Greek Mythology, page 9
The Birth of Aphrodite
Aphrodite (‘Foam-Born’), goddess of desire and sex, was conceived when Cronus castrated Ouranus, his father. The severed genitals fell into the sea, froth effervesced around them, and Aphrodite first rose, naked and magnificent, standing on a scallop shell. Some said the shell conveyed her first to Cythera off southwest Greece, but, finding the island too insignificant, she continued on to Cyprus. Here she came ashore at the beach now called Petra tou Romiou (‘The Greeks’ Rocks’) near Palaepaphos, a few miles south of modern Paphos. The sixth-century BC poet Anacreon imagined Aphrodite returning here to swim:
Like a lily in a garland of violets, she shimmered on the glassy sea, while on dolphin-back the wily Eros and care-free Desire rode the metallic waves, and troupes of fish arced, sinuous, beneath the waters, playing with the Paphian goddess as she swam.
The birth of Aphrodite: the goddess reclines on her scallop shell while Erotes gambol around her, on a fresco from Pompeii’s ‘Casa di Venus’.
But Homer knew another account. For him, Aphrodite was born at Dodona in Epirus, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, a local goddess, whose name is simply a form of Zeus’ own. During fighting in the Iliad, when Aphrodite, her wrist injured, runs to her mother, Dione, for comfort, Zeus advises her: ‘War is not your vocation, child! Look to love and marriage, and leave fighting to swift Ares and Athene!’
Two Aphrodites, Two Erotes?
Some Greeks argued that there were in fact two Aphrodites, a notion explored in Plato’s Symposium, where a lawyer called Pausanias argues that there is a ‘Heavenly’ Aphrodite, born from the waves, and a ‘Common’ (or ‘Pandemic’) Aphrodite, born from Zeus and Dione. ‘Heavenly’ Aphrodite, born from Cronus’ genitals without a mother, inspired pure love and was manifested in homosexual desire. ‘Common’ Aphrodite, being the product of both male and female parents, was responsibile for heterosexual love – and, because this goddess was younger and more immature, Pausanias argued that her form of love was arbitrary and superficial.
A similar duality affected Eros (plural, Erotes), Aphrodite’s male companion god of lust. For Hesiod, he was the oldest of all gods, born at the dawn of time, and in mystic Orphism he was the son of Night and Erebus (Darkness). More commonly, however, Eros, with his bow and arrows ready to pierce his victims’ hearts with love, was said to be the son of Aphrodite, a young winged cupid, smiling and amoral, the product of his mother’s adultery with Ares, god of war.
Aphrodite’s Love-Affairs with Gods
Aphrodite was the embodiment of desire. In literature and art she was pictured riding in a golden chariot drawn by sparrows, doves or swans, naked and possessed of powerful eroticism. Only a very few could resist her charms. The fifth-century AD epic poet Nonnus described how Zeus tried to rape her immediately she landed at Paphos. A tenth-century AD Byzantine dictionary maintains that they did sleep together and that their son was the prodigiously endowed fertility god, Priapus. (Still others said that Priapus was the son of Aphrodite and Dionysus.)
To prevent the male gods fighting over Aphrodite, Zeus (or Hera) hastily arranged her marriage to Hephaestus, the lame blacksmith. While he devotedly showered her with gifts of his own making, including a sash which made its wearer (even more) irresistible, Aphrodite embarked on numerous affairs. Among her conquests were Hermes (their child was Hermaphroditus, in whom male and female attributes were combined) and Poseidon. But her most notorious liaison was with Ares, in the Odyssey the subject of one of the bard Demodocus’ poems.
Seeing Aphrodite and Ares making love, Helios immediately informs Hephaestus. Indignant, Hephaestus sets a trap, an unbreakable net, as thin as gossamer, ‘invisible even to the gods’, which he drapes around his marriage bed. Then he announces his departure for a lengthy stay in Lemnos (one of his cult centres). Seizing his chance, Ares sneaks into Hephaestus’ house, where he takes Aphrodite to bed. But the web closes, holding them fast. Hephaestus returns and bawls in anger. While the goddesses remain at home ‘out of shame’, the gods are soon jostling and laughing as they watch the two adulterers caught in flagrante. Only when Poseidon stands bail for Ares, guaranteeing an end to the affair, does Hephaestus release them – at which Ares immediately retreats to the savage north and ‘laughter-loving Aphrodite fled to Paphos’. Some say that Hephaestus soon divorced Aphrodite, enabling her to have two children by Ares: Eros and Harmonia (Harmony).
