Talk:Aphrodite

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"her affairs weren't necessarily out of a bad marriage, indeed, she chose hephaestus that she could continue her proclivities."--Alan D

I'll agree with you that the marrage wasn't bad on its face. IIRC, Zeus made Aphrodite marry Hephaestos in an attempt to calm her down, and also to humble her (seeing as how Hephaestos was outright ugly, and the only god who walked with a limp). She probably would have remained unmarried if she had her way.

--BlackGriffen

Oh, I'm not denying that she would have remained unmarried, but as I read it, she wasn't really distraught over it. I read zeus' edict as a supreme underestimation of her! I worded that quite badly...

--Alan D

The epithet "Acidalia" was occasionally added to her name, after the spring of the same name in which she used to bathe in, located in Boeotia.

Often the Greek gods come in various aspects - off the top of my head, Zeus protector of supliants and Athena hater of tyrants are examples. These names aren't really epithets, though, representing instead a particular form and worship of the god. Was Acidalia used outside of Boeotia?

I have no idea. The source I used said it was an "epithet" and gave the origin. Many of the gods, and I think all the Olympians, had epithets used throughout Greece so I assumed this was another one like that. The source could be wrong or I could have misinterpreted it.

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I linked suicide note. Edward 00:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC) wow dude this is like awesome!bi bi .............. What i think is that most of you guys are so much fascinated by what you've heard to be greek mythology, that you are not at all interested in the real truth. Even when you check the britannica, the word "aphrodite" is attempted to be explained by using greek language. Well. Nowadays, like in the ancient times, Aphrodite(venus) is the second planet from the sun. let me hit directly the point now. Aphrodite, like all the other ancient greek gods of mythology has nothing to do with greek. thus, to show how the truth has been and is still hindered from you, i will explain it very plainly. Using the albanian language: Afro = near, close(APPROximate) Dite = day. the celestial body of venus is the last object we see before the sun rises in the morning. it is indeed the shinest of all visible celestial bodies we see in the night sky. The point is that in albanian language there's no other words for "day" and "close". What others try to say by using ancient greek is simply reflection of complete ignorance and negligence. full stop. zotrules

Look if you leave your nationalistic views things will be simpler.In Hesiod says 'Ούνεκ εν αφρώ θρέφθη'meaning risen from the foam Θεογονία 187-206.I suggest to learn when the the specific planet was named such this before you do any more comment.the godness is known from Linear B which is Greek and the planet was named such this a lot later because of his brightness.the dita in albanian could have a celtic origin since is found such this in many other languages such as English(day),Welsh(dydd) and Celts inhabitted that area.INo one of us is linguistc.So we can ask professors for such this.As for the Greek Gods give a comment that they aren't Greek,or what do you mean Greek actually —Preceding unsigned comment added by Euagoras (talk • contribs) 20:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Your words are ridiculous.what do you mean the gods aren't Greek.Haven't they been found in Linear B which proved to be Greek?Haven't they played a great role in Greek culture?What makes them different?nothing —Preceding unsigned comment added by Euagoras (talk • contribs) 21:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dumb blonde

It is true that Aphrodite was forced into marriage, whoever, why could she not make Haphestus the most wanted and handsome man in the world and on Olympus. If you ask me, her actions led to the saying, "Dumb Blonde"

I agree completely. The phrase dumb blonde pretty much means a beautiful woman who is not-so-smart. Aphrodite should have taken Hephaestus happily without compaint. He was the best Greek god when it came to working hard. --Yagooblian (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that she was thought to be blonde? — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Because we said so --Yagooblian (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

And why would we ask you? Adam Bishop 02:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Seeing as many versions of this goddess existed in areas of the middle east and Mediterranian, and of course, Greece, I doubt she was seen as very frequently blonde. I can't help thinking that this person must have seen a few episodes too many of Xena and/or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; the version of her that appears in those is blonde (modeled after the "Valley Girl" stereotype), which shouldn't be too surprising considering there were other supposedly Greek or middle eastern people that were portrayed by blonde actors (though I can't recall if Gabrielle was supposed to be Grecian or not, come to think of it). In truth, I've never seen a person I've known to be of purely Greek or middle eastern blood that was blonde (though I know there's some blonde Italians, but they're of mixed blood, no? Some Norman or something, IIRC). Hence, the goddess would probably not have been thought to be blonde more than she would be raven-haired; quite the opposite, I'm sure that most people thought of her as dark-haired. On a side note - Aphrodite may not have had the wisdom of Hermes or Athena, and she may have been (OK, was) really impulsive, but she conived quite a bit, and was usually quite good at said coniving. She's selfish; not a complete moron. ;) (And this comes from someone who was always more of an Athena/Artemis fan, at that)Runa27 06:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


To those of you critics above, the Greeks realized that the Gods themselves were not Greek or of any Earthly heritage, and many Gods were described as having long golden hair, so we cannot assume that because the followers of the Goddess were Greek that she was too. She very well may have been blonde. Also, Aphrodite was not forced into marriage, she chose Hephaestus. She was not responsible for looks, just love and lust, so it could be argued that Hephaestus was a bad choice, but it was not in her power to make him handsome. I should know, since I am a Hellenistic Reconstructionist myself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.198.114.1 (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Well, I'll argue that because of Aphordite's connection to Ishtar... It makes blonder hair, unlikely. Xuchilbara (talk) 23:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tarah and Aphrodite

Who is this Tarah?...I've never heard of such a character on any of the greek mythology sites and believe this to be some character of fanfiction. If she is not can someone direct me (links preferred) to stories of her (preferably with classical quotes). It just seems fake.

