The poets paint Aphrodite as the most beautiful of all the goddesses, whose magic power not even the wisest could withstand. Even wild animals were conscious of her influence, and pressed round her like lambs. She was endowed with the celebrated love-begetting magic girdle, which she could lay aside at will and lend to others. And as she thus gave rise to passion in others, she herself was not free from its influence. This is evidenced by the numerous stories of her amours with the gods or favoured mortals, which it is so difficult to bring into harmony with each other. Sometimes Ares, sometimes Hephæstus, is said to be her husband. The latter account, which originated in Lemnos, was the more popular; doubtless because its very strangeness in mating the sweetest and most lovely of the goddesses with the lame and ugly god of fire had a certain charm. No children are mentioned as springing from the union of Aphrodite with Hephæstus; but Eros and Anteros, as well as Demus and Phobus, are said to be her children by Ares. Other legends, generally of a local character, unite her to Dionysus, or to Hermes.
The story of her love for the beautiful Adonis clearly represents the decay of nature in autumn, and its resuscitation in spring. Adonis, whom Aphrodite tenderly loved, was killed, when hunting, by a wild boar. Inconsolable at her loss, Aphrodite piteously entreated Father Zeus to restore his life. Zeus at length consented that Adonis should spend one part of the year in the world of shadows, and the other in the upper world. Clearly the monster that deprived Adonis of life is only a symbol of the frosty winter, before whose freezing blast all life in nature decays.
In the story of Troy, Aphrodite plays an important part. She was the original cause of the war, having assisted Paris in his elopement with Helen. This was his reward for his celebrated judgment, in which he awarded the prize of beauty to Aphrodite in preference to Hera or Athene. Besides the Trojan prince Anchises enjoyed her favours, and she became by him the mother of the pious hero Æneas.
The goddess appears ever ready to assist unfortunate lovers; thus she aided the hero Peleus to obtain the beautiful sea-nymph Thetis. On the other hand, she punishes with the utmost severity those who from pride or disdain resist her power. This appears in the legend of Hippolytus, son of Theseus, King of Athens, whom she ruined through the love of his step-mother Phædra; also in the story of the beautiful youth Narcissus, whom she punished by an ungratified self-love, because he had despised the love of the nymph Echo.
The Seasons and the Graces appear in attendance on Aphrodite. Their office is to dress and adorn her. She is also accompanied by Eros, Pothus, and Himerus (Love, Longing, and Desire), besides Hymen, or Hymenæus, the god of marriage.
The Roman Venus (the Lovely One) was regarded by the earlier Italian tribes as the goddess of spring, for which reason April, the month of buds, was held sacred to her. She early acquired a certain social importance, by having ascribed to her a beneficent influence in promoting civil harmony and sociability among men.
After her identification with the Aphrodite of the Greeks, she became more and more a goddess merely of sensual love and desire. She had three principal shrines—those of Venus Murcia, Venus Cloacina, and Libitina. The first of these surnames points to Venus as the myrtle goddess (the myrtle being an emblem of chaste love); her temple was situated on the brow of the Aventine, and was supposed to have been erected by the Latins, who were planted there by Ancus Marcius.
The temple of Venus Cloacina (the Purifier) was said to have been erected in memory of the reconciliation of the Romans and Sabines, after the rape of the Sabine women. The surname of Libitina points to her as goddess of corpses. All the apparatus of funerals were kept in this temple, and her attendants were at the same time the public undertakers of the city.
To these ancient shrines was added another in the time of Julius Cæsar, who erected a temple to Venus Genetrix, the goddess of wedlock, in fulfilment of a vow made at the battle of Pharsalus.
