The myths vividly recount the participation of Aphrodite in matters of the heart, and these have contributed greatly to our conception of the goddess as primarily concerned with love and sex. Few of her were immune to her seductive charms and Zeus punished her for the many improper unions she caused.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty and erotic desire and one of the twelve deities of Olympus according to the canonical myths of ancient Greece. In particular, she was revered as the patron saint of sexuality and reproduction, which ensured both the continuity of nature and the continuity of human communities. She was sometimes worshiped as the goddess of marriages and even childbirth, as well as the one "who nurtures children". Her counterpart in Roman mythology is Venus.
Origin
Aphrodite is a goddess as old as time, belonging to a lineage of female goddesses who represented fertility in ancient times. The cult of Aphrodite was probably based on the cult of Astarte of Phoenicia, who was revered throughout the Middle East as ruler of the world. However, as religious syncretism was very strong at the time, the origin of the goddesses is not exactly known.
For example, in the Babylonian Empire, Astarte was related to the goddess Ishtar. She would also be associated with the Syrian goddess Atargatis and the Sumerian goddess of love, Inanna. According to Pausanias, the Assyrians were the first civilization to found a cult of Aphrodite, a thesis that makes sense, in light of research revealing Mesopotamian influence on Greek society and mythology, before 700 BC.
The cult of Aphrodite in Greece likely arrived from Syria to the islands of Cyprus, Corinth, and others, later spreading throughout Greece. Thus, the goddess of love would have originated in the Mediterranean, where the aforementioned goddesses were worshipped. Aphrodite is also quite similar to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, whom the Greeks viewed as Aphrodite. Hathor is a perfect example of a goddess associated with fertility.
Astarte, Ishtar, Inanna, Hathor and Aphrodite are considered to be goddesses of common attributes, who were generally seen as one goddess and it is difficult to determine precisely who influenced whom, although historians agree that the cult of Aphrodite is of Eastern origin. . In the Roman Empire, another syncretism would occur and Aphrodite would transform into Venus.
Despite the efforts of mythographers to Hellenize Aphrodite, they have always emphasized her Asian origin. In the Iliad this is very noticeable. Her protection and predilection for the Trojans residing in Asia Minor and particularly for Aeneas, fruit of her love for Anchises, denote her non-Greek origin. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the Asian character of the goddess is even clearer: she is in love with the Trojan hero Anchises, she advances towards Troy, with the name of Ida, accompanied by bears, lions and panthers.
Her lover Adonis also takes us to Asia, for Adonis is but a transposition of the Babylonian Tammuz, the favorite of Istar-Astarte, after which the Greeks modeled their Aphrodite. As can be seen, based on her most important characteristics and myths, Aphrodite points us to Asia. Hellenization transformed her from the Great Mother to one of the twelve gods subject to Zeus and with a role reduced to human passions.
However, when sculpted and painted with her dolphins, goat, goose, swan and dove, her ancient lineage is clearly glimpsed. In this way, the goddess, like her ancestors, is a symbol of the unstoppable forces of fertility, not precisely in its fruits, but because of the ardent desire that those same irresistible forces ignite in the entrails of all creatures. . That is why the goddess is often depicted escorted by ferocious animals.
Etymology
The etymology of the name is not known with certainty. Hesiod associated it with aphros, "foam", interpreting it as "arising from the foam". This origin, however, has been classified as a mistaken etymology by several authors and several other speculative etymologies, many derived from non-Greek languages, have been suggested by as many authors.
Indo-Europeanist Michael Janda considers the connection with "foam" to be genuine, identifying the myth of Aphrodite emerging from the waters after Cronus defeated Uranus as a myth from the Proto-Indo-European period. According to this interpretation, the name is derived from aphros "foam" and déatai "(She) appears, shines," meaning "she who shines from the foam (of the ocean)," a nickname also attributed to the goddess of dawn (Eos).
Nacimiento
There are several myths that speak about the birth of Aphrodite In the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the oldest known Greek literary works, Aphrodite was born of Zeus and Dione: "When Aphrodite fell on her knees before Dione, her mother, and this embraced his daughter…” Dione is a little-known figure whose name, related to the name of Zeus, suggests that she was initially his consort.
Daughter of Zeus, logically she is a half-sister of the other children of Zeus. In the Iliad, she asks her brother Ares to lend her her chariot: "O brother, come to my aid, lend me your chariots so I can return to Olympus...". We know that Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera.
In Hesiod's Theogony, another version of Aphrodite's birth is given (circa 173-206): Kronos has just cut off testicles from his father, Uranus. He throws them "then, at random, behind him." However, it was not vain remains that fell from his hand. Spatters of blood had flowed from them; Gaia (the Earth) received them all and, over the years, she gave birth to the mighty Erinyes, the great Giants […] and the nymphs we call Meliades.
As for the scrotum, no sooner had he cut it with steel and thrown it from the earth into the sea than a white foam sprang up from the divine member all around. From this foam a young girl was formed, who first touched the divine Cythera, whence she was then in Cyprus surrounded by the waves; and it is there that the beautiful and revered goddess landed, who caused the grass to grow around her, under her light feet, and whom both gods and men call Aphrodite, because she was formed of a foam (afro).
Epimenides says, like Hesiod, that they were daughters of Cronus. "From him were born Aphrodite with beautiful hair, the immortal Fates and the Furies." However, the translator Apollodorus thinks it is a mistake; it would be from Uranus and not from Chronos, that's how he explains it. In fact, Hesiod speaks of the Erinyes born from the splashes of blood from Uranus that fell on Gaia (Earth), then Aphrodite born from the foam-seed in the sea.
