Theurgy: Forsaken Oaths (Book Two)

Interlude-Aphrodite

It is treacherously difficult to pinpoint the exact time she entered into the greek pantheon, but her origins predates her existence on the council well before then, and existed in multiple forms. Her cult travelled through trade routes in the great sea before ever reaching Greece. She was adapted from Ishtar and Astarte from the east Phoenician civilization, both goddesses of pretty much everything including war. 

     So why wasn't Aphrodite also a war god as well when translated to Greece?

      She was a war god. The trade routes she became popular around were conquered by Sparta, and they immediately adopted her, and turned her into Aphrodite Areia. Sparta is also one of the oldest states in Greece as well, which allowed her to survive so long. Being a goddess of love and sex, while also being a war god seemed contradictory for most of Greece, except for, of course, the Spartans. The would worship her alongside many other war gods at that time.

    The goddess of Love and Beauty who beguiled all, gods and men alike; the laughter-loving goddess, who laughed sweetly or mockingly at those her wiles had conquered; the irresistible goddess who stole away even the wits of the wise.

      In earlier myths, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, but in later poems she is said to have sprung from the foam of the sea, and her name was explained as meaning "the foam risen." Aphros-  is foam in greek. The sea-birth took place near Cythera, from where she was wafted to Cyprus. Both islands were ever after sacred to her, and she was called Cytherea or the Cyprian as often as by her proper name.

    One of the Homeric Hymns, calling her beautiful golden goddess," says of her;-

       The breath of the west wind bore her over the sounding sea, up from the delicate foam, to wave-ringed Cyprus, her isle. And the Hours golden wreathed welcomed her joyously. They clad her in raiment immortal, and brought her to the gods. Wonder seized them all as they saw violet-crowned Cytherea. Besides Area, there was also Pandemos; the people's Aphrodite and representing carnal lust and desire. Her most heavenly form was often Ouranos, being the more archaic forms of platonic love between siblings and mother's.

    The Romans wrote her the same way. With her, beauty comes. The winds flee before her and the storm clouds; sweet flowers embroider the earth; the waves of the sea laugh; she moves in radiant light. Without her there is no joy nor loveliness anywhere. This is the picture the poets like best to paint of her.

      But she had another side too. It was natural that she should cut a poor figure in the Iliad, where the battle of heroes is the theme. She is a soft, weak creature there whom mortals need not fear to attack. In later poems she is usually shown as treacherous and malicious, exerting a deadly and destructive power over men.

     In most of the stories she is wife of Hephaestus (Vulcan), the lame and ugly god of the forge, however had many affairs with Ares, possible due to her stories starting in Sparta.

     The myrtle was her tree; the dove her bird-sometimes, too, the sparrow and the swan.