Aphrodite

Heavenly Queen, Queen For All the Folk, Lady of the Doves, Laughter-Loving, Most Attractive, Lady of Cyprus, Lady of Cytherea, Mistress, Shapely One, Armed One, Unholy One, Dark One, Killer of Men, Gravedigger...

## Relationships

### Parents

Astaroth (Father)
Astarte (Mother)

### Siblings

**Half-Brothers**
Turan, Salazar Slytherin
**Half-Sister**
Whore of Babylon

### Romances

Hephaestus (Ex-Husband)
Ares, Khaos, Hermes, Dionysus, Anchises...

### Children

**Immortal Sons**
Eros, Deimos, Himeros, Hymenaeus, Erotes...
**Mortal Sons**
Aeneas, Michael Kahale, James Dean...
**Immortal Daughters**
Peitho, Phobos, Harmonia, Beroe, Golgos...
**Mortal Daughters**
Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe, Silena Beauregard, Drew Tanaka, Piper McLean, Valentina Diaz...

## Personal Status

### Ranking

Principal God
Elder Campion

### Affliations

Mount Olympus
Olympian Deities
Greco-Roman Deities
Greco-Roman Pantheon
Astaroth Clan (Relatives)

### Abilities

**Infernal Energy*** Love Manipulation
* Desire Manipulation
* Passion Manipulation
* Energy Manipulation

### Power Scale

**Rank**: EX-Ranked
**Class**: Primordial-Class

## Portrayal

### English VA

Cherami Leigh

**Aphrodite**, also called **Venus**, is the Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Sexuality from Greco-Roman Mythology. As one of the Twelve Olympians, she is a ruler of Mount Olympus with immense authority over the Greco-Roman Pantheon.

Later on, it's revealed that she isn't a true pagan goddess but rather a Cambion, daughter of the demon Astaroth with Astarte, a witch worshiped by ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians as a false god.

## Overview

**Aphrodite** is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess *Venus*. Aphrodite's major symbols include myrtles, roses, doves, and swans.

The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer.

In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.

In Hesiod's *Theogony*, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam produced by Uranus's genitals. In Homer's *Iliad*, however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Plato, in his *Symposium* 180e, asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities: Aphrodite Ourania (a transcendent, "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people"). Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess, or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as **Cytherea** (*Lady of Cythera*) and **Cypris** (*Lady of Cyprus*), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth.

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers; in the *Odyssey*, she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares, the god of war.

In the *First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite*, she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises. Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar. Along with Athena and Hera, Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and she plays a major role throughout the *Iliad*.

Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature. She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions, including the Church of Aphrodite, Wicca, and Hellenismos.

## Appearance

As the most beautiful and desirable goddess in mythology, Aphrodite's true appearance is actually unknown as she would appear to others as their personal epitome of physical attraction.

In her most common form, she appears as a breathtakingly beautiful young woman in her early 20s. Her golden hair reaches past her waist and the front pieces of her hair are tied back with a red bow. Her eyes are described as being dazzling and enchanting like pools of spring water.

## Personality

Aphrodite is temperamental, crafty, flirtatious, smart and free as love or the sea or the winds, incapable of being contained or restrained. Although she is as capricious as the domain she presides over, she can be truly sweet, loving, and passionate, and she has a faith in love that is absolute and true. She can also be gentle and gracious to those she favors, and she deeply cares for her children as well as their fathers.

Presiding over the most powerful of human feelings, she has great insight into mortal emotions, as well as mortal nature by extension. It is nearly impossible to disagree with her. She also is shown to be good-natured and cheerful, looking at the bright side of most, if not all, situations. According to Chiron, she is one of the most motherly goddesses in the pantheon.

However, just like how the myths portrayed her, she has a darker side that can only be described as "demonic". She is cruel, sadistic, and vindictive against those who either disrespect her or refuse to worship and respect the goddess. She also has a deep grudge against those who have "perverted" notions of love, or those who use love as an excuse for the horrible actions they have committed.

She seems to be embarrassed being a cambion or even connected to her demon father, Astaroth. She tries to distance herself from her demonic heritage as hard as possible, even hiding it from the rest of the world, only revealing it to those she's extremely close to such as Hephaestus or the Elder Olympians.

## Trivia

* Her name "Aphrodite" means "from sea-foam".
* Her attributes include the rose, seashell, pearl, mirror, girdle, anemone, lettuce, narcissus.
	+ Her sacred animals are dolphin, sparrow, dove, swan, hare, goose, bee, fish, butterfly.
	+ Her sacred trees are myrrh, myrtle, apple, and pomegranate.
* Due to her divine origins, she is secretly categorized as a New God.
* Ancient Greek art often depicted her as nude.
* She used (and still uses) a swan-drawn car to glide easily through the air.
* In some versions, she is actually the daughter of Zeus, and an Oceanid named Dione.
* Some myths say one of her parents was Thalassa, the primordial sea goddess impregnated by Ouranos' severed genitalia.
* Her centers of worship were numerous, Cyprus (and Paphos) in particular as it is the place where she came to shore after rising from the sea.
* The Temple of Aphrodite situated on the acrocorinth, the acropolis of ancient Corinth, was famous for its temple prostitution (employing some thousand of *hetairas*), which contributed to the city's vast wealth, making it a rival to Athens and Thebes.
* Her name is the inspiration for *aphrodisiac*.
* The planet Venus is named after her Roman alias.