Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty and desire. No one, mortal or god, can resist her charm and the power of her magic girdle, which makes anyone fall in love. To the Romans she was Venus, mother of Aeneas and so ancestor of the Roman people.
Two births
According to Hesiod, Aphrodite was born from the sea foam that formed when the blood of Uranus, maimed by Cronus, fell into the waves; the wind carried her first towards the island of Kythira and then to Cyprus, where she came ashore on a shell. Her name was explained by the Greek word aphros, "foam". According to Homer, she was the daughter of Zeus and the goddess Dione. The foam birth inspired one of the world's most famous paintings, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, in the Uffizi in Florence.
Loves and family
Zeus gave her as wife to Hephaestus, the lame, ugly smith god, but Aphrodite preferred Ares, god of war. Her most famous son is Eros, the winged boy whose arrows make gods and mortals fall in love; to the Romans Cupid. From her love for the Trojan Anchises was born Aeneas.
Main myths
- The Judgement of Paris: at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris, Strife, threw among the goddesses a golden apple inscribed "To the fairest". Hera, Athena and Aphrodite claimed it, and Zeus left the choice to the Trojan prince Paris. Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, and won. It was the start of the Trojan War.
- Adonis: Aphrodite loved the handsome young hunter Adonis, killed by a boar. Anemones sprang from his blood, and the goddess obtained that he should spend part of every year with her.
- Pygmalion: the sculptor fell in love with the statue of a woman he had carved; Aphrodite brought her to life. See metamorphoses.
- Atalanta: thanks to golden apples given by Aphrodite, Hippomenes won the race against swift Atalanta and married her.
Her cult
Her most important sanctuaries were on Cyprus, at Paphos, on Kythira and at Corinth, where her temple stood on the Acrocorinth. Her sacred plants were the rose and myrtle, her animals the dove and the sparrow.
See also the twelve Olympians.