Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, portrayed in the Iliad as the daughter of
Zeus, king of the Gods, and Dione, an early earth-mother goddess.
Later writers, such as Plato and Cratylus, say that she was born from the foam of the
sea.
According to Hesiod, in his work “Theogony”, Aphrodite was born of Uranus phallus, whom
Chronos threw into the sea.
This story goes this way: The goddess Gaia, the mother of the Earth,
commanded Chronos the god of time, to mutilate Uranus, the god of heaven.
Chronos cut off Uranus penis, and threw it into the sea.
In that place appeared a white foam and the most beautiful woman in the world.
This place has become the most beautiful place in the world.
The goddess was Aphrodite herself, and that island was Cyprus.
It is said that in the place where she came out of the water, a soft grass grew under
her feet.
According to another version, Aphrodite was born from a shell, and also in a shell she
was taken to the island of Kythera.
The shell was sacred to this goddess, including due to its association with Nerites, the only
male son of Nereus, who was the eldest son of Gaia, the Mother of the Earth.
Nerites lived in the depths of the ocean, and was the companion of Aphrodite before
she emerged from the foam of the sea.
As Nerites refused to follow her to Earth, Aphrodite turned him into a shell.
Introduced immediately after her appearance on Earth to the world of the gods, Aphrodite
became the wife of Hephaestus, whom, however, according to the Homeric version of the myth,
she soon cheated on him with Ares, the god of war.
Her love affair with Ares was not a happy one.
Aphrodite and Ares, met at Hephaestus' house when he left home.
But Helios, the all-seeing sun god, warned Hephaestus of his wife's infidelity.
So he made a smart device, with which he caught the two lovers naked, exposing them to the
laughter of the other gods.
From the union of Aphrodite with Ares was born Harmony, who personifies the balance
between the opposite tendencies of her parents.
Their other children were Phobos and Deimos, twin brothers who were the personification
of fear and panic, and Eros, the god of love, and Anteros, the god of requited love, and
also the punisher of those who scorn love and the advances of others, or the avenger
of unrequited love.
Able to dominate all the gods of Olympus, except Athena, Artemis and Hestia, Aphrodite
is related to all the mythological events centered on the theme of love.
The stories recall her love for Dionysus, Poseidon and Hermes, of the divine world,
and that for Adonis and Anchises among mortals.
From the love between Aphrodite and the mortal Anchises, was born Aeneas, the mythical hero
of Troy and Rome.
If Aphrodite aroused love wherever she appeared, she was also the target of the hostility and
jealousy of the Olympian goddesses.
Of these, Hera was the most determined to hate Aphrodite, because of the choice of Paris,
which gave Aphrodite, and not her, the apple of beauty.
Aphrodite also appears in myth as an underground goddess.
Many times, the deities that lived underground were related to those of fertility, and in
this position she was worshiped along with Hermes.
She was also the protector of navigation.
In Sparta, Cyprus, Kythera, and in other different places, she was revered as a goddess of war.
It is not known for sure what was the reason, but historians think that maybe because of
her relation with Ares.
Her cult was very popular in ancient Greece, where many altars and temples were erected.
The main centers of worship were the city of Corinth and the island of Kythera, off
the coast of Lacedaemon Province.
She had famous shrines at Paphos, Cnidus, Delos and Sicyon.
The island of Cyprus was known for its mystery cult dedicated to the goddess.
Aphrodite was also worshiped with private rituals and prayers.
This was the story of Aphrodite.
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