Aphrodite - Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty
By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
Who Is Aphrodite?
Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, love, and sexuality. She is sometimes known as the Cyprian because there was a cult center of Aphrodite on Cyprus [See Map Jc-d3]. Aphrodite is the mother of the god of love, Eros (more familiar as Cupid). She is the wife of the ugliest of the gods, Hephaestus4. Unlike the powerful virginal goddesses, Athena5 and Artemis6, or the faithful goddess of marriage, Hera7, she has love affairs with gods and mortals. Aphrodite's birth story makes her relation to the other gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus ambiguous.
Myths Involving Aphrodite (Venus):
· Venus and Adonis 11
· Meleager and Atalanta 12
· Cupid and Psyche13
· Adventures of Aeneas14
· Venus and Adonis 15
· Prometheus and Pandora16
· Monsters17
· Proserpine - Glaucus and Scylla18
· Homer on Mars and Venus Caught in a Net19
Family of Origin:
Hesiod20 says Aphrodite arose from the foam that gathered around the genitals of Uranus. They just happened to be floating in the sea -- after his son Cronus castrated his father.
The poet known as Homer21 calls Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She is also described as the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys (both Titans22).
If Aphrodite is the cast-offspring of Uranus, she is of the same generation as Zeus' parents. If she is the daughter of the Titans, she is Zeus' cousin.
Roman Equivalent:
Aphrodite was called Venus by the Romans -- as in the famous Venus de Milo statue.
Attributes And Associations:
Mirror, of course -- she is the goddess of beauty. Also, the apple24, which has lots of associations with love or beauty (as in Sleeping Beauty) and especially the golden apple. Aphrodite is associated with a magic girdle (belt), the dove, myrrh and myrtle, the dolphin, and more. In the famous Botticelli painting, Aphrodite is seen rising from a clam shell.
Trojan War and Aeneid's Aphrodite / Venus:
The story of the Trojan War begins with the story of the apple of discord, which naturally was made of gold: Each of 3 goddesses:
1. Hera - marriage goddess and wife of Zeus
2. Athena - Zeus' daughter, wisdom goddess, and one of the powerful virginal goddesses mentioned above, and
3. Aphrodite - thought she deserved the golden apple, by virtue of being kallista 'the most beautiful'. Since the goddesses couldn't decide among themselves and Zeus wasn't willing to suffer the wrath of the females in his family, the goddesses appealed to Paris25, son of King Priam of Troy. They asked him to judge which of them was the most beautiful. Paris judged the goddess of beauty to be the loveliest. In return for his verdict, Aphrodite promised Paris the fairest woman. Unfortunately, this fairest mortal was Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus. Paris took the prize that had been awarded him by Aphrodite, despite her prior commitments, and so started the most famous war in history, that between the Greeks and Trojans.
Virgil's Aeneid tells a Trojan War sequel story about a surviving Trojan prince, Aeneas, transporting his household gods from the burning city of Troy to Italy, where he founds the race of the Romans. In the Aeneid, the Roman version of Aphrodite, Venus, is Aeneas' mother. In the Iliad, she protected her son, even at the cost of suffering a wound inflicted by Diomedes.
Retrieved from: Ancient/Classical History – About.com. Dated viewed: 9/3/13. Full web address for article: http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Aphrodite.htm
Artemis - Greek Goddess Artemis
By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
Who Is Artemis?
Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. She is a goddess of transitions, a hunter, a virgin, and one of the goddesses who assists at childbirth. She was on the Trojan side in Homer's Iliad.
Myths about Artemis (Diana):
· Diana and Actaeon3
· Camilla4
· Meleager and Atalanta5
· Theseus -- Daedalus -- Castor and Pollux6
· Monsters 7
· Pallas, Camilla, Turnus8
· Echo and Narcissus9
· Niobe10
Powers:
Artemis is the goddess of the hunt and wild animals. Although a virgin herself, Artemis helps women in childbirth. Artemis watches over streets and harbors.
