It seems strange that this explanation has not been offered before. The data of the conditions in which the statue was found, the place of hiding, the political relation of Melos to Athens, and the character both of the few pagans and of the multitudes of Christians who lived in the beginning of the Christian era, tell us the story of the statue, its sad fate and why it found here a safe place of concealment.
The pagan remnant was small and kept quiet for fear of persecution, but we may very well imagine how they lived in the hope that paganism would celebrate a revival, that the storms of these barbarous outbursts would pass by and the temples of the gods would be restored in all their ancient glory. Then would come the time to bring the goddess back to her ancient dwelling place, to raise her altar again and light the sacrifice anew. But though the riots ceased and the authorities restored order, though for a short time a pagan emperor sat again on the throne of Cæsar, the ancient gods never returned and Christianity permanently replaced paganism. The devotees of the lost cause died without seeing their hope fulfilled. The desecrated statue remained hidden and their secret was buried with them in the grave.
THE MEANING OF “APHRODITE.”
THE etymology of the name Aphrodite is doubtful. The Greeks derived it from the word ἀφρός = foam, because the goddess was said to have risen from the foam of the sea. This wild guess of ancient Greek philology may have been responsible for the fable that Uranus (Heaven) nightly embraced Gaia (Earth) until he was attacked and mutilated by his rebellious son Kronos. Uranus, deprived of his creative ability, retired to the outskirts of the world. Mythologists assume that herewith the creation of the raw material of the universe ceased, but that the generative principle being now mingled with the sea changed into foam, whence rose the goddess that represents all fertility and creativeness in both vegetable and animal domains.
If this legend of the origin of Aphrodite is not simply the product of the wrong etymology of her name[7] it is assumed to have been imported from Phenicia. The only other similar myth known is found among the South Sea islanders where Rangi (Heaven) and Papa (Earth) embraced one another so closely that no life could originate, Rangi being regarded as a great blue canopy of stone. Then Tane Mahuta, their youngest son, corresponding to Kronos, the youngest child of Uranus and Gaia, cruelly separated the couple and forced his father upward and pressed his mother down, thus becoming the creator of life on earth.[8]
The ancient Greeks were poor philologists and similar failures of etymological speculation are quite common among them. Thus they explained the origin of names like Heracles as “the fame of Hera,” or Amazon as “the woman without breasts,” or Prometheus as “the forethinker,” etc. All these derivations are wild and obviously wrong guesses, nor may our modern philologists, though more scientific, be always exactly correct. We are taught now by comparative philology that Prometheus, the firebringer, is the Sanskrit word pramathyus, “the driller,” denoting the hard stick[9] which by a swift rotation in a soft piece of wood produces the spark that calls forth the beneficent flame.
This explanation seems probable but we cannot say that our etymologies of other names have been equally successful.
One recent interpretation of “Aphrodite” would make us regard the name as an Egyptian importation, explaining the word to mean Apharadat, “the gift of Ra,” the sun-god, derived from Pha Raa Da-t with the prosthetic A; but this, like the suggested derivation of Psyche from Pha Sakhu, “the mummy,” seems to be a mere accident of homophony. Other Greek names such as Elysion from Aalu, the Elysian Fields of the Egyptians, Charon from Kere, driver or skipper (ferryman), are better attested, but if the name Aphrodite came from Egypt the cult of a goddess by that name and character has been lost or obliterated.
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Originally Aphrodite was the same figure as Hera or Juno, Artemis or Diana and Pallas Athene or Minerva. These female deities are differentiations of the idealized and personified activities of womanhood: Hera as the queen of heaven, the protectress of wifehood; Diana of girlhood and virginity; Athene as the goddess of battles, as protectress of arts and sciences, as wisdom personified; Aphrodite, the personification of beauty and love.