Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, desire and beauty. In Homer she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione; in Hesiod she was born from the sea-foam off Cythera and Cyprus. She is the wife of Hephaestus in the Odyssey, the lover of Ares, and the mother of Aeneas by the Trojan Anchises. Her magical girdle makes whoever wears it desirable.

Aphrodite’s Role

Aphrodite's Name

Hesiod derives the name Aphrodite from aphros, “foam”, because she grew amid the foam, and says that she is also called Cytherea because she came to Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born in billowy Cyprus (Theogony 195–198). The same poem explains her title Philommedes, “member-loving”, because she sprang from the severed members (Theogony 200). Homer more often calls her “laughter-loving” (Iliad 3.424, 5.375).

Aphrodite's Portrayal and Symbolism

Aphrodite is the goddess whose gifts are “the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness” (Hesiod, Theogony 205–206). Her most famous attribute in the poets is a magical girdle. In the Iliad she gives Hera a curiously embroidered girdle in which all her charms are wrought – love, desire and flattery – so that Hera can lure Zeus (Iliad 14.214–217). The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (6) describes how the Hours dressed her in gold, with a crown, earrings of orichalc and necklaces, when she first came to Cyprus.

Aphrodite and Phryne

The most famous statue of Aphrodite in antiquity was the Cnidian Aphrodite by Praxiteles. Pliny says that Praxiteles was ennobled above all by it, that it was remarkable for the mad love it inspired in a young man, and that King Nicomedes offered to pay a large debt owed by the Cnidians to obtain it (Natural History 7.127). The sculptor’s lover was the courtesan Phryne. Pausanias tells how she tricked him into revealing which of his works he valued most, and chose his Eros (1.20.1–2); at Thespiae stood a stone Aphrodite and a stone Phryne, both by Praxiteles (9.27.5), and at Delphi a gilded statue of Phryne which Praxiteles made and Phryne herself dedicated (10.15.1). Pausanias saw other famous images: the armed Aphrodite on the Acrocorinthus above Corinth (2.5.1) and the Heavenly Aphrodite at Athens, made by Pheidias (1.14.7).

Aphrodite’s Epithets

Aphrodite had many names. In Plato’s Symposium the speaker Pausanias distinguishes two goddesses: the elder Heavenly Aphrodite (Ourania), daughter of Uranus without a mother, and the younger Popular Aphrodite (Pandemos), daughter of Zeus and Dione (Symposium 180d–e). The philosopher assigns heavenly love to the first and common love to the second, but they are one goddess in cult. Pausanias records the Thebans’ three images of Aphrodite, which they called Heavenly, Common and Rejecter (9.16.3–4). Other titles in the poets are “golden”, “fond of laughter”, “Cytherea” and “Cypris” (Hesiod, Theogony 192–200; Homeric Hymn 6.1–2).

Aphrodite’s Birth

Homer and Hesiod tell two different stories about the origin of Aphrodite.

In the Iliad, Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. When Diomedes wounds Aphrodite, she flees to her mother Dione, who comforts her (Iliad 5.370–417). Apollodorus lists Dione among the Titanides (Library 1.1.3) and says that by her Zeus had Aphrodite (Library 1.3.1); in Hesiod Dione is an Oceanid (Theogony 353).

Hesiod tells the better-known version. When Cronus cut off the genitals of Uranus and threw them into the sea, white foam spread around the flesh, and in it grew a maiden. She came first to holy Cythera and from there to sea-girt Cyprus, where she stepped ashore “an awful and lovely goddess” and grass grew under her feet. Eros and Himeros (Desire) went with her at her birth and followed her into the assembly of the gods (Theogony 188–206). The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (6) has the west wind carry her over the sea in soft foam to Cyprus, where the Hours welcomed her.

The Almighty Aphrodite: The Goddess Even Gods Can’t Resist

Aphrodite Married to Hephaestus

The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5) says that she makes gods and men fall in love and that only three goddesses escape her: Athena, Artemis and Hestia, the pure maiden who swore to remain a virgin (Hymn 5.7–32). Even Zeus is subject to her; the Hymn says that Aphrodite made him fall in love with mortal women, and that Zeus in turn made her fall in love with a mortal, Anchises (Hymn 5.33–52).

