Aphrodite
Ancient Greek goddess of love
Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love and beauty. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. In Athens, she was celebrated annually during the Aphrodisia festival. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Roman culture, an idea now generally seen as erroneous. Aphrodite had many epithets, many of which emphasized an aspect of her character or were used by local cults. Thus she was known as Cytherea and Cypris, because both places claimed to be the site of her birth. The origins of Aphrodite have been the subject of scholarly debate. Proposed influences on her origins have included Near Eastern love goddesses, an indigenous Cypriot goddess, and a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess.
“Aphrodite” enters the record as ancient Greek goddess of love. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aphrodite, Ancient and Greek can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aphrodite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.