Febuary is the month of love and who better embody s that notion then the
goddess of love herself, i'm referring of course to Aphrodite.
Aphrodite is a greek goddess of love know for her stunning beauty.
though she also played a large part in the trojan war and was notorious for
her many sorted affairs.
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She is a goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. Her symbols are roses, myrtles, doves, sparrows, and swans.......
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She has an odd origin story ..
Aphrodite was born from the god Uranus severed genitalia that had been
thrown into the sea near Cyprus.
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When Cronos castrated his father Uranus (Ouranos) with a sickle and threw
the genitalia into the sea, soon after Aphrodite appeared amidst the resulting sea foam.
In another versions, shes the daughter of Zeus and Dione, the Titaness.
Hesiod recounts the first version and Homer the second, though the ancient Greeks had differing opinions on the two versions of her origin, some preferring the first and others the second.
With her birth near Cyprus, Aphrodite was especially worshiped in Paphos on the island -
Greece and the Near East had extensive cultural exchange prior to the 8th-century BCE Archaic Period,
during the 5th-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus states that the most ancient cult site to Aphrodite was at Ascalon in Syria.
This hints at her eastern origins as a fertility goddess and possible evolution from the Phoenician goddess Astarte or the Near Eastern Inanna (Ishtar). It is also possible that the goddess derived from an entirely local Cypriot deity.
The strong association with the island is evidenced in her common name,
Cypris, meaning ‘of Cyprus’.
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The cult of Aphrodite was believed to be largely derived from or at least heavenly influenced by the Phoenician goddess Astarte, or goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna.
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Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens.
Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually during the midsummer.
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In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshiped as a warrior goddess.
The goddess of love was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, this association led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
Aphrodite's main festival, the Aphrodisia, was celebrated all across Greece, but especially in Athens and Corinth.
In Athens, the Aphrodisia was celebrated on the fourth day of the month of Hekatombaion in honor of Aphrodite's role in the unification of Attica.
During this festival, the priests of Aphrodite would purify the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos on the southwestern slope of the Acropolis with the blood of a sacrificed dove. Next, the altars would be anointed and the cult statues of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho would be escorted in a majestic procession to a place where they would be ritually bathed. Aphrodite was also honored in Athens as part of the Arrhephoria festival.
The fourth day of every month was sacred to Aphrodite.
Pausanias records state that in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshiped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike".
This name is derived from her connection to Ares the god of war.
Pausanias also records that, in Sparta and on Cythera, a number of extremely ancient cult statues of Aphrodite portrayed her bearing arms. well Other cult statues showed her bound in chains.
Aphrodite was the patron goddess of prostitutes of all kinds, ranging from pornai (cheap street prostitutes typically owned as slaves by wealthy pimps) to hetairai (expensive, well-educated hired companions, who were usually self-employed and sometimes provided sex to their customers).
The city of Corinth was renowned throughout the ancient world for its many hetairai, who had a widespread reputation for being among the most skilled, as well as the most expensive prostitutes in the Greek world. Corinth also had a major temple to Aphrodite located on the Acrocorinth and was one of the main centers of her cult.
Records of numerous dedications to Aphrodite made by successful courtesans have survived in poems and pottery inscriptions to this day.
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In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking.
Being the goddess of love, she had many partners as such she was a somewhat unfaithful wife, prone to several affairs with other gods and even mortals.
A few of her Olympian trysts include, Ares, Hermes, and Dionysos.
In the Iliad, Aphrodite is the unmarried consort of Ares, the god of war, and the wife of Hephaestus is a different goddess named Charis.
in Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is unmarried and the wife of Hephaestus is Aglaea, the youngest of the three Charites.
but
In Book Eight of the Odyssey, the blind singer Demodocus describes Aphrodite as the wife of Hephaestus and tells how she committed adultery with Ares during the Trojan War.
Hephaistos, was a crafty god and a master engineer, he built a special golden bed to catch his wife in the act.
One day when Aphrodite and Ares were in the middle of their most resent hook up, the bed sprang forth a golden net which locked the naked god's in their illicit embrace. Afterwards Helios the sun god shone down his bright light on the couple so that all of Olympus could get a good look at their disgrace and embarrassment. they where eventually freed, Ares later fled to Thrace and Aphrodite back to Cyprus.
Other stories came about in later years to explain Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus.