Cult
Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, surpassing all goddesses in grace and beauty. In her entourage are the Mountains, which make everything bloom magnificently, the Carites, the personification of the desires of love; Her belt contains all the charms that confuse even the minds of the wise. Humans and gods all live under her power.
She is the giver of beauty and happy love, therefore she is also the goddess of marriage. Through marriage, she binds people together in a community; therefore she, for example, in Athens was revered as the goddess Aphrodite Pandemos. Later, however, she received the meaning of the goddess of sensual love, the opposite of the personification of pure and sublime love of the goddess Aphrodite Urania.
At one place in the Odyssey, Aphrodite is portrayed as the wife of Hephaestus, but she loves Ares; the poet of the Iliad recognizes, as the wife of Hephaestus, only Caris. Because of her connection to Ares, Aphrodite was later depicted as a warrior goddess (Areía), who was prized for the beauty of her weapons; on the contrary, for Homer, Aphrodite has little skill in matters of war.
The idea and worship of the goddess of love emerging from the sea came to the Greeks from Asia; Aphrodite, like the Syrian goddess Astarte, was the personification of the productive force of nature, which, according to the ancient concept, gives birth to everything that lives on earth; but in Greece the foreign imprint of this deity was erased and it was Hellenized. The island of Cyprus, where Asian and Hellenic education met, was the main place of worship of Aphrodite.
In Greece, from across the sea, the widespread veneration of this goddess, who was born from the sea, was established mainly on the islands and coasts, and later, many temples were especially erected to her near the ports and on the seashore. .
Aphrodite was consecrated as symbols of love: myrtle, rose, and apple; as symbols of fertility: poppy, dove, sparrow, and hare; as a sea goddess, a dolphin. Sculptural art portrayed her as a charming woman in the full bloom of her beauty, with a soft, elongated face, full of charm, languid eyes, and a smiling mouth. One of the most beautiful and famous statues preserved is that of Venus de Medici, but of greater artistic merit and more famous is the Venus de Milo statue in Paris.
The Romans identified the Greek Aphrodite with their goddess Venus. The Roman Venus appears to have been the goddess of gardens, spring, growth, and flowering. When the cult of Aphrodite was transferred to Rome and why it was identified with Venus, we do not know; but only Caesar Augustus, who espoused the belief that Aphrodite-Venus through Aeneas was the progenitor of the Roman people, and especially the genus Julia (Venus Genetrix), accorded special honor to her worship at Rome.
Among the Romans, Venus was considered predominantly the goddess of conjugal love; she was honored in Roman sanctuaries under very different names: Conciliatrix, Viriplaca, Mirtia (the myrtle goddess), Murcia, Cloacina, Calva, etc. In the month of April, the women held a special party in honor of her.
Aphrodite's Feasts
The Aphrodisias were festivals celebrated in honor of Aphrodite, mainly on the island of Cyprus, especially in the city of Paphos. During these festivals, bloody offerings were not allowed to the goddess, who was worshiped here in the guise of a pointed round cone or a small white pyramid. The flame of the sacrificial fire, the frankincense and the myrrh understood her. Later the Aphrodisias seem to have been accompanied by mysteries dedicated to Aphrodite.
Aphrodisias was also celebrated at the temple of Aphrodite in Amatunte, which was the most famous goddess temple in Cyprus after Paphos, as was the holy island of Cythera. In addition, the Aphrodisias were celebrated on the island of Aegina, in Thebes, in Corinth and in Athens, although they were probably known throughout Greece. In most places hetairas and their lovers participated in these festivals.
At the Temple of Erica in Sicily, notable festivals were held: the Anagogia and the Catagogia. Numerous doves were kept in and near that temple, which at a certain moment flew, it was said, to Libya. This was considered the departure of Aphrodite and was celebrated with a festival, the Anagogia. Nine days later, the doves returned with a strange and extraordinarily beautiful dove at their head. This was called the return of the goddess, which was celebrated festively with a catagogia.
epithets
Aphrodite had numerous epithets that, on the one hand, reflect aspects of her veneration, which extended throughout Greece, making her one of the most widely followed goddesses. In other invocations, the type and names of her places of worship and sanctuaries can be found.
Aphrodite Urania and Pandemos
According to Herodotus, it was especially the cult of Aphrodite Urania (heavenly) who had come to Cyprus from Ashkelon, Syrian. According to Pausanias, the cult of Urania was first established in Paphos, Cyprus. It was the epithet received in Attica, Corinth and Tauric Chersonese. In Athens there existed "in the gardens" (kípois), what is probably to be found on the banks of the Ilissos river, a temple of Aphrodite Urania, who was recognized there in a herma as the "oldest of the Moira".
There was also an important statue of the goddess sculpted by Alkamenes in the same place. Pausanias reports an annual festival in which the virgin priestesses, the so-called Arrephoras, of the temple of Athena Polias were sent with cargo unknown to them as yet to the sanctuary of Aphrodite "in the gardens," which was reached through an underground passageway to receive object, also covered there. After this festive ritual, the Arrephoras were supplanted by others in the temple service.
The epithet of the Pandemos (the one that is with all the peoples) was linked to the political organization of several communities. Aphrodite acted as the deity of "civil unity and harmony". The Attic Pandemos was also called Epitragia (She of the Goat), supposedly because the sacrificed goat turned into a male goat when Theseus left for Crete. Goat sacrifices were characteristic of Aphrodite throughout the country.
Furthermore, Aphrodite presumably served as the goddess of the polis in Casopia and in the metropolis of Thessaly. Occasionally the two epithets also appeared side by side. Boeotian Thebes had three archaic wooden pictures of Aphrodite Urania, Pandemos and Apostrophy (the one she diverts) that were donated by Harmonia and created from the prow figures of Cadmus' ships.