Family of Origin:
Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. Their parents were Zeus and Leto. Artemis was born on Delos3.
Roman Equivalent:
The Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis was Diana.
Attributes:
Golden arrows, bow, and fawn.
Temple of Artemis:
One of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World was the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, built around 550 B.C. The temple of Artemis was deliberately burned down by Herostratus in an attempt to gain fame in 356 B.C.
Retrieved from: Ancient/Classical History – About.com. Dated viewed: 9/3/13. Full web address for article: http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Artemis.htm
Profile of the Greek Goddess Athena
By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
Who Is Athena?
Athena is the name of an important goddess for the Greeks. She is the patron goddess of the city-state of Athens1, the goddess of wisdom, a goddess of arts and crafts (agriculture, navigation, spinning, weaving, and needlework), the favorite daughter of her father Zeus, and, as a war goddess with a focus on strategy more than bloodshed, an active participant in the Trojan War. She gave her namesake city the gift of the olive tree, providing oil, food, and wood.
Myths about Athena:
Athena and Arachne3 Greek Mythology5
Weaving Contest
Family and Unusual Birth -- Through Parthenogenesis:
Athena is said to be the offspring of Zeus alone, but that was only after the Oceanid Metis became pregnant and Zeus swallowed her.
By swallowing the Oceanid and her unborn child, Zeus became pregnant with Athena. Zeus wasn't built to deliver a baby, though, so he seems to have gestated the baby in his head. There was still one more issue to contend with: lack of an opening that would serve for the birth canal. The new goddess needed to be born. She was pressing from the inside of his head outwardly with increasingly excruciating insistence. Coming to his rescue was his (step-)son, the smithy god Hephaestus (or Prometheus), who struck open Zeus' head with an axe to release the goddess. Once the passage was open, Athena emerged from her father's head fully armed.
Roman Equivalent:
The Greek goddess Athena was known as the goddess Minerva by the Romans.
Attributes:
Aegis9, spear, pomegranate, owl, distaff, helmet. Athena is described as grey-eyed (glaukos).
Powers of Athena:
Athena is the goddess of wisdom and crafts. She is the patron of Athens.
A Son for a Virgin Goddess:
Athena is a virgin goddess, but she has a son. Athena is credited with being part-mother of Erichthonius through an attempted rape by Hephaestus, whose seed spilled on her leg. When Athena wiped it off, it fell to earth (Gaia) who became the other part-mother. The offspring of Gaia, Athena, and Hephaestus is Erichthonius. Thus, Erichthonius, a half-snake half-man creature, has two mothers and one father. He is a mythological ancestor of the Athenians.
Parthenon:
Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, a city named for the goddess. The people of Athens built a great temple for Athena on the acropolis (or high point) of their city. The temple is known as the Parthenon13. In it was a colossal gold and ivory statue of the goddess Athena Parthenos, Athena the Maiden. During the annual Panathenaia festival, a procession was made to the statue for the purpose of providing the statue of the goddess with new clothes.
More:
Athena was involved in most of the heroic tales. Name a Greek myth, and she's probably there -- somewhere. In the story of Jason's rescue of the Golden Fleece, Athena is shown witnessing Jason being disgorged by the monstrous guardian of the fleece. She helped Perseus obtain the head of Medusa and Hercules in his task. She sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War, various heroes, and especially with Odysseus16, appearing in disguise to his son Telemachus. In the Odyssey the disguised goddess spurred the young Telemachus to action when the suitors of Penelope were eating Odysseus' kingdom of Ithaca out of house and home.
Since Athena was born without a mother -- sprung from her father's head -- in an important murder trial, she decided that the role of the mother was less essential in creation than the role of the father. Specifically, she sided with the matricide Orestes, who had killed his mother Clytemnestra after she had killed her husband and his father Agamemnon.
