Aphrodite (Venus): Origin, Lovers, Sex | Early European History And Religion

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APHRODITE

Botticelli's Birth of Venus; Venus was the Roman name for Aphrodite

Aphrodite (Venus to Romans) was the goddess of love, beauty, and desire. Her origin in the pantheon of the gods is not clear. Homer wrote she was daughter of Zeus and Dione, a Titan goddess. Others stories have rising from the Poseidon’s sea on a cushion of foam (portrayed in the famous Botticelli painting as stepping out of a clamshell) and was carried to the shore by the west wind Zephyrus, who was enchanted by her beauty. Once on land, she was befriended by the Graces — goddesses of beauty — who escorted her to Mt. Olympus, where the gods, with the exception of Hera, found her so beautiful that they decided to accept her.

Marianne Bonz wrote for PBS’s Frontline: “The daughter of Zeus by yet another minor female deity, Aphrodite was the personification of female beauty. Although all of the Olympian goddesses were beautiful in their way, only Aphrodite exuded charm and seduction. Although she may have originated as a fertility goddess, she is known primarily as the goddess of love. Her devotees ranged from unmarried girls and widows, seeking to obtain husbands, to courtesans, some of whom served in her temples. It is perhaps no surprise therefore that sailors were among her most frequent worshipers! [Source: Marianne Bonz, Frontline, PBS, April 1998 ]

According to one story Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus, after his son threw them into the sea. Aphrodite's husband was Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan), god of fire, volcanoes, and invention. The other gods mocked Hephaestus because he was lame and ugly and also because of Aphrodite's adulteries, such as her love affair with the god of war, Ares (Roman Mars).

Aphrodite had a military side. Debra Kelly wrote in Listverse. In some areas of ancient Greece, the cults of Aphrodite and Ares (God of War) are closely connected. The two had an adulterous love affair that resulted in four children—Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Anteros, and Harmonia. For this reason, it’s not too much of a stretch to see why she’s also associated with war.Statues and depictions of an armored—and armed—Aphrodite have been found in port cities, supporting textual evidence that she was often appealed to by merchants, sailors, and other travelers for smooth seas. Aphrodite was also known as a guardian of naval officers and a protector of civil law. She was a common goddess for magistrates and other political figures to worship and perform sacrifices to, as it was thought she would bless them with harmony and a peaceful relationship with their subjects. In the writings of Aristotle, there is mention of a particular group of civil authorities called the gynaikonomoi, who worship Aphrodite. These civic officials were charged with the regulation of women’s appearance, dress, and actions in public and ensuring their proper treatment. [Source Debra Kelly, Listverse, December 17, 2013]

Aphrodite, Love and Sex

Aphrodite was concerned with beauty and procreation. She held a special place in the hearts of sailors. Her sacred bird is a dove or swans which drive her heavenly chariot. A temple that honored her in Corinth employed 1,000 hospitality girls (prostitutes) and the verb "to Corinthize" later became synonymous with sexual immorality.

Zeus like every god was so struck with her beauty he wanted her marry but Aphrodite turned him down as she had every other deity. Zeus got even by forcing her to marry his ugly son Hephaestrus (Vulcan), who built a lovely palace in Cyprus but was ultimately dumped by Aphrodite for Hephaestrus’s handsome brother Ares (Mars). One of their children was Eros (Cupid). Aphrodite’s true love was Adonis, who was killed in a boar hunt.

Aphrodite was known for helping lovers who needed her help. She gave orders to Cupid to shoot golden arrows into the hearts of lovers who wanted to get married and lent out her magic girdle that made its wearer irresistible. Her powers to induce love were such that she even made Zeus fall in love with mortals and helped Paris win the love of Helen of Troy. Myths involving her include: 1) Adonis and Aphrodite, 2) The Race of Atalanta, 3) Hero and Leander.

Ward Hazell wrote in Listverse: Aphrodite was said to have had a number of lovers, both mortal and divine, including Ares, the Olympian god of war.Ares, who represents destruction and brutality, was beloved by no one, except Aphrodite. Zeus called Ares “the most hateful of all the gods.” Aphrodite, however, saw something in him and had many children with him, despite being married to his brother, Hephaestus. Hephaestus laid a trap for the two lovers, who were caught in an invisible net which had been laid over her bed.Aphrodite was partly responsible for the outbreak of the Trojan War, offering Paris the most beautiful woman in the world if he named her the most beautiful goddess. He did, and she chose Helen, the queen of Sparta, thus precipitating a ten-year war.Though Aphrodite is usually depicted naked, or nearly naked, she sometimes is shown wearing the armor of Ares. It is said that she wore his armor while he slept and used his highly polished shield as a mirror to admire her beauty. The depiction is also a reminder of her power for good or ill. [Source Ward Hazell, Listverse, August 31, 2019]

Origin of Aphrodite

Aphrodite is believed to be of Eastern (Asiatic) origin. Herodotus said that her oldest place of worship as Aphrodite Ourania was at Askalon in on the coast of Palestine. She has been linked to Inanna (Sumer in Mesopotamia), Ishtar (Babylon), Astarte (western Middle East, Rome), and Mylitta.