Others found the story less amusing. Plato uses it to argue that much so-called great literature is immoral, a pernicious influence on impressionable minds. In his ideal state such passages would be censored or, better still, poets banned altogether. After all, the entire Iliad, arguably the greatest epic poem, was predicated upon Aphrodite’s wantonness: it was thanks to her that Helen left her husband to elope with Paris to Troy.
Aphrodite’s Love-Affair with Anchises
Aphrodite had long taken a close interest in Troy – and especially in one of its princes, Anchises, the son of Troy’s founder, Ilus. A Homeric Hymn tells how Zeus made her fall in love with Anchises when she saw him herding cattle on Mount Ida:
As soon as she saw him, laughter-loving Aphrodite felt desire for him, and lust took hold of her. So she went to her sanctuary at Paphos in Cyprus, its altar sweet with incense, and she entered her sweet-perfumed temple, pulling the glittering doors fast shut behind her. And there the Graces bathed her and anointed her with heavenly oil, with which gods cover their immortal bodies, sweet heavenly oil, and the air was filled with perfume. And laughter-loving Aphrodite dressed in her sumptuous clothing and hung herself in gold, and hurried off to Troy, leaving Cyprus so fragrant, running lightly on the high path of the clouds.
Disguised as a mortal girl, she bewitched Anchises:
Her dress was brighter than any fire – golden, beautiful and intricately woven. It shone at her soft breasts like the moon, so wondrous to see! And she wore twisted bracelets and glinting earrings shaped like flowers, and around her soft throat were exquisite necklaces.
Anchises could not resist. Believing her to be a mortal, he took her to a cave, undressed her and lay with her on the pelts of bears and lions. Only afterwards did Aphrodite admit her true identity, prophesying that she would bear Anchises a son, Aeneas. In the Iliad, Aeneas is one of Troy’s greatest warriors, and later he became the hero of the Latin epic, Vergil’s Aeneid, which traced his journey from Trojan refugee to founder of Rome.
Aphrodite warned Anchises that if he revealed what had happened, Zeus would smite him with a thunderbolt. But a Roman mythographer tells that, when drunk, he forgot her warning, boasted of his conquest and was blasted by Zeus – not fatally, but enough to cripple him. Anchises was not Aphrodite’s only mortal lover. More famous was Adonis, who (some said) was also born in Paphos.
Aphrodite & Adonis
Myrrha (also known as Smyrna) tricked her own father, Cinyras, king of Paphos, into sleeping with her. When Cinyras discovered what he had done he tried to kill his daughter, but the gods transformed her into a tree, which still weeps drops of myrrh. In time, the tree split open and gave birth to a boy, Adonis. When Aphrodite found him, his beauty overcame her. To hide him from the other gods she placed him in a chest, which she gave for safe-keeping to Persephone. But when Persephone opened it and saw what lay inside, she too became enamoured of Adonis and refused to return him to Aphrodite. The goddesses asked Zeus to arbitrate. He ruled that Adonis should live with each for a third of the year and spend the remaining third with whichever goddess he chose. Adonis chose Aphrodite.
Obsessed with Adonis’ aching beauty, Aphrodite even accompanied him on hunting expeditions in the mountains, desperately anxious lest an animal attack and kill him. Repeatedly she begged him to take care. But one day, when he was alone, his hounds surprised a sleeping boar. Triumphantly Adonis tried to skewer it with his javelin, but he only struck a glancing blow. Maddened by pain, the boar sliced Adonis’ groin.
As Adonis lay dying, Aphrodite passed overhead in her chariot drawn by swans. Unable to save him, she transformed his blood into a sea of anemones, whose life is short and whose petals fall at the slightest breath of wind. Then, tearing her hair, she laid out his body on a bed of lettuce leaves and mourned him:
Tender Adonis is dying, my Aphrodite. What are we to do? Beat your breasts, and rip your tunics! Weep for him!
When Sappho wrote these lines around the turn of the sixth century BC, Adonis’ cult was widespread across the Aegean. Indeed, despite his close association with Paphos, Adonis was probably originally a Near Eastern god of vegetation, perhaps travelling to Greece from Ugarit (in modern Syria), where his name ‘Adon’ or ‘Adonai’ meant ‘Lord’. In early summer festivals Greek women mourned his death, tending special gardens of fast-growing, fast-dying plants such as lettuce and fennel sown in shallow earthenware pots and left on roof tops to wither in the sun. The emphasis was on death not resurrection, but his cult contained the seeds of hope: just as the infant Adonis stayed with Persephone in Hades for only a third of the year, so his spirit would return each year to lend his life-giving vitality to nature for the remaining two thirds.
As Eros flutters by, a relatively demure Aphrodite places her hands on the shoulders of her reclining lover Adonis. (Attic red figure water jar, c. 450–400 BC.)
Gardens played an important role in Aphrodite’s worship, too. A garden was dedicated to her on the Athenian Acropolis, while just outside Paphos modern Yeroskipou takes its name from the ‘Hieros Kēpos’ (‘Sacred Garden’), which Ovid says contained a tree with ‘gold leaves on gold branches’. It was an important staging post in the annual procession from Paphos to Aphrodite’s temple at Palaepaphos (modern Kouklia), which culminated in a festival of athletics and the Arts.
Pygmalion, King of Paphos
Adonis’ grandfather was Pygmalion, king of Paphos. The Church Father Clement of Alexandria tells how Pygmalion ‘fell in love with an ivory statue of Aphrodite’, adding disapprovingly, ‘which was naked’. Ovid was more expansive: Pygmalion rejected women when the daughers of another king embraced prostitution. Instead, a sculptor, he created a jointed ivory statue of a beautiful young girl and fell in love with it, bringing gifts and caressing it adoringly as if it were alive. At the Festival of Aphrodite, Pygmalion stood at the altar, heady with frankincense, and coyly prayed that he might find a wife as beautiful as his statue.
Aphrodite knew that he really wished to marry the statue itself, and granted his secret desire. When Pygmalion returned home, he threw his arms around his statue and kissed it passionately – and the statue came to life. Blood flowed through its veins; its pale cheeks blushed; and its eyes opened to meet his. After nine crescent moons had swollen to fullness, as Ovid delicately puts it, Pygmalion’s new wife bore a son. His name was Paphos, and from him the city took its name.
Paphos in History & Today
A fertility goddess was worshipped on the flat limestone hill at Palaepaphos from the early third millennium BC. Around 1200 BC a temple precinct was constructed with a megalithic sanctuary wall adorned with horns of consecration and containing a pillared hall and altar. In the Odyssey, after her encounter with Ares, Aphrodite flees to this ‘sweet-scented altar’, where the Graces bathe her, ‘anointing her with that immortal oil which glistens on the deathless gods, and clothing her in a beautiful dress’.
Other temples of Aphrodite contained seductive statues of the goddess as a beautiful naked woman, but at Palaepaphos she was worshipped in the form of a conical white stone. (Curiously, the corresponding stone in the local museum is black.) In the first century AD after earthquake damage the sanctuary was rebuilt on a larger scale, incorporating the Bronze Age complex, but now with banqueting rooms with lavish mosaics.
Aphrodite’s worship involved sex. Sacred prostitutes served at her shrine and Herodotus even hints that it was a rite of passage for every freeborn woman to prostitute herself at her temple. Describing ‘the most sordid of Babylonian customs’, he writes how, wearing rope headbands, the women sat in the sanctuary in rows, while men walked up and down to make their choice. No woman could leave until she had ‘discharged her duty to the goddess’, so, while ‘those who are tall and beautiful soon leave, the less attractive … sometimes have to stay for three or four years. There is a similar custom in some parts of Cyprus.’ He probably means at Paphos.