In the tale of the Judgment of Paris17 (son of the Trojan King Priam), Athena was one of the two goddesses who lost the beauty contest to Aphrodite. This is part of the reason Athena sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.
Athena also defeated Poseidon in the vote over who would be the patron god of Athens because her gift was more valuable -- the olive tree.
Retrieved from: Ancient/Classical History – About.com. Dated viewed: 9/3/13. Full web address for article: http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Athena.htm
Demeter - Greek Goddess
By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
Who Is Demeter?
Demeter is a goddess of fertility, grain, and agriculture. She is pictured as a mature motherly figure. Although she is the goddess who taught mankind about agriculture, she is also the goddess responsible for creating winter and a mystery religious cult. She is usually accompanied by her daughter Persephone.
Family of Origin:
Demeter was a daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and so a sister of the goddesses Hestia and Hera, and the gods Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus.
Demeter in Rome:
The Romans referred to Demeter as Ceres. The Roman cult of Ceres was initially served by Greek priestesses, according to Cicero in his Pro Balbo oration. For the passage, see Tura's Ceres2. In "Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods" [Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 97, Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance (1995), pp. 15-31], author John Scheid says the foreign, Greek cult of Ceres was imported to Rome in the middle of the third century B.C.
Attributes:
The attributes of Demeter are a sheaf of grain, a conical headdress, a scepter, a torch, and a sacrificial bowl.
Persephone and Demeter:
The story of Demeter is usually combined with the story of the abduction of her daughter Persephone.
Eleusinian Mystery:
Demeter and her daughter are at the center of the widest spread Greek mystery cult -- the Eleusinian Mysteries -- a mystery religion that was popular in Greece and in the Roman Empire. Named for the location in Eleusis, the mystery cult may have started in the Mycenaean period, according to Helene P. Foley, in The Homeric hymn to Demeter: translation, commentary, and interpretive essays. She says that substantial remains of the cult begin in the 8th century B.C., and that the Goths destroyed the sanctuary a few years before the start of the fifth century A.D. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the oldest record of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but it is a mystery and we don't really know what transpired.
Myths Involving Demeter (Ceres):
· Proserpine7
· The Rural Deities8
· Cupid and Psyche9
Orphic Hymn to Demeter (Ceres):
The so-called Homeric Hymn to Demeter (in public domain English translation) tells of the abduction of Demeter's daughter Persephone and the trials the mother went through to find her again. The Orphic hymn paints a picture of the nurturing, fertility goddess.
Retrieved from: Ancient/Classical History – About.com. Dated viewed: 9/3/13. Full web address for article: http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/p/Demeter.htm
Hera - Greek Goddess
By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
Who Is Hera?
Hera is the queen of the gods. She is usually plotting either to favor the Greeks over the Trojans, as in Homer's Iliad, or against one of the females who has caught the roving eye of her philandering husband, Zeus. At other times, Hera is shown plotting mischief against Heracles.
Myths about Hera (Juno) include:
· Monsters 3
· Nisus and Scylla - Echo and Narcissus - Clytie - Hero and Leander4
· Juno and Her Rivals5
· Hercules -- Hebe and Ganymede 6
Family of Origin:
The Greek goddess Hera is one of the daughters of Cronus and Rhea. She is the sister and wife of the king of the gods, Zeus.
Roman Equivalent:
The Greek goddess Hera was known as the goddess Juno by the Romans. It is Juno who torments Aeneas on his trip from Troy to Italy to found the Roman race. Of course, this is the same goddess who so vehemently opposed the Trojans in the stories about the Trojan War, so she would try to put obstacles in the path of a Trojan prince who escaped the destruction of her hated city.
In Rome, Juno was part of the Capitoline triad, along with her husband and Minerva. As part of the triad, she is Juno Capitolina. The Romans also worshiped a Juno Lucina, Juno Moneta, Juno Sospita, and Juno Caprotina, among other epithets.
Attributes of Hera:
Peacock, cow, crow and pomegranate for fertility. She is described as cow-eyed.