Venus and Adonis
Aphrodite is widely believed to be a metamorphosis of the Babylonian God Ishtar and other earth-mother goddesses that existed before her. She was similar to other Mediterranean fertility gods like Anat of Syria. Some scholars believe she may have ultimately been Semitic in origin.

Aphrodite means "Foamborn" Her name is the source of the word "aphrodisiac." and this is thought to allude to two things: her birth and the "foam around semen." It is said ‘aphros’ comes ‘foam’ according to Hesiod Theogony, but this is a very ancient popular etymology, and in fact does not linguistically explain the "-dite" part of the name. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class]

Places associated with Aphrodite: 1) Cyprus, the island, from which she is named Kypris Paphos a city on the Island of Cyprus; 2) Knidos a seaport in southwest Turkey (Asia Minor); and 3) Kythera an island between the Peloponnese and Crete that belonged to the Spartans and here her consort was Ares!

Did Aphrodite Evolve from the Mesopotamian Goddess Ishtar (Inanna)

Aphrodite and her story appear to have their roots in the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar (Inanna) and her story. Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. On top of this she was known as Ourania, which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven. [Source: Wikipedia]

Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess; the A.D. second-century Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in the oldest strata of her worship, and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins.

Nineteenth-century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but, even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of Asian influence during the eighth century B.C., when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Lovers, Children, Friends and Enemies of Aphrodite

Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus (Vulcan), the son of Hera and Zeus and brother of Ares (Mars). She had affairs with: 1) Ares, son of Zeus and Hera, her brother-in-law, producing the children: Eros (Cupid), Deimos ('terror') and Phobos ('fear'), Harmonia; 2) Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia, her brother-in-law, producing the child: Hermaphroditus (half male, half female); 3) Dionysus, son of Zeus and Semele of Thebes, her brother-in-law, producing the child: Priapus, the god with the huge penis; and 4) Poseidon, producing the child: Eryx (who is also a mountain at the west end of Sicily, where there was a famous temple of the Semitic Aphrodite). [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class]

Enemies and Victims of Aphrodite: 1) Hippolytus, son of Theseus, king of Athens, and Hippolyte the Amazon queen (Euripides' play Hippolytus); 2) Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and his daughters, who were condemned to betray all their marriages with adultery. The most famous daughter was Helen of Troy, but also her sister Clytamnestra, who married Agamemnon of Mycenae (Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Sophocles, Electra, Euripides Electra). 3) Minos, king of Knossos in Crete: his wife Pasiphae (mother of Ariadne and Phaedra) was made to fall in love with a bull, from which came the Minotaur (the Bull of Minos).

Friends of Aphrodite: 1) Anchises, a Trojan prince (son of Capys, son of Assaracus, son of Tros), which produced AENEAS the first 'Founder' of Rome and ancestor of the Julian Family (Julius Caesar, the Emperor Augustus).; 2) Adonis, killed by a boar (son of Myrrha); 3) Ammuz, or Dumuzi, who is in the Sumerian king list as the predecessor of Gilgamesh as king of Erech (Uruk). He would thus belong ca. 3000/2800 B.C. Gilgamesh mentions his fate in the epic.

Temple Prostitutes and Aphrodite

Many prostitutes and courtesans worshipped Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and would use their earnings to pay for dedications and ritualistic celebrations in honour of the goddess. Some prostitutes also viewed the action of sexual service and sexual pleasure as an act of devotion to the goddess of love, worshipping Aphrodite through an act rather than a physical dedication. [Source Wikipedia]

Sacred prostitution within the Temples of Aphrodite in the city of Corinth was well-known. Strabo wrote in “Geographia,” (c. 20 A.D.) about Greece around 550 B.C: “The temple of Aphrodite in Corinth was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves — prostitutes — whom both free men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these temple-prostitutes that the city was crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, "Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth."” In the same work, Strabo compares Corinth to the city of Comana, confirming the belief that temple prostitution was a notable characteristic of Corinth.

Prostitutes performed sacred functions within the temple of Aphrodite. They would often burn incense in honor of Aphrodite. Chameleon of Heracleia recorded in his book, On Pindar, that whenever the city of Corinth prayed to Aphrodite in manners of great importance, many prostitutes were invited to participate in the prayers and petitions.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024