Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
In Greek mythology, Adonis was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite and of Persephone.
Alphesiboea was the name of several characters in Greek mythology:
Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 284 to 246 BC. He was the son of Ptolemy I, the Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the Great who founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom after the death of Alexander, and Queen Berenice I, originally from Macedon in northern Greece.
Berenice I was Queen of Egypt by marriage to Ptolemy I Soter. She became the second queen, after Eurydice, of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.
Theocritus was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry.
The Adonia was a festival celebrated annually by women in ancient Greece to mourn the death of Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite. It is best attested in classical Athens, though other sources provide evidence for the ritual mourning of Adonis elsewhere in the Greek world, including Hellenistic Alexandria and Argos in the second century AD.
The Temple to Arsinoe Aphrodite at Cape Zephyrion was a sanctuary commissioned around 279 BC by Kallikrates, the commander of the Ptolemaic Naval Fleet. A Graeco-Macedonian Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt, Arsinoe II was directly involved in public affairs, war planning, and public and private ritual rites. As Arsinoe II was involved in cult worship during her lifetime both alone and alongside her husband and brother Ptolemy II, after her death, Arsinoe was deified– primarily associated as an aspect or incarnation of Aphrodite but sometimes influenced by Demeter and Isis. The sanctuary was built on Cape Zephyrion in wider Alexandria, serving as a temple for unmarried women, sailors and other sea laborers to beseech the deity for smooth traveling on the sea and in love. Thought to be located between the Canopic mouth of the Nile Delta and Pharos beach, the sanctuary served to reiterate Ptolemaic dynastic rule through the presentation of the deified Ptolemaic queen as a protector of the Ptolemaic military and generational order through her influence of successful wedlock.
Idyll I, sometimes called "Thyrsis" or "The Death of Daphnis" in English, is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus which takes the form of a dialogue between two rustics in a pastoral setting. Thyrsis meets a goatherd in a shady place beside a spring, and at his invitation sings the story of Daphnis. This ideal hero of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs. Confident in the strength of his passion, he boasted that Love could never subdue him to a new affection. Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a strange maiden, but to this temptation he never yielded, and so died a constant lover. The song tells how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him, how Hermes and Priapus gave him counsel in vain, and how with his last breath he retorted the taunts of Aphrodite.
Idyll II, also called Φαρμακεύτριαι, is a poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus, usually categorised with Idylls XIV and XV as one of his 'urban mimes'. The speaker of the poem, Simaetha, madly in love with Delphis, who has forsaken her, endeavours to subdue him to her by magic, and by invoking the Moon, in her character of Hecate, and of Selene. She tells the tale of the growth of her passion, and vows vengeance if her magic arts are unsuccessful. The scene is beneath the moonlit sky, near the town, and within sound of the sea. The characters are Simaetha, and Thestylis, her handmaid.
Idyll X, sometimes called "The Reapers", is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. The poem takes the form of a dialogue between the old foreman Milon, as he levels the swathes of corn, and his languid and love-worn companion, the reaper Bucaeus.
Idyll VII, also called "Harvest Home" in English, is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. The dramatic persona, a poet, making his way through the noonday heat, with two friends, to a harvest feast, meets the goatherd, Lycidas. To humour the poet Lycidas sings a love song of his own, and the other replies with verses about the passion of Aratus, the famous writer of didactic verse. After a courteous parting from Lycidas, the poet and his two friends repair to the orchard, where Demeter is being gratified with the first-fruits of harvest and vintaging.
Idyll XIII, sometimes called "Hylas", is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. As in Idyll XI, Nicias is again addressed, by way of introduction to the story of Hylas. This beautiful lad, a favourite companion of Heracles, took part in the Quest of the Fleece of Gold. As he went to draw water from a fountain, the water-nymphs dragged him down to their home, and Heracles, after a long and vain search, was compelled to follow the heroes of the Quest on foot to Phasis.
Idyll III, also called "The Serenade", is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. The poet appears to personate a young goatherd, who after five lines dedicatory to a friend whom he calls Tityrus, serenades his mistress Amaryllis outside her cave. The poem is a monologue, but, like Idyll II, preserves the dialogue-form by means of a dumb character.
Idyll XXV, later titled Ηρακλής Λεοντοφόνος by Callierges, is a poem doubtfully attributed to the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. This is an idyll of the epic sort, and is sometimes categorised as an epyllion. In the course of the narrative, Heracles visits the herds of King Augeas, and, after an encounter with a bull, describes to the king's son his battle with the lion of Nemea.
Idyll XXIV, also called Ἡρακλίσκος, is a poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. This poem describes the earliest feat of Heracles, the slaying of the snakes sent against him by Hera, and gives an account of the hero's training.
Idyll XXIII, also called Εραστής, is a poem doubtfully attributed to the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. It tells how a lover hanged himself at the gate of his obdurate darling who, in turn, was slain by a statue of Love.
Idyll XXII, also called Διόσκουροι, is a poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. It is a hymn, in the Homeric manner, to Castor and Polydeuces.
Idyll XVI, also called Χάριτες or Ἱέρων ('Hiero'), is a poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. In it the poet bewails the indifference of a money-loving age, and asks for the patronage of Hiero, then general-in-chief, afterwards king, of Syracuse.
Idyll XIV, also called Κυνίσκας Ἔρως or Θυώνιχος ('Thyonichus'), is an 'urban mime' by the 3rd century BC Greek poet Theocritus. This Idyll, like the next, is dramatic in form. One Aeschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca. He speaks of taking foreign military service, and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy.
