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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.
Ares is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.
In ancient Greek religion, Hera is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus, and daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. One of her defining characteristics in myth is her jealous and vengeful nature in dealing with any who offended her, especially Zeus's numerous adulterous lovers and illegitimate offspring.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians.
Rhea or Rheia is a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods and Hades, king of the underworld.
Urania was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and astrology. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, her attributes being the globe and compass.
Eileithyia or Ilithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery, and the daughter of Zeus and Hera. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon, who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related with the cult of Eleusis. In his Seventh Nemean Ode, Pindar refers to her as the maid to or seated beside the Moirai (Fates) and responsible for the creation of offspring. Her son was Sosipolis, who was worshiped at Elis.
In Greek mythology, Peitho is the personification of persuasion. She is typically presented as an important companion of Aphrodite. Her opposite is Bia, the personification of force. As a personification, she was sometimes imagined as a goddess and sometimes an abstract power with her name used both as a common and proper noun. There is evidence that Peitho was referred to as a goddess before she was referred to as an abstract concept, which is rare for a personification. Peitho represents both sexual and political persuasion. She is associated with the art of rhetoric.
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Nemesis also called Rhamnousia, was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris; arrogance before the gods.
Kythira, also transliterated as Cythera, Kythera and Kithira, is an island in Greece lying opposite the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is traditionally listed as one of the seven main Ionian Islands, although it is distant from the main group. Administratively, it belongs to the Islands regional unit, which is part of the Attica region, despite its distance from the Saronic Islands, around which the rest of Attica is centered. As a municipality, it includes the island of Antikythera to the south.
Aphrodite Pandemos occurs as an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. This epithet can be interpreted in different ways. In Plato's Symposium, Pausanias of Athens describes Aphrodite Pandemos as the goddess of sensual pleasures, in opposition to Aphrodite Urania, or "the heavenly Aphrodite". At Elis, she was represented as riding on a ram by Scopas. Another interpretation is that of Aphrodite uniting all the inhabitants of a country into one social or political body. In this respect she was worshipped at Athens along with Peitho (persuasion), and her worship was said to have been instituted by Theseus at the time when he united the scattered townships into one great body of citizens. According to some authorities, it was Solon who erected the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos, either because her image stood in the agora, or because the hetairai had to pay the costs of its erection. The worship of Aphrodite Pandemos also occurs at Megalopolis in Arcadia, and at Thebes. A festival in honour of her is mentioned by Athenaeus. The sacrifices offered to her consisted of white goats. Pandemos occurs also as a surname of Eros. According to Harpocration, who quotes Apollodorus, Aphrodite Pandemos has very old origins, "the title Pandemos was given to the goddess established in the neighborhood of the Old Agora because all the Demos (people) gathered there of old in their assemblies which they called agorai." To honour Aphrodite's and Peitho's role in the unification of Attica, the Aphrodisia festival was organized annually on the fourth of the month of Hekatombaion. The Synoikia that honoured Athena, the protectress of Theseus and main patron of Athens, also took place in the month of Hekatombaion.
Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar.
Aphrodite Urania was an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, signifying a "heavenly" or "spiritual" aspect descended from the sky-god Ouranos to distinguish her from the more earthly epithet of Aphrodite Pandemos, "Aphrodite for all the people". The two were used to differentiate the more "celestial" love of body and soul from purely physical lust. Plato represented her as a daughter of the Greek god Uranus, conceived and born without a mother. Hesiod described this aspect as being born from the severed genitals of Uranus and emerging from the sea foam.
The Aphrodisia festival was an annual festival held in Ancient Greece in honor of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. It took place in several Ancient Greek towns, but was especially important in Attica and on the island of Cyprus, where Aphrodite was venerated with a magnificent celebration. The festival occurred during the month of Hekatombaion, which modern scholars recognize as starting from the third week in July to the third week of August on the Gregorian calendar. Aphrodite was worshipped in most towns of Cyprus, as well as in Cythera, Sparta, Thebes, Delos, and Elis, and her most ancient temple was at Paphos. Textual sources explicitly mention Aphrodisia festivals in Corinth and in Athens, where the many prostitutes that resided in the city celebrated the festival as a means of worshipping their patron goddess. Though no textual sources expressly mention an Aphrodisia festival in Cythera, Thebes, or Elis, it likely occurred since textual and iconographical sources indicate that Aphrodite Pandemos had a cult following in these areas. The Aphrodisia festival was one of the most important ceremonies in Delos, though not much is known about the details of the celebration. The inscriptions merely indicate that the festival required the purchase of ropes, torches and wood, which were customary expenses of all Delian festivals.
Aphrodite Areia or "Aphrodite the Warlike" was a cult epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in which she was depicted in full armor like the war god Ares. This representation was found in Sparta and Taras. There were other, similarly martial interpretations of the goddess, such as at her Sanctuary at Kythira, where she was worshiped under the epithet Aphrodite Urania, who was also represented as being armed. The epithet "Areia", meaning "warlike", was applied to other gods in addition to Aphrodite, such as Athena, Zeus, and possibly Hermes.
The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia was a sanctuary in ancient Paphos on Cyprus dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. Located where the legendary birth of Aphrodite took place, it has been referred to as the main sanctuary of Aphrodite, and was a place of pilgrimages in the ancient world for centuries. The ruins of the sanctuary were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980, due to their historical religious significance.
The Temple of Aphrodite Euploia was a sanctuary in ancient Knidos dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. It was a famous pilgrimage, known for hosting the famous statue of Aphrodite of Knidos.
The Temple of Aphrodite in Sparta was a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite.
Cythera or Kythera was the name of a town on the island of the same name. In antiquity it was part of Laconia.
The Cave Sanctuaries of the Acropolis of Athens are the natural fissures in the rock of the Acropolis hill that were used as sites of worship for deities of the Panhellenic pantheon in antiquity. Traditionally a sharp distinction has been drawn between the state religion practised on the summit of the Acropolis and the cult practice of the shrines on the lower slopes. Recently, however, interest has burgeoned in the individual religious experience or personal piety in Greek society of which these cult sites may be the expression. The proceeding description follows the order of the shrines from the Klepsydra at the northwest face of the Acropolis clockwise via the Peripatos round to the foot of the Nike bastion.
References
- ↑ John Nicolas Coldstream, George Leonard Huxley, Kythera: Excavation and Studies Conducted by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British School at Athens, Noyes Press, 1973
- 1 2 Pausanias, Description of Greece, 3.23.1 (trans. Jones)
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogony, 190
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 1.105.3
- ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.14.7