AFRODITE. - Greek goddess of love. Various scholars derive her name from Indo-Germanic languages and see in A. a Thessalian goddess who later spread to Boeotia, Arcadia, and Cyprus, but the etymologies proposed are unconvincing. At present it is a common opinion, though not accepted by all, that A. is an Oriental divinity and that her name derives from that of Astarte, a Semitic goddess of fertility. According to Herodotus and some moderns, A. would have come from Ashkelon to Cyprus, then to Cythera and Greece, while others believe she was already received in Mycenaean times. The earliest representation of A. has been claimed to be a gold plaque from Mycenae depicting a nude female figure with strongly accentuated sex and doves. But even if it represents a divinity, it does not follow that the Mycenaeans worshipped her, since the representation is isolated and the plaque has only a decorative purpose. It is an artistic motif from Asia Minor that does not imply the acceptance of the cult.
In Homer, A. is a Greek divinity, daughter of Zeus and Dione. According to Hesiod, she was born from the foam of the sea, fertilized by Uranus: he interprets, that is, the epithet Ourania, frequent for A., an epithet which some have wanted to see as proof of a sky divinity, others, more rightly, of a foreign divinity. It is difficult to decide which of the two genealogies is the older; some incline to the Hesiodic one, more primitive and less consonant with Greek ideas. The myth places the birth of A. in Cyprus.
The characteristics of A. found in Homer remain with her in the Greek world. However, we must distinguish between A. in cult and A. in art. In cult she had less importance than other great Olympian divinities: no city, apart from the Cypriot ones, had her as protector. Cyprus in this, as in other aspects of the cult, shows Semitic influence. In art, however, A. enjoyed great diffusion, becoming the preferred and most depicted divinity. Artists admired in her beauty, grace, and feminine perfection. Scenes of bathing and dressing are frequent subjects in vase painting and on mirrors, but they have no repercussion in cult, as do not the numerous Hellenistic statues in which A. is no longer the goddess, but a very beautiful woman, often somewhat vulgar, who excites the imagination and the senses.
In cult, A. is the goddess of love, and to this aspect the "Great Mother" of the East doubtless contributed; under her influence she becomes a lover herself, but her favorites are not Greek and do not stand out in Greek myth. Also of Oriental influence is sacred prostitution, rare in Greece but frequent in the East. In Greece it was practiced at Corinth, where the sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania had up to 2,000 hierodules, whose earnings went into the temple's coffers, and at Paphos, where, however, the cult has Semitic characteristics.
14. - ENCYCLOPEDIA CATHOLICA. - I.
In Rome, A. was identified with Venus; in Etruria with Turan. It has been claimed to see survivals of the cult of A. in the legend of St. Pelagia, but the proofs adduced are anything but exact and convincing.