Scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, accepting Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed the second part of Aphrodite's name as * -odítē "wanderer" or * -dítē "bright". Aphrodite's name is generally accepted to be of non-Greek (probably Semitic) origin, but its exact derivation cannot be determined. Early modern scholars of classical mythology attempted to argue that Aphrodite's name was of Greek or Indo-European origin, but these efforts have now been mostly abandoned. Hesiod derives Aphrodite from aphrós ( ἀφρός) "sea-foam", interpreting the name as "risen from the foam", but most modern scholars regard this as a spurious folk etymology. She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions, including the Church of Aphrodite, Wicca, and Hellenismos. Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature. Along with Athena and Hera, Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and she plays a major role throughout the Iliad. Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar. In the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises. Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers in the Odyssey, she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares, the god of war. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. Thus she was also known as Cytherea ( Lady of Cythera) and Cypris ( Lady of Cyprus), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess, or used by a different local cult. Plato, in his Symposium, asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities: Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent, "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people"). In Homer's Iliad, however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam ( ἀφρός, aphrós) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of " sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, Pothos, Anteros, Himeros, Hermaphroditus, Rhodos, Eryx, Peitho, The Graces, Beroe, Golgos, Priapus, AeneasĪphrodite ( / ˌ æ f r ə ˈ d aɪ t iː/ ⓘ AF-rə- DY-tee) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory.
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