspring?
Aphrodite, ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, identified with Venus by the Romans. Aphrodite was widely worshipped as a goddess of the sea and of seafaring; she was also honored as a goddess of war, especially at Sparta, Thebes, Cyprus, and other places. However, she was known primarily as a goddess of love and fertility and even occasionally presided over marriage. Although prostitutes considered Aphrodite their patron, her public cult was generally solemn and even austere.
Aphrodite possessed a magical girdle, which made its wearer irresistible. The cockle shell is one of her symbols, and several birds and plants are sacred to her, such as doves, swans, sparrows, pomegranates, apples, roses, myrrh, and myrtle. The word aphrodisiac, applied to substances believed to arouse sexual desire, is derived from her name.
Origins
Some scholars believe Aphrodite’s worship came to Greece from the East; many of her attributes recall the ancient Middle Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Astarte. Although Homer called her “Cyprian” or “the one from Cyprus” for the island chiefly famed for her worship, she was already Hellenized (became Greek) by the time of Homer. There are varying accounts of her birth. Hesiod relates in his Theogony that Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus (Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea. She was named for the Greek word aphros, meaning “foam.” Riding on a shell, she took up residence in Paphos, Cyprus. According to a Homeric Hymn, she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, his consort at Dodona. In Hesiod’s version, Aphrodite’s birth predates that of Zeus, who was born to Cronus and Rhea.
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Myths
Marriage and divine lovers
In Book VIII of the Odyssey, Aphrodite was mismatched with Hephaestus, the smith god, to whom she was given in marriage by Zeus. She consequently spent her time philandering with the handsome god of war, Ares (by whom she became the mother of Harmonia and the warrior twins Phobos and Deimos). Aphrodite and Ares were spotted one night by Helios, the sun, who reported back to Hephaestus. In order to catch his wife red-handed, Hephaestus fashioned a thin net of metal, in which the lovers became trapped during intimacy.
Hephaestus summoned the gods to witness the plight of Aphrodite and Ares, but little came of the plot. The unrepentant Aphrodite later had trysts with the gods Poseidon, Hermes, and Dionysus. Aphrodite bore Poseidon the sons Rhodus and Herophilus. The union with Hermes produced Hermaphroditus, who was both male and female. Dionysus fathered Priapus, who was distinguished by his outsize phallus, caused by a curse from Hera in some accounts. In certain versions of the myth Priapus was born to Dionysus and a nymph.
Human lovers
Of Aphrodite’s mortal lovers, the most important were the Trojan shepherd Anchises and the handsome youth Adonis. She fell in love with Anchises by the machinations of Zeus, who had decided that she needed a lesson in humility. The union produced Aeneas, who is believed to have founded Lavinium (the parent town of Rome and Alba Longa). Zeus later aimed a thunderbolt at Anchises for telling others about his exploits with Aphrodite, who cast down her girdle in order to save her lover from a fiery death.
Adonis (in origin a Semitic nature deity and the consort of Ishtar-Astarte) was born of an unnatural union between a Cyprian king, Cinyras, and his daughter, Smyrna, engineered by Aphrodite to punish Cinyras’s wife’s boast that Smyrna’s beauty outshone that of the goddess. A dispute rose between Aphrodite and Persephone, queen of the underworld, over who would claim Adonis as a lover. The Muse Calliope, acting as arbitrator, ruled that Adonis would spend a third of the year with each goddess and the remaining third by himself. Adonis was later killed by a boar—either Ares or Apollo in some myths—while hunting and was lamented by women at the festival of Adonia. The cult of Adonis had underworld features, and Aphrodite was also connected with the dead at Delphi, ancient site of an oracle.
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The judgment of Paris
Aphrodite’s role in the Trojan War originates with the legend of the judgment of Paris. Eris, the deity of discord, was the only divinity not to have been invited to the wedding of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis (parents of Achilles). Regardless, Eris appeared at the celebration with a golden apple to be awarded to the fairest goddess present, prompting a celestial beauty contest between Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. Zeus appointed the Trojan prince Paris to pick the winner. He awarded the apple to Aphrodite after she promised him that Helen, the most beautiful woman to ever live, would be his wife. The Trojan War began after the seduction of Helen by Paris.
Eros and Psyche
Aphrodite’s relationship to Eros, the god of love, varies in its telling. In some accounts, among them Hesiod’s, Eros is regarded as a primordial deity predating Aphrodite. In other accounts he is the child of Aphrodite and either Zeus, Ares, or Hermes. In a famous legend Aphrodite persecutes Psyche (or Psykhe), whose beauty so captivated men that they began turning away from worshipping Aphrodite. Eros, sent to punish Psyche, instead falls in love with her. He becomes Psyche’s husband on the condition that she must never look upon him. Incited by her scheming sisters, she does and is forsaken by the angry Eros. Psyche eventually finds herself in Aphrodite’s service and, after performing a series of impossible tasks, is reunited with Eros.
Worship
Aphrodite’s main centers of worship were at Paphos and Amathus on Cyprus and on the island of Cythera, a Minoan colony, where in prehistoric times her cult probably originated. On the Greek mainland, Corinth was the chief center of her worship. The archaeological site of Aphrodisias in southwestern Turkey was named for the goddess and was an important center of worship during the Roman Empire. Her close association with Eros, the Graces (Charites), and the Horae (Seasons) emphasized her role as a promoter of fertility. She was honored by the Roman poet Lucretius as Genetrix, the creative element in the world. Her epithets Urania (Heavenly Dweller) and Pandemos (Of All the People) were ironically taken by the philosopher Plato (in the Symposium) to refer to intellectual and common love; rather, the title Urania was honorific and applied to certain Asian deities, while Pandemos referred to her standing within the city-state.
In art and culture
Representations of Aphrodite in early Greek art are fully dressed and without distinguishing features that differentiate her from other goddesses. She first attained individuality at the hands of the great 5th-century-bce Greek sculptors. Perhaps the most famous of all statues of Aphrodite was carved by Praxiteles for the Cnidians. The first full-scale female nude, it later became the model for such Hellenistic masterpieces as the Venus de Milo (2nd century bce). Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (c. 1485) is one of the most famous paintings in the world and depicts the goddess on the seashore, having emerged from the water on a shell.
