Aphrodite


 * Aphrodite (Venus)**

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and fertility and was also a protectress of sailors. The poet Hesiod said that Aphrodite was born from sea-foam while Homer said that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She was well known to interfere with other people’s relationships and romantic lives. When judged by the Trojan Prince Paris, she was chosen as the most beautiful compared to Hera and Athena.

Homer’s epic of the Trojan War tells of how Aphrodite intervened to save her son Aeneas a Trojan ally. She was stabbed by the Greek goddess of Diomedes in the wrist and caused the Ichor to flow (what immortals had in the place of blood). In other placesof Homer’s Iliad, Aphrodite saves Paris when he is about to be killed in single combat Menelaus.

She appears in Virgil’s Aeniead where is punished by Zeus for beguiling in other people’s relationships.

Also known as Venus (Roman name), the love goddess was married to the crippled craftsman, Hephaestus. However, she was unfaithful to him due to Ares, the god of war.

Symbols associated with Aphrodite/Venus are flowers and vegetation in connection to her fertility. She is also associated with the dove and goose, representing love and beauty.

The Birth of Venus by Boticelli (1486)

Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch (130-100 BCE)

Aphrodite's Symbols:

Her symbols were a swan and a dove because of her stunning looks.