Aphrodite in marriage
Aphrodite was worshiped at Hermione as Nymphia (the bride). Here virgins were sacrificed before marriage, as were widows who wanted to remarry. The cult of Aphrodite Hera in Sparta seems similar, in whose wooden image mothers sacrificed when their daughters married.
goddess of the sea
Various epithets also refer to the sphere of the sea and to navigation: Pelagía, Pontia, Thalassia (she of the sea), Euploia (She who grants a good voyage, happy navigation) or Limenia (she of refuge) is called Aphrodite as a goddess born of the foam and protector of the sailors.
One of the most notable temples of Aphrodite Pontia and Limenia is that of Hermione at Argos, where an impressive marble statue stood. Last but not least, Talasia "the sea" was the "mother" of the goddess of love according to one of the versions that recount her birth; she herself was often worshiped with Poseidon, especially at Argolida and Arcadia, at Corinth, Orchomenus, and Patras.
Other appearances of Aphrodite
These three ideas, which were formed from Aphrodite, were followed by others. First of all, she was worshiped as a goddess of beauty. She had that beauty in herself, and every charm a woman could have was the part of her to the fullest. Her job was to display that beauty through body adornments.
Acts of war, which a male mind speaks of, are completely foreign to her. If she ventured into war, she became ill, as when she was wounded at Troy by Diomedes, who had the support of Pallas Athena. Ares is another god whose connection to Aphrodite is important in mythology.
She cannot assert her power on the battlefield, yet she is powerful. Not only does she help the Trojans endure the long battle with the support she provides to her beloved Paris and her son Aeneas, but she also subdues all she seeks to control through the irresistible power of her beauty.
The golden Aphrodite, the sweetly smiling Aphrodite, are nicknames related to this quality. She wears the belt of love, which contains within it all the charms available for love: fervent desire and the sweet language of love, which lead even the minds of the wise to stray from the right path. Her eyes, her beautiful breast, her beautiful mouth, compared to a rosebud, are often sung with enthusiasm by the Greek poets. When she wants to emphasize the exquisite beauty of a mortal woman, she is compared to Aphrodite.
It allows itself to be crowned with spring flowers by the Hours and the Carites; her clothes are impregnated with the aromas of these flowers. This simple but beautiful decoration of the goddess with flowers has also taken over the visual arts, which in Aphrodite were intended to represent the ideal of feminine beauty. In the East this deviated from this, but not in actual ancient Greek art.
Besides the nicknames already mentioned, the goddess was worshipped under various other names, mostly after places where she had temples, such as Cyprus, Cythera, Cytherea (after the island of Cyprus), Paphia (after the city of Paphos), Amatosia (after the city of Amathos), Idalia (after Mount Ida), Cnidia (after the city of Cnidus), Erykina (after the temple dedicated to Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in Sicily) or Acadalia (named after the eponymous fountain in Boeotia where Aphrodite bathed with the Charites).
Aphrodite in relation to other gods and mortals
As mentioned, Aphrodite is a goddess of love and fertility. She imparts to mortals the captivating allure that love awakens, but she also instills the all-consuming passion of love. She herself has led the way by example. She has felt the passion of love, she has made more than one happy by giving her love.
Marriage
Zeus forced Aphrodite to marry the ugly, lame, bad-tempered god of fire, Hephaestus. The cause of this decision of the king of the gods has several versions. One of the versions says that the beauty and voluptuousness of the goddess could cause disputes between the gods, which is why Zeus decided to marry her to a god whom everyone respected. Another reason held by some was that Hephaestus helped Zeus to remove Athena from her head, the king of the gods in compensation gave him the hand of the goddess of beauty.
Hephaestus held a grudge against his mother, Hera, since she threw him out of Olympus when he was born, considering him too ugly to live among the gods. Hephaestus built thrones for all the gods and a very special one for Hera. When the goddess sat on the throne she was trapped unable to get up from it. No god had the power to free Hera, only Hephaestus could and refused to do so. After many pleas from all the gods he agreed, putting many conditions, one of them being that he be granted the hand of Aphrodite.
Whatever the reason, the goddess Aphrodite was unhappy with her marriage, despite the jewels and gifts Hephaestus had specially crafted for her. This dissatisfaction with their relationship may have been the cause of her countless lovers, both divine and mortal. Of all her affairs, her preference was for the god of war, Ares.
Aphrodite and Psyche
Psyche is a young woman of such extraordinary beauty that she unleashes the terrible envy of Aphrodite, who orders her son Eros to awaken in her a passion for a man of the vilest condition. The god himself, however, falls in love with the girl and takes her to a fabulous palace where he goes to visit her every night in total darkness so as not to reveal her identity. Eros asks the young woman not to try to find out her identity or he would be forced to abandon her.
One night, however, Psyche, believing himself to be a destined monster and instigated by her evil and envious sisters, armed with a knife, approaches the sleeping god with a lit oil lamp. Seeing her beauty, she is ecstatic and inadvertently drops a drop of boiling oil from the lamp onto Eros's shoulder, who, burned and wakes up with a start, immediately abandons the girl.
Psyche searched for her beloved throughout Greece, finally arriving at a temple of the goddess of agriculture Demeter, seeing that on the ground there were thousands of grains of different kinds. Psyche immediately set about sorting the grains by type, and when she finished, Demeter spoke to her and told her that the only way to find Eros was to go to her mother, Aphrodite, and gain her trust.
Aphrodite entrusted her with a task similar to that at the temple of Demeter, giving her such a short timeframe that it was impossible to complete. Eros intervened, since he still loved her, and had the ants separate the seeds for her. Aphrodite was furious at her success and then sent Psyche to a meadow where golden sheep grazed to obtain golden wool. Psyche went to the field and saw the sheep. She was about to enter the pasture, but the god of the nearby river stopped her.
