The Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Sexual Rapture Aphrodite The Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Sexual Rapture

Aphrodite Relationships: Symbols: Spheres of Influence: Love Beauty Pleasure Sexual Rapture In Rome Cupid is her messenger Relationships: Wife of Hephaestus/ Vulcan Involved with Ares/Mars Born from Uranus (Father of the Gods) Symbols: Shells Dove Dolphin Girdle Mirror Roman Name: Venus Head of a larger-than-life statue, copying a statue by Praxiteles (370-360 BC) Statue of 1st century AD by Praxiteles

Aphrodite (Venus), gazing at her lover Mars while he is sleeping Painting of 1483 by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) Figurine of Aphrodite and Eros, found in the district of Corinthia Statue of 400 BC

Short Story Aphrodite was the exception to the Greek God family tree. One story is that she was born of sea foam. Others, like the poet Homer, said she was a daughter of Zeus. No one knows quite where to place her on the Greek God family tree. However she was born, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. She was an essential element of many Greek myths. Legend says that Aphrodite could be kind or merciless, but she was not at all like Ares, the god of war. Ares loved to cause pain and havoc. Aphrodite was only merciless if you did something that truly angered her. Unfortunately, Aphrodite was easily angered, especially when it came to vanity. For example, if you believe the old myth, it was not a quarrel over land or goods, but was instead Aphrodite's vanity that caused the Trojan War.

Bibliography: The goddess emerging from the sea as a fully grown woman Painting of 1482 by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) Uffizi Gallery of Florence in Italy http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/ aphrodite.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodi te http://www.greek-gods.info/greek- gods/aphrodite/#aphrodite-symbols