In the Odyssey, Aphrodite is the wife of Hephaestus, the lame god of the forge (Odyssey 8.266–270). Other poets give Hephaestus a different wife: Homer elsewhere calls her Charis (Iliad 18.382–383), and Hesiod says that Hephaestus made Aglaea, the youngest of the Graces, his wife (Theogony 945–946).

Aphrodite and Ares

In the Odyssey, the bard Demodocus sings of how Aphrodite and Ares lay together in the house of Hephaestus, and Helios saw them and told Hephaestus. Hephaestus forged unbreakable bronze bonds like a spider's web and fastened them round his bed, pretended to leave for Lemnos, and when the lovers lay down, the bonds closed round them. He called the gods, who came and laughed uncontrollably at the sight (Odyssey 8.266–366). Poseidon begged Hephaestus to free them and pledged that Ares would pay the fine himself (Odyssey 8.344–358). Ares went to Thrace, and Aphrodite went to Paphos in Cyprus, where the Graces bathed her and clothed her in lovely garments (Odyssey 8.361–366).

By Ares, Hesiod says, Aphrodite bore Phobos (Panic) and Deimos (Fear), and Harmonia, whom Cadmus married (Theogony 933–937; Apollodorus, Library 3.4.2). Hesiod makes Eros one of the first beings to come into existence (Theogony 120), and the poems agree that Eros attended Aphrodite from her birth (Theogony 201).

Aphrodite and Poseidon

In the Odyssey, Poseidon is the god who pleads with Hephaestus to release the captured pair and stands surety for Ares, promising to pay the fine himself if Ares will not (Odyssey 8.344–358). Rhode, wife of the Sun, is the daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite in Apollodorus (Library 1.4.5); in another version, preserved in the scholia on Pindar (Olympian 7), her mother is Aphrodite.

Aphrodite and Hermes

Diodorus Siculus says that Hermaphroditus, a being with a body both male and female, was born of Hermes and Aphrodite and took a name combined from those of his parents (4.6.5). Priapus is called a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite by the ancients (Diodorus 4.6.1), and by the people of Lampsacus, who revered him above all other gods (Pausanias 9.31.2). Diodorus also calls Eryx, who wrestled Heracles in Sicily, a son of Aphrodite and Butas, a king of that country (4.23.2, 4.83.1).

Aphrodite Among the Mortals

When she wasn’t busy making other people fall in love, Aphrodite had some time to fall in love herself.

Aphrodite and Adonis

Apollodorus first calls Adonis a son of Cinyras of Paphos and Metharme (Library 3.14.3), but then tells a longer version taken from Panyasis: Adonis was the child of Smyrna (Myrrha), daughter of Thias, king of Assyria, who conceived an incestuous passion for her father because Aphrodite was angry that she did not honour her. When her father discovered her, she prayed to the gods to become invisible and they turned her into a myrrh tree, from which Adonis was born. Aphrodite, struck by his beauty, hid the infant in a chest without telling the gods and entrusted him to Persephone. When Persephone saw him, she would not give him back. Zeus decided that the year be divided into three parts: Adonis would spend one part by himself, one with Persephone and one with Aphrodite; Adonis gave his own share to Aphrodite. Later, hunting, he was gored by a boar and died, through the anger of Artemis (Library 3.14.3–4). Ovid tells how Aphrodite mourned him and made the anemone spring from his blood (Metamorphoses 10.503–739).

Aphrodite and Anchises

In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5), Zeus put desire in Aphrodite for Anchises, a mortal herdsman of Mount Ida. She dressed herself like a young girl and came to him, and told him she was a Phrygian, the daughter of Otreus, whom Hermes had taken from the dance of Artemis. They lay together, and when he woke, she revealed her divinity and told him he would have a son, Aeneas, who would be raised by mountain nymphs. She warned him not to boast of the affair, and that Zeus would strike him with a thunderbolt if he did (Hymn 5.45–291). Aeneas becomes the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Aphrodite (Venus) protects her son throughout. In the Iliad, she is wounded by Diomedes while carrying Aeneas from the battle (Iliad 5.311–354).