He told her that the sheep were aggressive and dangerous and could kill her, but if she waited until noon, the sheep would go to the other side of the field to find shade to sleep, then Psyche could pick up the wool that was left tangled in the branches and on the trees. the barks of trees. Psyche did so and Aphrodite was further infuriated by the beautiful young woman's escape and success.
Finally, Aphrodite argued that the worry of having to care for her son, sad and indisposed due to Psyche's recklessness, had caused her to lose some of her freshness. She entrusted Psyche with the task of going to the underworld and there asking Queen Persephone to place some beauty in the box she would give her for that purpose. Psyche thought that the only way to get to Hades was after he died so he climbed a high tower in order to launch himself.
Then a mysterious voice stopped her and revealed how to enter the underworld without dying. She psyche calmed the can Cerberus, the three-headed monster, with a loaf of honey and paid Charon an offering for leading her to Hades. On the way she found some hands that sprouted from the water, her voice told her that she throws them a honey loaf. Once she arrived, Persephone very willingly complied with Aphrodite's wishes. Returning, Psyche paid Charon again,
Psyche left Hades and thought to open the box and keep a small part of the beauty for herself, so that Eros would love and forgive her. In the box, however, was a Stygian dream, that is, the sleep and oblivion into which mortals fall when they die.
Eros, who had forgiven her, rushed to her aid and wiped the sleep from her eyes, then begged Zeus and Aphrodite to give their consent to marry her. They accepted. The king of the gods then ordered Hermes to go and take Psyche and take her to Olympus among the immortals and transform her into the patron goddess of girls. Aphrodite celebrated at the wedding of the young lovers, who had a daughter whom they named Hedoné, known in Roman mythology as Voluptas, which means sensual pleasure.
Aphrodite's infidelity
In the legend sung by the bard in the hall of the palace of Alcinous it is said that the sun god Helios once saw Ares and Aphrodite secretly meeting in Hephaestus' room and immediately went to inform him. Hephaestus devised a system to surprise the couple in flagrante and made a golden net with which he would catch the two clandestine lovers.
He waited and, during a love encounter, the two of them became entangled in the net and thus ended up caught in a very intimate and compromising position. Hephaestus, still not satisfied, called the other gods of Olympus to show them the two unfortunate lovers. The goddesses out of shame refused to go, but the gods did come without delay. Some indulged in comments about Aphrodite's beauty, others commented that they would gladly take Ares's place, and in essence, no one missed an opportunity to poke fun at them.
Hephaestus declared that he would not release Aphrodite and Ares from the clutches of the net until they returned all the precious wedding gifts he had given to Zeus as Aphrodite's adoptive father. Zeus refused to return the wedding gifts and dismissed the matter as merely a dispute between the husband, wife, and their lover.
Poseidon fell in love with Aphrodite upon first seeing her up close, under the net, naked, so to show his sympathy, he proposed that Ares, the guilty party, pay the equivalent of these wedding gifts to free him and Aphrodite. from the clutches of the web and if Ares breaks his word, it will be Poseidon himself who will satisfy Hephaestus's demands and marry Aphrodite.
Aphrodite tried, whenever possible, with her caresses and her weapons of seduction, to retain Ares, who was always in a hurry to go to war. So it was very logical to think of this connection between Aphrodite and the god of war. From the love relationship between Aphrodite and Ares, three children were born, Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Horror) and Harmonia. Phobos and Deimos accompany Ares on the battlefield.
Aphrodite, satisfied with Poseidon's intervention on her behalf, fathered Rhodo with him, but according to other legends, it was Erice the son of Poseidon and Aphrodite, the hero of the Sicilian mountain of the same name, which housed a famous temple dedicated to the cult of Aphrodite. According to other legends, Rhodo was rather the son of Aphrodite and Helios. Rodo gave his name to the island of Rhodes.
Hermes, who spontaneously declared his love for Aphrodite upon seeing her naked under the net, spent some time later, one night with her, from this short romance, Hermaphrodite was born.
Aphrodite and Anchises
Zeus, under the influence of Aphrodite, indulged in love affairs with mortal women. Angered by this, he decided to take revenge on her and inspired her, in turn, to desire to join a mortal man, Anchises, a Trojan prince and cousin of King Priam.
In order to seduce him, Aphrodite went to meet him on Mount Ida, where he grazed his flocks. She pretended to be the daughter of Othreus, king of Phrygia; she declared her desire to marry him. Anchises, seized by admiration and blinded by the irresistible seduction of this woman who presented herself to him declaring her love for him, he took her to her bed covered in bear and lion skins to make love to her.
Upon awakening, Aphrodite revealed to Anchises her true nature as a goddess. The young man feared a possible premature old age, which used to strike men who united with the goddesses, but Aphrodite reassured him and announced that from this union with him she would engender a son similar to the gods, but he would never reveal the identity of his mother.
A few days later, Anchises was with some companions, one of them asked him if he prefers to sleep with a girl or with Aphrodite, so Anchises expresses his preference for the goddess. Zeus, who overheard the argument, became angry and hurled his thunderbolt at Anchises, but Aphrodite intervened and deflected the thunderbolt on the ground near the mortal's feet. Anchises was saved from Zeus' thunderbolt, but this was not without consequences; he was very weak and could not stand up straight as he was lame.
From this night of love between Aphrodite and Anchises the legendary hero was born, the pious Aeneas who later saved part of the Trojans after the fall of his city. These Trojans were later the founders of the city of Rome. The myth that maintains Aphrodite in the mother of Aeneas served for the Romans to claim to be children of Aphrodite, which therefore made her the mother of her homeland and her national goddess (Venus). After the destruction of Troy, Anchises was saved from the flames by his son Aeneas.