In the most famous story, Zeus hastily married Aphrodite to Hephaestus in order to prevent the other gods from fighting over her.
In another version of the tale, Hephaestus gave his mother Hera a golden throne, but when she sat on it, she became trapped and he refused to let her go until she agreed to give him Aphrodite's hand in marriage.
The Trojan War...
In Homer’s description of the Trojan War in the Iliad, Aphrodite is described as ‘golden’ and ‘smiling’ and supports the Trojans in the war.
During a few notable events during the Trojan war Aphrodite protects her son Aeneas from Diomedes and saves the hapless Paris from the wrath of Menelaos.
Aphrodite is cited as partly responsible for the Trojan War. At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris (goddess of strife) offered a golden apple for the most beautiful goddess.
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-----------The Judgment of Paris-----------
The myth of the Judgement of Paris was only briefly mentioned in the Iliad, but is described in length in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle, which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual
parents of Achilles).
All except Eris, the goddess of discord, she was not invited. maybe her invitation was just lost in the mail lol....
Eris was angered by this insult, so she crashed the wedding bringing with her a golden apple inscribed with the word(kallistei, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses.
Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.
The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses over the other, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince. After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision.
In some versions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is depicted fully nude, in others she is not, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed.
However since the Renaissance, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked.
All three goddesses were the personification of beauty and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes.
Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe, and Athena offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, but Aphrodite promised Paris that, if he were to choose her as the fairest, she would let him marry the most beautiful mortal woman on earth.
This woman was Helen, who unfortunately for Paris was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta.
Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the golden apple.
The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.
Aphrodite plays an important and active role throughout the entirety of Homer's Iliad. In Book III, she rescues Paris from Menelaus after he foolishly challenges him to a one-on-one duel. She then appears to Helen in the form of an old woman and attempts to persuade her to have sex with Paris, reminding her of his physical beauty and athletic prowess.
Helen immediately recognizes Aphrodite by her beautiful neck, perfect breasts, and flashing eyes
and chides the goddess, addressing her as her equal. Aphrodite sharply rebukes Helen, reminding her that, if helen angers her, she will punish her just as much as she has favored her already.
Helen demurely obeys Aphrodite's command.
In Book V, Aphrodite charges into battle to rescue her son Aeneas from the Greek hero Diomedes.
Diomedes recognizes Aphrodite as a "weakling" goddess and, thrusting his spear, nicks her wrist through her "ambrosial robe".Aphrodite borrows Ares's chariot to ride back to Mount Olympus.
Zeus chides her for putting herself in danger, reminding her that "her specialty is love, not war."
According to Walter Burkert, this scene directly parallels a scene from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh in which Ishtar, Aphrodite's Akkadian precursor, cries to her mother Antu after the hero Gilgamesh rejects her sexual advances, but is mildly rebuked by her father Anu.
In the Theomachia in Book XXI, Aphrodite again enters the battlefield to carry Ares away after he is wounded.
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In addition to her associations with doves, Aphrodite was also closely linked with sparrows and she is described riding in a chariot pulled by sparrows in Sappho's "Ode to Aphrodite".
In ancient Greek pottery Aphrodite was frequently seen appearing with doves and the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos on the southwest slope of the Athenian Acropolis was also decorated with relief sculptures of doves with knotted fillets in their beaks. Votive offerings of small, white, marble doves were also discovered in the temple of Aphrodite at Daphni.
and
Because of her connections to the sea, Aphrodite was often associated with different types of water fowl, including swans, geese, and ducks.
Aphrodite's other symbols included the sea, conch shells, and roses.
The rose and myrtle flowers were both sacred to Aphrodite.
Her most important fruit emblem was the apple, but she was also associated with pomegranates, possibly because the red seeds suggested sexuality or because Greek women sometimes used pomegranates as a method of birth control.
In Greek art, Aphrodite is often also accompanied by dolphins and Nereids.
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==Sappho's "Ode to Aphrodite===
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Rich-throned immortal Aphrodite,
scheming daughter of Zeus, I pray you,
with pain and sickness, Queen, crush not my heart,
but come, if ever in the past you heard my voice from afar and hearkened,
and left your father's halls and came, with gold
chariot yoked; and pretty sparrows
brought you swiftly across the dark earth
fluttering wings from heaven through the air.
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Ok thats all for now, hope you all have a fun Valentines Day!
Next post will be up in a week or so.
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