Aphrodite and Paris

Aphrodite is also at the centre of the judgment that led to the Trojan War. According to Apollodorus’ Epitome, Strife threw an apple as a prize for beauty to be contested by Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, and Zeus commanded Hermes to lead them to Alexander (Paris) on Mount Ida. Hera promised him the kingdom over all men, Athena victory in war, and Aphrodite the hand of Helen; he decided in favour of Aphrodite (Epitome 3.2). Homer refers to the judgment only briefly, saying that Paris gave precedence to her who furthered his fatal lust (Iliad 24.25–30). Later Aphrodite forces Helen to go to Paris in the Iliad (Iliad 3.389–420).

Aphrodite, the Unforgiving

Aphrodite and Hippolytus

Euripides opens his Hippolytus with Aphrodite herself, who says that she honours those who respect her power and ruins those who vaunt themselves against her. Hippolytus, son of Theseus, honours Artemis above all goddesses and scorns love and marriage, and for this she will punish him by making his stepmother Phaedra fall in love with him (Hippolytus 1–57). Phaedra hangs herself and Hippolytus dies when Theseus curses him (Hippolytus 725–1266).

Aphrodite, Eos and Diomedes

Apollodorus says that Aphrodite caused Eos (Dawn) to be perpetually in love because she had lain with Ares (Library 1.4.4). Diomedes wounded Aphrodite during the Trojan War, and Dione, comforting Aphrodite, tells her that Diomedes should beware lest his wife Aegialeia wake the household with lamentation for her husband (Iliad 5.406–415).

Aphrodite and Psyche

In Apuleius, the Roman novelist, Venus was jealous of the honours paid to the mortal beauty Psyche, and asked her son Cupid to make her fall in love with the most miserable creature alive. Cupid instead wounded himself with his own weapons and fell in love with Psyche, and Venus punished her with a series of difficult tasks (Apuleius, Metamorphoses 4.28–6.24).

Aphrodite: Myths and Hidden Truths

The Origins of Aphrodite

Herodotus says that the Heavenly Aphrodite’s temple at Ascalon in Syria was the oldest of all, that the Cyprians say their own temple was founded from it, and that the Phoenicians founded the temple on Cythera (Herodotus 1.105). Pausanias writes that the Assyrians were the first to establish her cult, followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians at Ascalon, who taught the people of Cythera (1.14.7). He adds that the sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania on Cythera was the most ancient among the Greeks (3.23.1).

Pygmalion and Galatea

The story of Pygmalion is told by Ovid. Pygmalion, a sculptor of Cyprus, carved a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it, and prayed to Venus at her festival that he might have a wife like it; the goddess accepted his prayer and the statue came to life (Metamorphoses 10.243–297). Ovid does not name the woman; Galatea, the name by which she is now known, does not appear in any ancient source.

Aphrodite Sources

Homer, Iliad 3.389–420, 5.311–417, 14.214–217, 18.382, 24.25–30 and Odyssey 8.266–366; Hesiod, Theogony 120, 188–206, 353, 933–937, 945–946; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5, the longest of the three) and Homeric Hymn 6; Euripides, Hippolytus 1–57; Plato, Symposium 180d–e; Apollodorus, Library 1.1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4.4, 1.4.5, 3.4.2, 3.14.3–4 and Epitome 3.2; Diodorus Siculus 4.6, 4.23.2, 4.83.1; Herodotus 1.105; Pausanias 1.14.7, 1.20.1–2, 2.5.1, 3.23.1, 9.16.3–4, 9.27.5, 9.31.2, 10.15.1; Pliny, Natural History 7.127; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.243–297, 10.503–739; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 4–6. The longer Homeric Hymn, the Aeneid and Lucretius’ opening invocation of Venus (On the Nature of Things 1.1–43) are the best places to read about her.

See Also: Zeus, Dione, Cronus, Uranus, Hephaestus, Ares, Eros, Adonis