Aphrodite / Venus
Goddess of love, beauty, and desire
Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and desire, whose power could sway gods and mortals alike. Born from the sea foam, she was the most beautiful of the goddesses — and her choices helped start the Trojan War.
How they were born
There are two famous accounts of Aphrodite's birth. In Hesiod's Theogony, she rose from the white foam (aphros) that gathered on the sea where the severed parts of the sky god Uranus had fallen, and came ashore at Cyprus — which is why her name means 'foam-born.' In Homer's Iliad, she is instead the daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Dione. The Greeks did not seem bothered by the contradiction: she was both the oldest of the gods, born before Zeus himself, and one of his daughters.
The greatest stories
The Judgment of Paris
At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the uninvited goddess Eris tossed a golden apple marked 'for the fairest' among the guests. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each claimed it, and Zeus refused to judge between them, so the Trojan prince Paris was given the task. Each goddess offered him a bribe: Hera promised power, Athena promised victory in war, and Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world — Helen of Sparta. Paris chose Aphrodite, and with her help he carried off Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus. The insult launched the Trojan War, a ten-year conflict that destroyed Troy.
Aphrodite and Ares in the Net
Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the lame smith god of Olympus, but her true love was Ares, the god of war — the two were opposites in every way, and that was the point. Hephaestus, tipped off by the sun god Helios, who sees everything, forged a net of fine bronze chains, so delicate as to be invisible, and hung it over his bed. When Aphrodite and Ares lay down together, the net snapped shut around them, and Hephaestus called all the gods to come and laugh at the trapped lovers. The gods did laugh — but the lovers were unashamed, and the story became the most famous scandal on Olympus.
Eros and Psyche
When the mortal princess Psyche grew so beautiful that people began worshipping her instead of Aphrodite, the jealous goddess sent her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with a monster. Instead, Eros fell in love with her himself, and carried her off to a hidden palace where he visited her only in the dark, forbidding her to see his face. Psyche's sisters made her doubt him, and one night she lit a lamp — a drop of hot oil woke him, and he fled. Aphrodite, furious, set Psyche a series of impossible tasks: sorting a mountain of grain, gathering golden wool, fetching water from the Underworld. With help from ants, a reed, and an eagle, Psyche finished them all, and Zeus finally made her immortal so she could marry Eros forever.
Aphrodite and Adonis
Aphrodite once pricked herself on one of Eros' arrows and fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful young hunter Adonis. She left Olympus to live with him in the woods, warning him again and again to hunt only timid animals and never to face a boar. But Adonis was bold, and one day a great boar gored him in the thigh. Aphrodite heard his cries and ran to him, but she arrived too late; where her tears fell, anemone flowers sprang up, and from his blood came the red rose. In some versions the boar was Ares in disguise, jealous of his rival. Adonis was allowed to spend part of each year with Aphrodite and part in the Underworld, which is why the Greeks saw his story as a tale of the seasons.
Pygmalion and Galatea
Pygmalion was a sculptor on Cyprus who had grown disgusted with real women and carved himself an ivory statue of a woman more perfect than any living one. He fell in love with his own creation, dressing it, kissing it, and bringing it gifts. At Aphrodite's festival he prayed — too shy to ask for the statue itself, he asked for a wife 'like' his ivory maiden. Aphrodite understood what he meant. When he returned home and kissed the statue, he felt its lips grow warm; the ivory softened under his hands, and the statue became a living woman, Galatea. The two married, and Aphrodite herself attended their wedding.
Family & connections
Symbol, animal & weapon
Fun facts
- Her name comes from 'aphros,' the Greek word for sea foam — and the English word 'aphrodisiac' comes from her name.
- The planet Venus is named after her Roman name, and it is the brightest planet in the sky — fitting for the goddess of beauty.
- In Sparta she was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, a goddess of war, armed and fierce — a very different Aphrodite from the love goddess of Cyprus.
- The Venus de Milo, the most famous statue of Aphrodite, was found buried on the island of Milos in 1820, and its arms were already missing.
- Her son Aeneas, by the Trojan prince Anchises, survived the fall of Troy and became the legendary ancestor of the Romans — which is why Rome claimed descent from Venus herself.
Gallery — sculpture & art