Aphrodite and Adonis
The Phoenicians who frequented the ports of Cyprus, Crete and Ancient Greece had brought with them the story of their goddess Astarte's love affair with the mortal Adonis (Tammuz), a Babylonian Syrian demigod; the agrarian spirit or deity of annual vegetation, god of the harvest. In these countries (Cyprus, Crete, and Greece) the story of Adonis undergoes adaptive modifications; Astarte was replaced by Aphrodite.
The name "Adonis" and the Hellenized form of the Semitic word "adonaï" which means "lord, my lord, my master", which the Phoenician women repeated without interruption in lamenting the death of Tammuz, during the annual mourning festivals they celebrated his death. This love of Aphrodite was the most treated by poets and artists of Greco-Roman Antiquity.
First version and its variants
Adonis, son and brother of Myrrha and Cinyras, king of Cyprus (son of Apollo according to one version; Syrian who became king of Cyprus according to another) and high priest of Aphrodite. One day, Chencheis the wife of King Cinyras or the wife of King Phoenix of Byblos in Lebanon, (other versions say that Mirra is the daughter of Tudia King of Syria) boasted that her daughter Mirra was the most beautiful of all women , even more beautiful than Aphrodite herself.
In other versions, it was Myrrha herself who boasted that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite; or simply, not comparing herself to Aphrodite's goddess of beauty, Myrrha neglected her duties to worship her goddess. Aphrodite was offended and found the attitude of the young woman or her mother an insult and decided to take revenge by creating an incestuous desire in Mirra; a sinful passion for her own father and an irresistible desire to mate with him.
With the complicity of her nursemaid who made the king believe that a beautiful young woman wanted to share her bed, Myrrha entered her father Cinyras's bed and joined him for twelve consecutive nights (in some versions the number of nights drops to only two nights), but the latter ends up realizing that this mysterious woman who came to share his bed was his own daughter.
Mad with rage, Cinyras decided to kill his daughter with his sword, Mirra fled from the palace to a nearby hill, the moment her father reached her, she begged to disappear; Aphrodite (or the gods), feeling sorry for her, metamorphosed her into a myrrh tree.
Cinyras, while attacking the tree with his sword, split it in two, revealing a child, Adonis, whom his daughter Myrrha was already carrying to him for incest. Wanting to protect him from her father's wrath and prying eyes, Aphrodite took Adonis and hid him in a chest, which she gave to Persephone, queen of the underworld.
In other versions, Adonis grew up inside the myrrh tree to be born nine months later in the presence of Aphrodite; or Myrrha's father, Tudia (king of Assyria) upon discovering the truth that this woman who shared his bed was his daughter, committed suicide and Adonis was born before his mother's metamorphosis into a tree of myrrh.
Persephone, curious, opened the safe and found Adonis, a charming and very beautiful boy, so she decided to raise him in her own palace; now a vigorous man of startling beauty, she took him for a lover. Aphrodite, hearing of Adonis' change, returned to Persephone's palace to take him with her. Persephone, in love with the young man, refused to give him up to Aphrodite, who also desperately wanted him.
To resolve this dispute, Aphrodite went to Zeus, but the latter delegated the decision to the muse Calliope, who judged that the two goddesses have equal rights over Adonis: Aphrodite gave birth to him, and Persephone took him out of the chest and raised him and raised him. protected until he became a man. Calliope divided the year into three equal parts; Adonis was going to spend the first part with Aphrodite, then the second part with Persephone and during the third part he will rest alone, but he could choose to stay with one or the other.
Adonis was a great fan of hunting wild beasts such as lions, bears and wild boars. Aphrodite feared, for him, by practicing this type of high-risk hunting, a disastrous fate, to protect him and try to divert him from this useless and dangerous activity, he abandoned his places of worship and accompanied her on her hunting trips by dressing and behaving not as a goddess of love and beauty, but as the huntress Artemis.
Because Adonis spent most of the year with Aphrodite, Persephone felt cheated and went to Thrace to meet Ares to make him understand that Aphrodite preferred Adonis, a mere effeminate mortal over all her more manly lovers and, in particular, the man. Ares himself, the god of war.
Ares, consumed with jealousy and wanting to avenge his despised honor, metamorphosed into a wild boar (ferocious, which attacked, during a hunting party on Mount Lebanon, Adonis and inflicted him with its fangs, before Aphrodite's eyes, a fatal wound in the groin.From his blood that spilled on the ground grew scarlet red flowers (poppies).
From the tears of Aphrodite that fell to the ground, anemones were born, ephemeral spring flowers, they will always be witnesses of the short life of her lover Adonis. The soul of Adonis descended to the underworld, reaching the palace of his queen Persephone. Other myths identify the murderer of Adonis as Apollo: Erimanto, son of Apollo had seen Aphrodite bathing naked; to punish him, the goddess made him blind. In revenge, Apollo transformed himself into a boar and killed Adonis.
Aphrodite, very sore and crying, asked and obtained from Zeus the grace that Adonis would spend only part of the time with Persephone and the rest of the year he would spend on earth. Thus Adonis became the representative of the eternal cycle of the seasons and the annual cycle of flowering.
Second version
Smyrna or Myrrha had incestuous relations with his father Cinyras, king of Cyprus, and from these relations Adonis was born. Myrrha, mother of Adonis, escapes the wrath of her father, and so she arrives in Arabia, where the gods transformed her into the tree that bears her name. At the time of her birth, the tree opened to give birth to the child. Adonis was received by the nymphs who fed him in the neighboring caves.