In 498 BC the Persians and Greeks fought for control of Cyprus and Palaepaphos was besieged. Archaeology confirms the scale of operations. Huge earthworks were thrown up against the two-hundred-year-old city walls; siege engines were deployed; and although the Palaepaphians dug tunnels underneath the Persians’ positions with the aim of toppling their towers, they could not save their city. The Persian siege ramp was so massive that, when new walls were built more than a century later, it was incorporated into them.
Palaepaphos remained an important cult centre, but the city that sprang up around it was eclipsed by a new settlement (modern Paphos) on the coast 12 km (8 miles) to the north, probably founded by Ptolemy I of Egypt in 294 BC. Pausanias placed its first foundation earlier, when ships of the Arcadian king Agapenor were blown off course after the Trojan War. In an enviable position, it had a fine harbour and well-protected acropolis. A rich necropolis dating from the third century BC to the fourth century AD (wrongly named the ‘Tombs of the Kings’) attests to its wealth: underground tombs are arranged like rooms of the living around central courtyards, their porticos supported by fine Doric columns.
In 58 BC Cyprus passed to Rome. It was a time of great prosperity. Now the island’s capital, Paphos basked in its wealth, and many fine mosaics were laid down. As a seat of both temporal power and pagan religion, Paphos attracted the Christian preacher Paul. His visit in AD 45 included an audience with the Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, and a contretemps with a local priest. Acts of the Apostles records how Paul dealt with both, beginning with the priest (or sorcerer in the King James version):
Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him. And said, O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Local tradition suggests that Paul’s success in converting the Roman governor (or ‘deputy’) came at a price. In the grounds of the twelfth-century church of Agia Kyriaki in Paphos is a pillar, tied to which (it is said) Paul received thirty-nine lashes of the whip in punishment for his aggressive proselytizing.
Paphos thrived until the fourth century AD, when severe earthquake damage and the banning of pagan religions by the Roman emperor Theodosius curtailed much of its economic and religious power. A Saracen raid in 653 dealt the final blow. The town remained a quiet haven until 1983, when the opening of Paphos International Airport precipitated a surge in tourism. Now, in part because many Cypriotes have family in north London, it is as common to hear English spoken as it is Greek.
Paphos
SOME IMPORTANT DATES & REMAINS
c. 2800 BC
First signs of worship at Palaepaphos.
c. 1200 BC
First temple precinct at Palaepaphos.
498 BC
Persian siege of Palaepaphos.
c. 340 BC
New city walls built at Palaepaphos.
? 294 BC
Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt relocates city to Paphos?
58 BC
Rome takes possession of Cyprus.
AD 45
Paul visits Paphos.
AD 653
Saracens raid Paphos.
AD 1983
Opening of Paphos International Airport.
Paphos is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. The Archaeological Park embraces not only the evocatively melancholic Tombs of the Kings but also a large swathe of the Hellenistic and Roman town including its Agora and a fine Odeon nestling beneath the modern lighthouse.
The chief delights are the fine third- to fifth-century AD Roman mosaics, displayed in situ in villas. Many show scenes from mythology, including such legendary lovers as Zeus and Ganymede, Phaedra and Hippolytus, Peleus and Thetis – and Narcissus. Paphos’ Archaeological Museum houses finds from the Neolithic, Classical and Byzantine periods, including tombstones, sarcophagi and a marble bust of Aphrodite.
Palaepaphos, 12 km (8 miles) south of Paphos in Kouklia, is easily accessible by road. Little remains of the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, save a replica of a mosaic showing Leda and the Swan. Kouklia Museum in a restored Crusader manor house contains a black aniconic stone, perhaps worshipped as Aphrodite. Beside the road out of Kouklia are the impressive remains of the Persians’ earthworks and Paphian tunnels from the siege of 498 BC. A few miles further on, Petra tou Romiou has a pebble beach, impressive rock formations and refreshment facilities. Although it may be tempting to rise like Aphrodite from the waves, beware of strong currents.
