Aphrodite
Goddess of Love and Desire
Aphrodite
Aphrodite was the goddess of love,
symbolizing intoxicating sexuality
and beauty.
The word for a sudden, irresistible
urge is “an aphrodite” – “I have an
aphrodite for some chocolate and if
I don’t get some soon I’ll die!”
She was the only goddess portrayed
nude in Greek art (where male
nudity was normal but female
nudity was exceptional).
She violated many of the most basic
social limitations on women.
she was famous for her affair with Ares,
and was more often shown with him
than with her husband in Greek and
Roman art.
Married to Hephaestus,
She also had affairs with
mortals, acting more like a
god than a goddess:
Anchises, by whom she bore
the Trojan hero Aeneas, who
later founded Rome, and
Adonis, who was killed by a
wild boar during a hunt.
Her affair with Ares
produced Eros, and her affair
with Hermes produced
Hermaphroditus.
Not your average housewife.
Aphrodite’s birth
There are two competing stories of her
origins. Probably most Greeks didn’t
worry about this “conflict.”
Aphrodite Urania (heavenly
Aphrodite):
Hesiod tells us she is born from the
severed genitals of Uranus and seafoam (aphros). So she was:
•older than the gods
•born from elemental priciples, with
no mother but the sea
•sister to the Furies and forest nymphs
Aphrodite Pandemos
(Aphrodite of the people)
Homer (and most other
sources) show Aphrodite as
the daughter of Zeus by Dione
(whose name means simply
“goddess” and who never
appears again). So she is:
•integrated into the Olympic
family, subject to her father’s
authority
•a little wild, feminine and
frivolous
Aphrodite, Eros and Pan - ca. 100 B.C. E.
Paphos
Iconography of Aphrodite
The Graces and the Horae
These are the
companions of
Aphrodite.
Greek myth
abounds with
female groups.
The Graces and Horae
show the Greek
tendency to personify
ideas, and also to
envision a “collective
feminine.”
The pleasing,
sensuous motif of
Aphrodite adorned
by the Graces and
Horae remains
powerful in Greek
art: a characteristic
moment.
Roman Mosaic from Tunis, 3rd c. CE
I shall sing about beautiful and revered Aphrodite of the golden
crown, who holds as her domain the battlements of sea-girt
Cyprus. The moist force of the west wind brought her there
amidst the soft foam on the waves of the resounding sea. The
gold-bedecked Horae gladly received her and clothed her in divine
garments. On her immortal head they placed a crown of gold . . .
Aphrodite’s
rising from the
sea is another
common
image. Though
she is not a sea
goddess, the
lush watery
images are very
sexual.
In her pierced ears, they placed flowers of copper and precious
gold. About her soft neck and silvery breasts they adorned her
with necklaces of gold, the kind that beautify the Horae
themselves when they go to the home of their father. Then they
led her to the immortals, who took her into their welcoming
hands, and each god prayed that she would be his wedded wife and
he would bring her home . . .
Here is the same motif in a Celtic-influenced stele from
England. The goddess and her nymphs are evocative in
many cultures.
Origins of Aphrodite
Goddess of love and sex, associated with the ocean and the
East (Cyprus), and also with the morning star (the planet
Venus), Aphrodite may be linked with other Eastern
goddesses, especially Inanna.
Like Aphrodite, Inanna was a
goddess of sexual pleasure (shown
here with her consort Dumuzi),
associated with the morning star.
She had further importance as a
goddess of the date palm
(agricultural fertility), warfare, and
the communal storehouse.
Shown here with
the lion (her
rejected lover?)
and emblems of
war, Inanna
looks very
different from
“Golden
Aphrodite” What other goddess is seen
with lions?
But she had similar cultural
functions. Tivka Frymer-Kensky
observes,
What Greek goddesses are associated
with owls and wild animals?
“[The] goddess Inanna . . . serves
the important role of modeling
a role that women were not
expected to fill and that was not
considered socially desirable.
She represents the
nondomesticated woman, and
exemplifies all the fear and
attraction that such a woman
elicits. She is the exception to
the rule, the woman who does
not behave in societally
approved ways. . .
“[She is] a woman in a man’s life . . .
dangerous, fearsome and
threatening because of her freedom,
and yet, at the same time, appealing
and attractive . . . the ultimate
femme fatale” (25, 29).
Aphrodite’s marital infidelity,
leisured indulgence of her own
beauty, liaisons with not only other
gods but mortals too, and
independent life, were anathema to
a woman’s role in the real Greek
family.
But both men and women loved and
honored her . . .
Sappho
Sappho was the
foremost female poet
of the Greek world,
called “The Tenth
Muse.” Her poetry
portrays Aphrodite as a
powerful, often
supportive and loving,
but also unpredictable
goddess. The
relationship between
poet and goddess
seems almost intimate.