Having become a teenager, he went to Phenicia. Aphrodite saw him, loved him and, to continue hunting in the forests of Mount Lebanon, she left the abode of Cythera, Amathus and Paphos and despised the love of the gods. Ares, jealous and indignant at this preference given to a mere mortal, turned into a furious boar, pounced on Adonis and wounded his thigh causing his death.
Aphrodite came running, but too late, to help the unfortunate young man. Overwhelmed with grief, she took Adonis's body in her arms and, after crying for a long time, transformed him into an anemone, the ephemeral flower of spring. A variant of this version says that Adonis was killed by a boar that Artemis sent against him, to take revenge on Aphrodite who had caused the death of Hippolytus.
Adonis, who descended into the underworld, where he was still loved by Persephone. Aphrodite complained to Zeus. The king of the gods ended the debate by ordering that Adonis be free four months a year, spending four with Aphrodite and the rest with Persephone.
Under the veil of this fable, nature in its various phases and under its various aspects can be recognized in Adonis. In spring, she is beautiful and fruitful; in winter she seems dead, but soon she reappears with the same splendor and the same fertility.
hypomenes
He was the son of Megareo and Merope or son of Ares. He is known from the legend of Atalanta, the huntress maiden, who has often been compared to Artemis herself. He said that each suitor who challenged him to participate in a race against her. If the suitor won, she took him for her husband, but if he lost, she killed him. Hippomenes, who had never seen Atalanta but was in the audience of a race, at first could not understand the enthusiasm of the candidates, but when he saw the young heroine, he too was impressed by her beauty.
He immediately took a liking to it and, hoping that the gods might protect him, decided to enter the competition himself. When she announced this to Atalanta, she wanted to dissuade him from this plan, as she saw in him a splendid young man who was not worth dying like this. However, it could not be changed, so competition was imminent. Hippomenes begged the goddess of love Aphrodite to let him win, and this prayer was answered: the goddess brought him three golden apples and taught him how to use them.
The race started and the two opponents were tied. Hippomenes' strength was slowly weakening when Aphrodite appeared and told him to drop one of her apples. She did as she was told and confused Atalanta so much that she took the apple and wasted her time. He repeated this twice and won the competition. Atalanta was happy to marry such a worthy young man.
But Hippomenes forgets to thank Aphrodite for the gift of the apples, and the goddess punishes him with a sudden erotic desire that drives him to join Atalanta in the temple of Cybele. Seeing this, the mother goddess transforms the two sacrilegious men into lions, then ties them to her chariot. According to Greek belief, lions do not mate with each other to reproduce, but with other species. Other versions make Zeus the author of the metamorphosis.
Hippolytus
He was the son of the Attic king Theseus and the Amazon queen Antiope (or, according to other versions, of the Amazons Hippolyta or Melanippe). The lives of all Amazons were so focused on fighting, hunting, and riding that they generally had little interest in love. Hipólito inherited this lack of interest in love and the opposite sex from his mother. Among the gods, he especially revered the chaste Artemis, the huntress maiden, and he had nothing but disdain for Aphrodite, much to the latter's annoyance.
And so, the goddess of love decided to avenge herself in her subtle way. When Theseus became a widower he remarried the young Phaedra. When Hippolytus came to Athens to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries, Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with her stepson. Hipólito's reaction was contemptuous and even indignant at the dishonorable proposals of his young stepmother.
When Phaedra saw the desperate and morbid nature of her infatuation, she took her own life, not without leaving a letter to Theseus in which she falsely accused Hippolytus of having assaulted her chastity and declared that she could no longer live with this shame. Theseus, who was traveling when this drama unfolded, found his dead wife and the letter on his return. Hippolytus tried in vain to prove her innocence, but he was too generous to betray Phaedra's guilt to her father, who would not have believed him anyway. Theseus then cursed his son and sent him into exile.
In fervent prayer, Theseus begged Poseidon to have Hippolytus die that very day. And the god of the sea sent a sea monster to the beach where Hippolytus was traveling in a horse-drawn chariot. This is what happened according to Ovid's description:
“Suddenly the sea rose, and a torrent of high waters
seemed to arch into a mountain shape and grow gigantic, and at the top of the
hill burst with a terrible roar, and a horned bull came out of the divided waves,
the same to the top of the chest raised in the softening air,
parts of the sea spit through the nostrils and the throat roars”.
The monster sent by Poseidon frightened Hippolytus's horses, so that the chariot was thrown into a wild olive tree and Hippolytus himself was crushed. His father, Theseus, was left alone and unhappy. The story of Phaedra's ill-fated love and the fate of Hippolytus form the plot of Euripides' tragedy of the same name, set in Troezen, the hometown of Theseus.
According to one version of the saga, Asclepios is said to have brought Hippolytus back to life at the request of Artemis, after which the goddess transferred him to her sanctuary at the Nemus Dianae near Aricia (in central Italy). In Troezen, where Euripides' drama takes place, there was a sanctuary for the deified Hippolytus, who was also worshiped in Athens and Sparta.
Pygmalion
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a prince of Cyprus with a predilection for sculpture. He had seen women commit sin for years, so he never wanted to get married. He preferred to remain single, surrounded by his own art. For days he worked on an ivory statue, a female statue (Galatea). He gave the statue perfect beauty and finally fell madly in love with it. He gave the statue all kinds of gifts and jewelry, but it was made of ivory.
One day a party was held in honor of Aphrodite. Incense was burned everywhere and cattle were sacrificed. Pygmalion expressed the wish at the altar that the goddess give him a wife. He didn't have the courage to say "ivory" and instead he said "she looks like my ivory wife." Aphrodite, being himself present, understood his wish: three times a flame shot high, as a sign of mercy.