I just don't want to see vandalised articles (especially in this area as it is my source of reference when I'm unsure of what I've learned)

VEE 01:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)Big VEE

That was a vandalized version of the article that has since been corrected...you shouldn't be seeing it now. Maybe you have to clear your cache, or something? Adam Bishop 01:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It no longer shows up...one question thought...exactly what did the vandal do to make it uneditable for me? *As I had tried to fix it myself since it was a rather obvious fake* Was it because I was seeing a remnant of a vandalised article perhaps? How does this happen?

~Thanks *gone to read on Christopher Walken* VEE 03:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)Big VEE

[edit] Aphrodite's Name.

Is it possible that Aphrodite's name could've been based on the crasis of Ἀπο + ῾Ροδίτη (from ῥοδα ("Rose")?

[edit] Goddess of love?

Isn't she essentially an agent of sexual attraction, not romantic love in the western sense? Hakluyt bean 03:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why yes, there is love without Romance (genre), not part of the conventions of courtly love nor the associations that come with Romanticism.--Wetman 07:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Thx, & I think the Greeks would have agreed with you. 'Goddess of love' is what we tell the children perhaps. I added a line to the beginning. Hakluyt bean 02:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

She was both. Generally the Greeks titled her Urania (Heavenly) as the goddess of the emotion of love, and Pandemos (Common) as the goddess of physical desire. Remember the ancients also invented the "love story" : like the famous tale of Hero and Leander. --Theranos 08:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That should be discussed in the article then, especially in the lead. Disinclination 19:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The late, and purely philosophical distinction between an Aphrodite Ourania and an Aphrodite Pandemos is touched upon in the article. Is any of the following needed: "Although referred to as "the goddess of love and of beauty", it is important to note that such love is not Karitas Habundat, or Divine Love, as in the Christian tradition, but specifically Eros (physical attraction or sexual love)." Why is it "important to note" Christian theological views of love in an article on Aphrodite? "Christian interpreters" already get a mention. Perhaps some more specific sourced patristic remarks about Aphrodite would be more appropriate than this. --Wetman 21:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image Cropping

Is there a reason the image of the Birth of Venus is cropped so weirdly? Is this a result of some discussion past? Alex Dodge 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not responsible, but it does give a nice closeup of the subject of this article, whereas the complete painting is illustrated at its own page.--Wetman 19:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

While everyone knows that Aphrodite and Venus are essentially the same goddess as viewed through successive cultures, I don't think it's appropriate that Birth of Venus - no matter how well-know - is an illustration for an article on Aphrodite. Botticelli named the figure Venus, so use it in the article for Venus. Surely there is a great abundance of artworks depicting Aphrodite that can be used here instead.

[edit] Illyrian "etymology"

An anonymity has contributed an etymology "Illyrian, Albanian Afro-diti or Pro-diti = next/close to the day (morning star)." Now, how would we have an Illyrian word for Morning Star" from the present handful of inscriptions and possibly Illyrian placenames? Is diti Albanian for Morning Star? This original research needs work before it can be made credible. --Wetman 19:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Egyptian Hathor not Nephthys

Hathor was the Egyptian cow goddess of love and beauty and fun, and a wet nurse to Horus. So she corresponds to Aphrodite/Venus in the love and beauty department. Where as Nephthys was a funeral goddess associated with Anubis and embalming!! No connection to Aphrodite at all except in the delusions of the Setian-Satanists. Commiserations wiki.

91.109.90.148 15:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Nikki

[edit] Temple prostitution at Corinth

This bit has been expanded by an anonymous passer-by. Since temple prostitution is ever a favored subject for hobbyists and undergraduates of all ages, I wonder whether we have a source for such practices at Corinth. --Wetman 08:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ritual prostitution

This part I added I believe should be able to stay in the article:

She is said to have devised public prostitution by putting up the brothels. She forced married women to enter them. Attesting to her invention was the centuries old tradition by the Cypriots. They sent their young ladies to the beaches to lie with foreigners. This way they made dowries for their future marriage. Later this deplorable practice reached Italy and was also done by the Locrians.[10]

because WP:V states , "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." As long as the material is verifiable, which it is -- then the material meets the Wikipedia gold standard. I double checked my source and it is definitely on pages 20 and 21 of Brown's interpretation. It is from a reliable source and there are other versions of Boccaccio's Famous Women (Guido A. Guarino (Rutgers University Press, 1963), Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 63-18945) where it can be verified where this information comes from. The fact if it is true or not, is another issue and not the point. I am just showing where a reader can go to verify where I obtained the information. Please reenter the material.--Doug talk 16:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Then you should probably mention it is from Boccaccio and may simply be made up off the top of his head. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