Sappho and Alcaeus, 5 c BCE Athenian
vase painting
Sappho’s hymn to
Aphrodite
Exquisitely enthroned,
immortal Aphrodite, weaver
of charms, child of Zeus, I
beg you, reverend lady, do
not crush my heart with
sickness and distress. But
come to me here, if ever
once before you heard my
cry from afar and listened
and, leaving your father’s
house, yoked your chariot
of gold. Beautiful birds drew
you swiftly from heaven
over the black earth through
the air between the rapid
flutter of their downy wings.
“Who, Sappho, has
wronged you? For if she
runs away now, soon she
will follow; if she rejects
your gifts, she will bring
gifts herself; if she does
not now, soon she will
love, even though she
does not wish it.”
Swiftly they came and you, O blessed
goddess, smiling in your immortal
beauty asked what I wished to happen
most of all in my frenzied heart.
“Who is it this time that you desire
that Persuasion entice to your love?
Come to me now too
and free me from my
harsh anxieties; all my
heart longs for,
accomplish. You, your
very self, stand with me
in my conflict.
Worship
The most
common offering
to Aphrodite was
a dove: the
sacrifice was
individual and
private, not
public. This
reflects a sense of
intimacy in
worshipping her.
This Roman wall painting shows a small private shrine to Venus in
a woodland setting.
A woman worshipper with
a tympanon (signifying
ecstatic celebration) and
an image of the goddess
…
…And another with an
offering bowl and a
dove for sacrifice …
Sanctuaries
Emperor Hadrian’s reconstruction of the Cnidus temple
for his own private villa
Aphrodite also
had significant
public
sanctuaries,
which were
both sacred
sites and tourist
attractions.
One was
Cnidus.
At this site, the famous cult statue was displayed in the midst of an
open, circular temple. The goddess moved everyone with her
beauty, showing her sexual power – or was she an objectified female
in a voyeuristic setting? The conflicting readings are so common in
trying to understand sexuality in this patriarchal culture.
The cult statue of
Cnidus was
famous and much
admired, therefore
much copied, but
we have only a
fragment of a
Roman copy
preserved.
Late Classical*
Aphrodite of Cnidos
torso (fragment of
Greco-Roman copy
after cult statue by
Praxiteles – original ca.
350-340 B.C.)
Another of Aphrodite’s most famous temples was in
Corinth, on the Acrocorinth (high citadel). Prostitutes
served the goddess there. (And the customers. . .)
To get there,
you had to
climb one
huge hill!
Goddess of Prostitutes
Aphrodite was the
goddess of
prostitutes –
everyone needs a
patron deity, and
who else would
serve?
These figurines are
sometimes defined
as Aphrodite, but
they may represent
real exotic dancers.
The costume is
attested in other
sources.
Priapus
Also associated with
Aphrodite is Priapus, an
easily recognizable figure.
He’s Aphrodite’s son, but
who’s the daddy? Adonis,
Pan, Zeus, Hermes and
Dionysus are all candidates.
Priapus is a fertility figure,
another one who inhabits
the “mailbox position” in a
Greek or Roman house.
This fresco is from the
entrance hall of a wealthy
house in Pompeii (1st c. CE)
Golden Aphrodite also had a child by Hermes. He took
after his mom in some ways . . .
And his dad in others . . .
Actually Hermaphroditus began as a man, but was
magically united with a nymph who loved him, and that’s
how he ended with characteristics of both sexes.
Aphrodite and Adonis
Eros
But Aphrodite’s most notable
offspring is her son, Eros.
Like her, he has dual origins, a primal
presence in Hesiod and a more tame,
conventional genealogy.
He is shown as a desirable young
man, often winged. With his bow,
he shoots love arrows into his
victims, though he has other
methods . . .
M360
Eros, the blond god of lovers, strikes
me with a purple ball and asks me to
play with a girl wearing colorful
sandals . . .
(Anacreon)
Here Eros is shown
more as an emblem,
or a spirit, or a child,
rather than as a
young man.
On this model egg
he is enticing a
woman to love. On
the flip side of the
vase, two young
men (her suitors?)
look on.
Model egg, from a tomb, 420-400 BCE
In his dialog, the
Symposium, Plato
shows the philosopher
Socrates discussing the
nature of Love.
Socrates and his friends
use the personified
figure of Eros as a
metaphor for the
nature of profound
ideas about life and
love.
Plato’s Symposium
Plato’s Symposium
Aristophanes, a comic
playwright, gives a
comic story of
separation of fourlegged, four armed,
two-headed lovers.
Is this what you desire, to be together as much as possible and
never to be separated … the happiness of our race lies in the
fulfillment of love; each must find the beloved that is his … a
beloved who is of one and the same mind and nature …
Plato’s Symposium
Socrates quotes Diotima, a
hetaira who showed him that
love, though it begins with
physical attraction, must
mature into embracing the
good and the beautiful:
He will realize that beauty in the soul is
more precious than that in the body …
he will beget beautiful ideas … he will
see the beauty in morals and laws and
that the beauty in all of them is related.
finis
Aphrodite and Eros before a bride