As soon as he arrived home, he ran to his beloved statue and kissed it on the mouth. The image came to life. Then Pygmalion thanked Aphrodite a thousand times. Paphos was born nine months after the marriage of Pygmalion and Galatea. The myth of Pygmalion led to the idea in the Middle Ages that perfect femininity could only exist through male creative power.
Narcissus
Echo was a mountain nymph (Oréade) from Mount Cithaeron. Eco had a habit of talking incessantly. She thus distracted the goddess Hera in such a way that her husband, Zeus, could go on with her countless adventures with other goddesses or mortals without being caught. According to some sources, Hera cursed Echo so that she could only repeat what others said. This is an etiological explanation (that is, it explains the cause) of the echo phenomenon as an acoustic phenomenon.
Narcissus was a handsome young man who lived for the hunt. Many fell in love with him, however, he did not want to know about love and rejected all of them. He was only interested in hunting. One day the beautiful nymph Echo saw Narcissus hunting in the mountains. She fell in love immediately and followed him wherever she wanted him to go. However, she Echo was no longer able to speak for herself due to her earlier punishment, instead she only spoke to others. So she waited for Narcissus to speak first.
One day Narciso separated from his companions and heard something near him. He asked "Is anyone there?" and Echo answered "There". Narcissus looked around him but didn't see anyone, so he asked the voice to show itself. Echo answered with the same words, Narcissus asked why the voice ignored him. The nymph repeated her question, to which the young man suggested: "Let's get together!" Again the nymph repeated the same thing with all her heart, running towards him. At that moment, however, Narcissus withdrew.
Eco was devastated by this insult. Narcissus left her and the nymph withdrew in shame to the forest. From that day she lived in caves. She gradually faded in pain until her physical form disappeared and only her voice remained. With her voice, she is still ready to reply at any time. On a trek through the mountains, Eco is never far away, always ready to have the last word.
Narcissus didn't change much. This was not the first time he had so cruelly shooed away a female admirer. One day there was a virgin who tried in vain to seduce him. In a prayer to the gods, she asked that Narcissus also feel what it was like to love someone who does not love you back. According to some sources she was a goddess of revenge, according to others it was Aphrodite herself who answered her prayer and made her wish come true.
So one day Narcissus came to a sacred pool, whose water was crystal clear, where shepherds never passed with their flocks, where no mountain goat or other animal appeared. Even the leaves and branches of the trees were afraid of falling. Around him the grass was more beautiful than in other places and the rocks protected him from the rays of the sun. Tired of hunting, Narcissus decided to relax there and quench his thirst with the water. When he leaned forward he saw his reflection on the surface of the water, but he thought that he was a beautiful ghost that lived in the pond.
So he just sat there, watching this apparition with admiration. He fell in love with himself. He brought his lips to the water in an attempt to kiss the apparition of him, reached out to embrace the image. The reflection disappeared but returned when the water calmed down again and he drew his attention back to her. He could no longer take his eyes off the water, he no longer thought about eating and drinking or resting. He tried to talk to him, but got no response. He started crying but his tears disturbed the image, so he started screaming and asked if the apparition would leave them.
It went on like this for a long time and Narcissus alienated. He lost the color of him, his vitality and the beauty of him. However, Echo stayed close to him, echoing his sad cries. In the end, Narcissus completely languished and died. The nymphs mourned him, especially the water nymphs, and prepared to cremate him, but his body was nowhere to be found.
The only thing that remained of him was a yellow flower inside and surrounded by white petals, which still reminds us of Narcissus, according to some it was from the hands of Aphrodite, who out of pity allowed him to continue living, even if it was as a flower. Even Narcissus, once he reached the underworld, would be in the River Styx looking at his reflection.
Aphrodite and the Trojan War
The Trojan War was triggered by the kidnapping of Helen, wife of Menelaus, the King of Sparta, by the Trojan Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, and his wife Hecuba. In fact, Aphrodite had promised Helen to Paris in gratitude for the trial on Mount Ida, where he gave her the golden apple. Paris then had to choose between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, who respectively promised him royalty, military power, and the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen.
The trial of Paris
Thetis was a sweet Nereid young woman coveted by Zeus and Poseidon, but Themis informed her two suitors through her oracle that she would give from her union with one of them a son more powerful than his father and capable of dethroning; then the gods of Olympus decided to unite her with a mortal; and they chose Peleus, the son of Aeacus, king of the Myrmidons in Thessaly.
Rejecting this marriage, Thetis transformed herself into all forms of different beings or hateful elements (fire, water, wind, tree, bird, tiger, lion, snake and finally into cuttlefish) to escape from Peleus who wanted to get close to her. However, Peleus was brave and insistent, thus managing to convince her to accept him as her husband.
Zeus organized the feast to celebrate the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. However, Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited, as her presence would have made the party unpleasant for everyone. Irritated by this affront, Eris arrived at the feast with a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides on which was written "for the fairest" and threw it onto the table.
Three goddesses were vying for possession of the apple: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of the three goddesses deserved to possess the apple. The king of the gods, reluctant to favor anyone, declared that Paris, a mortal prince of Troy, would judge the case, as he had recently demonstrated his exemplary loyalty in a contest involving Ares. So it happened that, with Hermes as their guide, the three candidates bathed in the spring of Ida and then went to see Paris on Mount Ida.
As Paris inspected them, each of them used their powers to bribe him; Hera offered kingship over Europe and Asia, Athena offered knowledge and skill in the art of war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Hours to enhance her charms with flowers and music, offered the most beautiful woman in the world in that moment. This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and gave her apple to hers, thus earning Helena, but also the hatred of the Greeks and, especially, of Hera.
