9: Aphrodite Flashcards
Birth of Aphrodite and variant version
From Hesiod’s Theogony
* Uranus’ genitalia falls into the ocean and mixes with sea foam to make Aphordite Urania (‘Sacred’)
* Variant: Child of Zeus and Dione make Aphrodite Pandemos (‘Profane’)
Historical Origins of Aphrodite
- L. Venus
- Near Eastern Goddesses of Fertilitiy called Magna Mater = big momma
- Aphrodite via Cyprus: originally worshipped as a conical stone in the city of Salamis or Paphos
- Aphrodite via Cytheria: island S. of Peloponnesus, a Phoenician colony
Divine Powers of Aphrodite
Sexual Desire
* “Aphrodisiac”
* L. Venus cf. “venereal”, accompanied by Eros (cf. “erotic”)
* Temple Prostitution at Corinth and Cythera where women would offer their bodies to ensure fertility or to please the goddess, but likely not the case as seen in Stephanie Budin’s The Myth of Sacred Prostitutoin in Antiquity
Beauty: countless images and statues. Aphrodite at Cnidos –> first portait of a nude woman
War: at Sparta. Connection with Ares in myth as well as Near Eastern connection
Who was Priapus
- Child of Aphrodite and either Dionsyus, Hermes, Pan, Adonis
- He is usually a fertility Daimon (spirit) and is depicted as a small deformed man with huge and erect phallus
- Ithyphallic = “erect penis”
- Guardian of Gardens: bringer of luck and averter of evil like a scarecrow –> Apotropaic
Who is Pygmalion and his story
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses
* Venus turns Cyprian women to prostituion because they denied her divinity
* Pygmalion, King of Cyprus is digusted so he carves an ivory statue of a nude woman. He falls in love with his own creation and prays to Venus for a wife. Venus grants his prayer and the statue becomes flesh and blood (who is later named Galatea)
Who is Myrrha and her story
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses
* Cinyras, grandson of Pygmalion and Galatea, has a daughter named Myrrha
* Cinyras’ wife boasts that Myrrha is more beautiful than Venus so Venus causes Myrrha to fall in love with Cinyras (dad)
* Myrrha becomes suicidal and is rescued by a nurse, who arranges a tryst between father and daugther
* Cinyras finds out and tries to kill Myrrha. Myrrha is transformed into a Myrrh tree and her tears become the resin: myrrh
* Cinyras and Myrrha have a son named Adonis
Near Eastern Connection to Aphrodite and Adonis
Phoenician fertility goddess: Astarte
Dying/Reborn god of vegetation: Adonis
* Adon is a Semitic name for lord
2 Versions of Aphrodite and Adonis
- Aphrodite takes Adonis to Persephone and P refuses to return him. Zeus decides that Adonis spends 1/3 year with each goddess and 1/3 year where he wants. Adonis decides 2/3 year woth Aphrodite. He is later killed by a boar
- Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Aphrodite falls for Adonis, who is a handsome hunter. He ignores Aphrodite’s warnings regarding hunting and he is gored in the groin by a boar and from his flood grows Anemone (“wind-flower”)
The Gardens of Adonis
- Fertility goddess and dying vegetation god
- Adonia: Festival of Adonis where they have ritual wailing and singing with effigy (model) of dead youth
- The Gardens of Adonis: seeds planted in shallow soil that spring up quickly and die
Near Eastern parallel of adonis and aphrodite
- Cybele and Attis
- Near Eastern parallel of Aphrodite/Venus and Adonis
- Fertility Goddess and dyibg/reborn god of vegetation is a goddess known generically as The Great Goddess
- Cybele: Phyrygian goddes of fertility, identified by Greeks with demeter or Rhea. For romans: Mafna Mater “Great Mother”
- Attis is her young lover
Birth of Cybele
- Sprung from Earth/Rock in Phyrgia
- Originally hermaphroditic: sexual organs of both sexes but later becomes female
- Get almond tree from her severed male genitalia. Almond = glans penis
Birth of Attis
Nana, the daughter of Sangarios river, picks blossoms from a tree and 9 months later Attis is born
Story of Cybele and Attis
Nana abandons infnat Attis and he is cared for by a billy-goat. Cybele falls for Attis but he is in love with someone else. Cybele drives Attis insane so he castrates himself and dies (variant: gored by boar). Cybele feels remorse so she asks Zeus to make sure Attis’ body to never decay –> little finger continues to move and hair continues to grow.
Worship of Cybele
- Orgiastic worship = frenxy
- Cybele’s attendants: Corybantes (“Whirlers) who played the drums, cymbals, horns. They are often confused with Curetes, who were young men who attended Zeus on Crete
- Cybele’s Priests were Eunuchs known as Galli
- From Roman poet Catallus, Myth of Attis’ castration is the etiology for priests (Galli were castrated priests)
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite
Aphrodite had power over: gods, humans and animals with 3 exceptions: hestia, athena, artemis
