Aphrodite: Encyclopedia II - Aphrodite - Birth

Aphrodite - Birth

"Foam-arisen" Aphrodite was born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and the elder god's blood and semen dropped on the sea, where they began to foam. Aphrodite was born fully grown out of the foam. Thus Aphrodite is of an older generation than Zeus. Iliad (Book V) expresses another version of her origin, by which she was considered a daughter of Dione, who was the original oracular goddess ("Dione" being simply "the goddess," etymologically an equivalent of "Diana") at Dodona. In Homer, Aphrodite, venturing into battle to protect her son, Aeneas, who has been wounded by Diomedes and returns to her mother, to sink down at her knee and be comforted. "Dione" seems to be an equivalent of Rhea, the Earth Mother, whom Homer has relocated to Olympus. After this story, Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dione". Once Zeus had usurped the oak-grove oracle at Dodona, some poets made him out to be the father of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite's chief center of worship remained at Paphos, on the south-western coast of Cyprus, where the goddess of desire had long been worshipped as Ishtar and Ashtaroth. It is said that she first tentatively came ashore at Cytherea, a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus. Thus perhaps we have hints of the track of Aphrodite's original cult from the Levant to mainland Greece.

In Plato's Symposium the speech of Pausanias distinguishes two manifestations of Aphrodite, represented by the two stories: Aphrodite Ourania ("heavenly" Aphrodite), and Aphrodite Pandemos ("Common" Aphrodite). These two manifestations represented her role in homosexuality and heterosexuality, respectively.

Alternatively, Aphrodite was a daughter of Thalassa (for she was born of the Sea) and Zeus.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Birth", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki