Aphrodite
Biography
Aphrodite was said to have been the most beautiful and sensual of all the goddesses. There are varying stories of her birth. One story holds that she was born from the loins of Uranus, when his sex was severed from him and thrown into the sea: Aphrodite emerged from the sea foam—a daughter of the sea, which is why one of the most famous images of her in artistic expression is of the goddess emerging from the sea (Graves). Homer in the Iliad indicated that Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Regardless of her origin story, Aphrodite served a central role in the back story of Greece, particularly when it came to her feud with Hera and Athena over who was the most beautiful of all.
Aphrodite was said to have married Hephaestus, the god of blacksmithing. She was also said to have had many paramours, including one with Ares, the god of war. One story told is that Aphrodite and Ares were caught making love by Hephaestus in his very bed and that he caught them in a metal net that he made. He then had the gods and goddesses come and mock the adulterers, but not all did, and Hephaestus agreed to release them. Aphrodite went to Cyprus and was comforted by the Charites also known as Gracs.
One of Aphrodite’s constant companions is Eros, the god of erotic love. Like Aphrodite, the origin of Eros is unclear, but one popular myth is that he was the love-child of Aphrodite and Ares (Cyrino). Some of Aphrodite’s lovers in popular myths include Zeus, Poseidon, Adonis, Hermes, Ares, Phaeton and Dionysus.
Why She is Known as the Goddess of Love
Aphrodite is known as the goddess of love because of the many myths surrounding her love affairs, her infamous beauty, and the fact that her progeny (Eros—or Cupid as he is called in Roman mythology) has long been associated with romantic love. Aphrodite was also worshipped as the goddess of fertility (most likely because she had so many lovers and so many love-children). So whenever a devotee wanted a child, worship of Aphrodite was the best course of action. So powerful was this devotion, in fact, that today what is called a love potion or aphrodisiac is named so...
An aphrodisiac is something that seduces the senses and arouses one’s sexual passion or lust for another. Aphrodite, because of her immense beauty, was said to be able to arouse the love, passion and lust of anyone, mortal or immortal. For that reason, the concept of erotic love has been linked to Aphrodite since the age of the classical period.
The Romans named Aphrodite Venus when they brought the Greek culture into their own. Ares became known as Mars. Today the planets Venus and Mars are named after these same two immortals. The popular marriage counseling book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus plays upon the theme that men and women are completely different beings: women are linked with Venus (Aphrodite) and the concept of romantic love,...…lot for the Greeks (and later the Romans) who adored her. She inspired them with love and helped them to populate the earth. Were it not for Aphrodite, there would be no love goddess to help men and women come together romantically and have children.
She was also an inspiration for artists, who portrayed her in statues and in stories and in paintings. She captured the imagination of one and all because she embodied the idea of physical beauty and the concept of erotic love. For her passionate love was all that mattered (and of course so long as she was the object of that love, all was good and right with the world). She demanded that she be honored and worshipped because she viewed herself as being the patroness of love and life and child-begetting. If people did not honor and worship her, she basically cursed them and ruined their lives, so of course the Greeks and Romans were going to go out of their way to show her respect and homage.
There is even the story of Pygmalion which shows just how gracious Aphrodite could be: Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a statue of Aphrodite that was so beautiful he fell in love with it and refused to have anything to do with other real live women. Aphrodite took pity on him since he was so devoted to her and brought the statue to life so that Pygmalion could marry her. This was the kind of thing Aphrodite did to those who loved her.
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