We'd be much better off if someone looked at recent secondary sources regarding ritual prostitution. Bocaccio isn't an authority on the classical world, and isn't worth mentioning in this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe Boccaccio made this up since further research shows this information comes from:
Cic., Nat. D. II20.53, III.23.59; Ov., Met. IV.171-189; Lact. I.17.10; Just. XVIII.5.4, XXI.3.2; Just. XVIII.4.1-6,8;Serv.I.338.
Also on the biography of Dido, Queen of Carthage, it says Dido seized some girls who were on the shore making the customary sacrifice to Venus. The 'customary sacrifice' consisted of prostitution, which was the Cypriot's custom. --Doug talk 17:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether Boccaccio made things up or not. The appropriate sources for an article on classical mythology are modern scholarly sources and ancient sources. Medieval sources, such as Boccaccio, are good illustrations for the influence of classical mythology on later European culture, but that's not what you're doing here. If you want to say that Aprodite was said to have instituted ritual prostitution, find an ancient source that says so, and base your text on that. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hephaestus caught Aphrodite in the act!

Why isn't this included, about how Hephaestus caught her with Ares in a metal net, and brought the other gods to see his wifes adultery?149.171.90.138 (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all it says here is "she is frequently unfaithful to her husband. Hephaestus is one of the most even-tempered of the Hellenic deities; in the narrative embedded in the Odyssey Aphrodite seems to prefer Ares, the volatile god of war." The anecdote (remember, this isn't a "biography") is repeated in a few details at Hephaestus#Hephaestus's craft.--Wetman (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A repellant added detail

The particularly nasty detail added to the familiar text

"born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' testicles and threw them behind him into the sea and then went back to feast on them." was added by User:75.48.167.34, at 18:01, 21 February 2008.

It seems not to have caused a ripple here: "Silly old Greeks, they just made it all up. Nasty personal habits too."

The same doctrinal bias encouraged one Wikipedian to insist to my face, at Talk:Penthesilea#Necrophilia rape by Achilles that Achilles had necrophilous sex with the dead Penthesilea, because a Christian source hinted so. Perhaps, in spite of 'Assume good faith etc', the educated adult minority here should be more alert to extremely unlikely details inserted by teeners currently resisting public education. I should have seen this myself, but you can't watch everything. --Wetman (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The Olympian articles are impossible to maintain. They should probably be permanently protected, but the wikibusybodies will never allow it... Adam Bishop (talk) 04:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, truthfully, a look at the page history shows how few are the adults who are struggling here with this. A problem is that there are many administrators who privately think that some vandalism is kind of funny, actually. I avoid the word "vandalism" since at some cultural levels it confers a risqué glamor.--Wetman (talk) 15:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I admit that I find it funny when a picture of Lando Calrissian is added to Pope Lando, but that doesn't happen numerous times everyday. I try to check all the edits when this one comes up on my list, but even if I go back a couple of days I still miss things sometimes. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aphrodite and Psyche

It's already been noted that the "Aphrodite and Psyche" section is too long, but there's a more serious problem – this story comes from Apuleius, who's writing in Latin about Venus. To justify treating it in this article, we would need a Greek source that includes the story, or at least a modern author hypothesising that Apuleius took it from a Greek source. (Much of Apuleius' Metamorphoses is probably based on the Greek work ascribed by Photius Bibliotheca 129 to Lucius of Patrae, but Stephen Harrison notes in his introduction to Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel that "almost all scholars have held that the long tale of Cupid and Psyche (4.28-6.24) is an Apuleian addition".)

The fact that this story comes from a single author also means that it's potentially misleading to retell it alongside stories like the Judgement of Paris, which were widely known and referred to by ancient authors. On the evidence we have, it's not impossible that Apuleius invented it in the second century AD. I'd say the best place for this section (suitably abridged) is in the Venus article, and we should make it clear that Venus's conflict with Psyche comes from a story told by a character in Apuleius, and not from some amorphous "mythology". (The other mythological sections of Aphrodite need to be clearer about sources rather than just retelling stories – I presume that the "writing about fiction" guideline applies here – but Psyche is a particularly problematic case.) EALacey (talk) 12:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That's absolutely spot-on. The briefest mention would do here, and a succinct version, with a main article hatnote at Venus (mythology). --Wetman (talk) 13:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adonis

I suggest that Adonis be moved to another page, devoted to him alone. It seems like the Aphrodite page sacrificed more info, so he (Adonis) could take over as the topic. A paragraph or two...I am guessing would be well enough to explain the relationship, but I believe the story of how Adonis came about should be moved. 76.170.118.217 (talk) 08:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)