Aphrodite

**Aphrodite** (Αφροδιτη) was the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, sexuality, and procreation. She was claimed to either be the daughter of Uranus or Zeus and Dione. She is numbered amongst the Olympians. Aphrodite was usually depicted as a beautiful goddess, often nude and accompanied by Eros. Her sacred attributes include her girdle, a dove, a goose, a sparrow, a swan, myrtle, an apple, a scallop shell, and a mirror. In Roman mythology, Aphrodite was equated with Venus.

## Mythology

### Birth and marriage

There were two myths regarding the birth of Aphrodite. The first was that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. However, the more common myth concerning her birth was that she rose from the sea foam that was created from the castrated genitals of Uranus. After rising from the foam, she floated on a scallop shell on the sea to the island of Cyprus with the god Eros. It was said that Eros either was born with her or she gave birth to him shortly after her own birth.

Aphrodite was incredibly beautiful and was brought up to Olympus to be one of the Olympians. Zeus knew that her beauty would cause the other Olympians to fight so he quickly wed her to Hephaestus, the lame smith god. However, she did not love Hephaestus at all even though he loved her and made her many gifts, including her magic girdle that made the wearer beautiful and attractive.

Another version of how she was forced to marry Hephaestus was that, at birth, Hephaestus was thrown off of Mount Olympus by Hera because he was so hideous. As revenge, Hephaestus made a special throne which trapped his mother. In exchange for her release, he forced her to make Aphrodite marry him.

### Adonis

Myrrha was a beautiful Cyprian princess whose mother claimed her to be more beautiful than Aphrodite. In retaliation, Aphrodite caused Myrrha to fall in love with her own father, King Cinyras. After tricking him to have sex with her, Myrrha was impregnated. When she realizing what she had done, she went mad but was transformed into a myrrh tree. Even though she was a tree, she still managed to give birth to her son Adonis.

Even as a newborn infant, Adonis was incredibly beautiful like his mother. He was so beautiful, in fact, that Aphrodite fell in love with him. She brought the infant to Persephone in the Underworld to care for him until he was an adult. Once he was fully grown, Persephone refused to return him to Aphrodite. Angered at this, Aphrodite and Persephone went to Zeus. Zeus declared that Adonis would spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, another third with Persephone, and the final third of the year with whichever goddess; he always ended up spending two-thirds of every year with Aphrodite.

Adonis was eventually killed by a wild boar. When mourning his death, Aphrodite caused anemones to grow where his blood fell to the ground. His death is sometimes attributed to Ares, who was jealous of the love between Aphrodite and Adonis. His death is also sometimes attributed to Artemis.

After his death, he was still allowed to spend time with Persephone and Aphrodite as a spirit. He would spend six months with Persephone and six months with Aphrodite.

### Hippolytus

Hippolytus was a son of Theseus. Theseus was married to Phaedra who was not the mother of Hippolytus and, therefore, was his step-mother. Hippolytus refused to worship Aphrodite as he preferred to worship Artemis. Aphrodite cursed him so that his step-mother would fall in love with him. After rejecting her advances, Phaedra told Theseus that he had raped her. Angered at this allegation, Theseus used one of his wishes granted to him by Poseidon to curse Hippolytus. In one version of the myth, Poseidon sent a sea monster to scare the horses of Hippolytus, dragging him to his death. Another version states that his horses were scared by a bull sent by Dionysus. Either way, Hippolytus dies and Phaedra commits suicide at the guilt of his death.

### Trojan War

When Thetis was marrying the mortal man Peleus, all of the gods were invited to their wedding except Eris due to her nature. Angered by this, she threw a beautiful golden apple into the wedding that was marked "to the fairest". Three goddesses claimed that this apple was meant for them: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. The three goddesses could not settle this disagreement between themselves so they went to Zeus. Zeus didn't want to decide between the goddesses so he told Paris to decide. Each of the goddesses offered Paris gifts and rewards to pick them but he ended up choosing Aphrodite who offered him the love of Helen of Troy.

Aphrodite kept her word and caused Helen to fall in love with Paris. The only problem was that Helen was already married to King Menelaus. Paris took Helen from Troy, which was the main cause of the Trojan War. Aphrodite is typically said to have caused the Trojan War.

During the Trojan War, Aphrodite saved her son Aeneas from Diomedes. However, Aphrodite was injured by Diomedes while saving her son.

### Glaucus

Glaucus offended Aphrodite by either directly scorning her or by not allowing his horses to breed in order to make them faster. During the funeral games of Pelias, Aphrodite drove Glaucus' horses mad which caused them to drag Glaucus to his death.

### Polyphonte

Polyphonte was a mortal woman who devoted her live to remaining a virgin and following the goddess Artemis. This upset Aphrodite so she caused her to fall in love and have sex with a bear. Artemis was disgused with Polyphonte so she returned to her father, Hipponous. Polyphonte became the mother of Agrius and Oreius.

## Other names

* Aphrodite Ourania (meaning "Heavenly Aphrodite")
* Aphrodite Pandemos (meaning "Aphrodite common to all the people")
* Cypris (meaning "Lady of Cyprus")
* Cytherea (meaning "Lady of Cythera")