APHRODITE. The goddess of love in Greek religion. She appears under several aspects, some of them oriental. Other Greek names for her are : Aphro-geneia, the " foam-born " ; Anadytimene, " she who rises " from the sea; Kypris, the Cyprian; Aphrodite Urania, " the heavenly "; Pandemos, " all the people's." Thus she was goddess of the sea, especially the calm sea, and as such was worshipped by fishermen and sailors; she was goddess of the sky with its gales and storms. She was also goddess of the earth with its gardens and groves, Its plants and flowers. As the goddess of love in a more and more refined sense, she became a goddess of mar riage and married life, the goddess beloved by all. Early Greek legend represented that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Aphrodite, however, was not always worshipped as the goddess of a purer love. At Paphos, the great and ancient seat of her worship, she seems to have shared, as a goddess of fertility, the licentious rites of other Asiatic deities, one of these being female prosti tution. For her association with Adonis, see the article under that heading. In later Greek times the immoral form of her worship prevailed in Greece also. Aphrodite
corresponds to the Roman Venus (q.v.). Her symbol or image was a white cone or pyramid. Minoan discoveries have thrown doubt on the theory that Aphrodite was originally a Semitic deity brought to Greece from Phoenicia or Cyprus. A Minoan Aphrodite is represented on monuments of the First Late Minoan period (c. 1600 1500 B.C.). H. R. Hall (A.A.) points out that " it is evident now that she was not only a Canaanitish-Syrian goddess, but was common to all the peoples of the Levant. She is Aphrodite-Paphia in Cyprus, Ashtaroth-Astarte in Canaan, Atargatis in Syria, Derketo in Philistia, Hathor in Egypt; what the Minoan called her we do not know, unless she is Britomartis. She must take her place by the side of Rhea-Diktynna in the Minoan pantheon." Professor G. Elliot Smith contends (Dr.) that this list of homologues can be extended to Mesopotamia, Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact, to every part of the world that. harbours god desses. See 0. Seyffert, Diet.; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attic, Osiris.