The mythological theme of the trial of Paris naturally gave the artists the excuse to represent a kind of beauty pageant between three beautiful naked women, but the myth, at least from Euripides' point of view, is seen as a choice between the gifts. that embodies each goddess. The bribery involved is ironic and the final ingredient.
According to a version mentioned by Van Windekens, impartially, Hera was in fact the most beautiful, surpassing Aphrodite. However, Hera was the goddess of civil order and patron of wives, among other things. She was often depicted as a jealous wife of Zeus, who often escaped her control by cheating on her with other women, mortal and immortal. She had fidelity and chastity on her mind and was careful to be modest as Paris surveyed her.
Aphrodite, although not as beautiful as Hera, was the goddess of sexuality and was evidently more sexual, voluptuous, and charming than Hera. By her very nature, she knew how to make the most of her charms and attract men. Thus, she was able to influence Paris to judge her as the most beautiful.
Athena's beauty is rarely spoken of in myth, perhaps because the Greeks portrayed her as an asexual being, able to "overcome" her "feminine weaknesses" to become wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by the Greeks). ). Her anger at her sentence of Paris causes her to join the Greeks in the battle against Troy, a key event at the turning point of the war.
kidnapping of Helen
After a time, Paris sailed for Greece, where he availed himself of Menelaus's hospitality. Aphrodite told her son Eros to wound Helen's heart with an arrow of love. This done, Helena was fired with passion for Paris. A few days later, the young woman's husband, Menelaus, had to travel to Crete for the funeral of his maternal grandfather. Taking advantage of Menelaus' departure, Paris kidnapped Helen and sailed from Sparta. Her cheating wife took most of her property with her, but left her nine-year-old daughter at home.
Helen's kidnapping by Paris was the pretext for the Trojan War. The Greek peoples humiliated by this kidnapping declared war on the Trojans. It was Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and brother of Menelaus, who led the Greeks during this disastrous war that lasted ten years and ended with the fall and destruction of the city of Troy, then the massacre and dissemination of its populations.
Aphrodite in the visual arts
As for the statues of Aphrodite, they were found in great numbers throughout Greece in ancient times. However, a distinction must be made between the earliest symbolic representations of the goddess and the images, which owe their origin to later developed Greek art. For example, she was worshiped at Paphos in Cyprus in the form of a cone or pyramid, which was placed in the most sacred part of the temple (naos).
In the real images of Aphrodite one could see a great difference between the representation of Aphrodite Urania and the images of that Aphrodite, who also remained nearby and accompanied the brief and transient earthly beauty that she had bestowed on the tomb (Aphrodite Epitumbidia), and the representation of the goddess of sensual love, beauty, charm and pleasure.
The first have as attributes a dove, an apple, a flower or an egg and are usually covered with clothes, the second, on the other hand, are usually totally or partially naked, carry a goat or a hare and usually have a mirror on the hand. Among the most famous ancient statues of the goddess was her temple at Cnidus, made by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. This artist was the creator of the ideal that Greek artists sought to achieve in their representations of Aphrodite.
A clothed Aphrodite on the island of Kos by the same artist is also said to have been one of the most outstanding works of art of the ancient world. Another famous statue of Aphrodite, along with Eros and Pan, is also attributed to Praxiteles. From this image it can be concluded that the sandal had an erotic connotation in Greek culture. For example, hetairas sandals have been found with the message "follow me".
Several famous paintings by Greek masters also depicted the goddess. The Venus (Aphrodite) Anadyomene of Apelles was the most famous of these. As a foam goddess so enchanting that she emerges from the flood, she was portrayed in the painting that was considered the masterpiece of the great Greek painter Apelles. She was completely naked and the moment in which she was drying her hair with her hands was represented.
The inhabitants of the island of Kos hung this painting in the temple of Asclepius; later, the emperor Augustus took it to Rome and, in return, lowered part of the taxes that the inhabitants of Cos had to pay. He left her in the temple of Divus Julius (the deified Julius Caesar). Already by the time of Emperor Nero, the painting had been completely erased and had to be replaced by another work of art.
Of the remaining statues of Aphrodite, the most beautiful and famous, the so-called Venus de Milo, was found on the island of Melos (today Milo) in the year 1820. As the image shows, in this statue the upper part of the body is naked and the lower extremities of the hips are covered with a thin tunic. Since her arms are missing, it cannot be determined with certainty what idea the artist had in mind when creating this statue.
After these, the so-called "Medici Venus", now in Florence, must be mentioned first. This statue was found in Rome. On the pedestal, an Athenian artist named Cleomenes is mentioned as the creator. The time in which this artist lived is totally uncertain.
The statue is probably no older than the time of Emperor Augustus. Another famous statue is the so-called "Squatting Venus." It depicts the goddess bending over while bathing. This statue is among the most beautiful and gentle images of Aphrodite that have survived.
One of the most frequently copied images is probably the "Aphrodite of Fréjus" or the so-called "Venus Genetrix". The goddess is presented here more as a maternal goddess. She is covered in underwear that closes around her body, leaving only her left breast exposed. With a graceful wave of her right arm, she simply lifts her coarser rug, which falls backwards.
The face is rounder than in those sculptures modeled after Praxiteles; the expression of chaste modesty and feminine dignity that the sculptor has managed to confer on it makes a striking impression. Finally, it is worth mentioning a statue of Aphrodite that was found near the theater of Arles, the ancient Arelate, the so-called Venus of Arles, now in the Louvre museum in Paris.
As already mentioned, with Aphrodite the Eastern origin can be more clearly recognized than with any other Greek deity. The goddess, who in the various Eastern religions was identical in essence and nature to the Greek Aphrodite, bore different names in different regions, of which we here mention Milita, Alilat, and Astarte. The Romans identified her with her Venus.
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