Greek

Tap or drag

Greek

Aphrodite

The Goddess of Love & Beauty

Domain: Love & Beauty
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Element: Air
Relics of Power: Divine Girdle of Chiron

Speak with Aphrodite

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

See PRO Get the app

The People

People

Ancient Greeks

Region

Greece & the Mediterranean

Period

8th c. BC – 4th c. AD

The Olympian gods were worshipped by the city-states of ancient Greece, from Athens to Sparta, which raised them temples such as the Parthenon. Reigning atop Mount Olympus, they presided over every aspect of life and were celebrated in festivals like the Olympic Games. Homer and Hesiod fixed their myths, which shaped all of Western culture.

The Olympic Games were held every four years in honor of Zeus, and the Panathenaea celebrated Athena in Athens. The Eleusinian Mysteries initiated the faithful into the secrets of Demeter and Persephone, while crowds consulted Apollo's oracle at Delphi.

At a glance

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, desire and seduction. In Hesiod she is born from the foam that gathers around the severed genitals of Uranus cast into the sea, and she reaches Cythera and Cyprus accompanied by Eros and Himeros; in the Iliad she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Homeric Hymn 5 says that her power reaches gods, mortals and animals, with three exceptions: Athena, Artemis and Hestia. She appears in the myths of Paris, Anchises, Adonis and Ares, in the cult at Paphos, Corinth, Athens and Sparta, and in the Roman tradition as Venus.

17 min read · Reviewed on October 13, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

Seashell, dove, rose, myrtle and magic girdle

Family

Parents

Uranus

Siblings

The ErinyesThe Giants

Aphrodite

Unions

Hephaestus AresAnchisesAdonis

Children

ErosPhobosDeimosHarmoniaAeneas

Genealogy according to Hesíodo, Teogonia 188–206; Homero, Ilíada 5.370–371; Hino Homérico a Afrodite 53–75

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Hesíodo / Hesiod, Teogonia / Theogony. translation: H. G. Evelyn-White, Loeb, 1914. read
Homero / Homer, Iliad. translation: A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1924. read
Homero / Homer, Odyssey. translation: A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1919. read
Homeric Hymns, Hymn to Aphrodite (Hymn 5). translation: H. G. Evelyn-White, Loeb, 1914. read
Pausânias / Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.1–16. translation: W. H. S. Jones, Loeb, 1918–1935. read
Pausânias / Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.17–29. translation: W. H. S. Jones, Loeb, 1918–1935. read
Pausânias / Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.1–14. translation: W. H. S. Jones, Loeb, 1918–1935. read
Pausânias / Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.14–26. translation: W. H. S. Jones, Loeb, 1918–1935. read
Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 10. translation: Brookes More, 1922. read
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library, book 3. translation: James George Frazer, Loeb, 1921. read
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Epitome. translation: James George Frazer, Loeb, 1921. read
Tacitus, Histories 2.2–3. translation: Church & Brodribb, 1876. read
Herodotus, Histories 1.105. translation: A. D. Godley, Loeb, 1920. read
Plato, Symposium 180c–185c. translation: W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb, 1925. read
Plato, Phaedrus 276b. translation: H. N. Fowler, Loeb, 1925. read
Aristophanes, Lysistrata 387–398. translation: Perseus Digital Library. read
Ovid, Heroides 16 (Latin text). translation: The Latin Library. read
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.20. translation: Bostock & Riley, 1855. read
Appian, Civil Wars 2.68, 2.102. translation: Horace White, Loeb, 1913. read
Homero / Homer, Odyssey 8 (open Perseus edition). translation: A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1919. read

Studies

Walter Burkert, Greek Religion. Harvard University Press, 1985.
Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Carolina López-Ruiz, When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Theoi Project, Aphrodite. Aaron J. Atsma, 2000–2017. open
Craig Jendza, The Etymology and Origins of Aphrodite. Society for Classical Studies. open

Name and epithets

The origin of Ἀφροδίτη (Aphrodī́tē) is uncertain; the explanation linking it to aphrós, “foam,” is a poetic etymology in Hesiod (Theogony 195–198), not an established linguistic derivation (Craig Jendza, “The Etymology…

In the ancient sources

Hesiod, Theogony, c. 700 BC. The birth in the foam, the names and honours of the goddess; Phobos, Deimos and Harmonia, children of Ares; Aeneas, son of Anchises. Homer, Iliad, 8th c. BC.

The myths

The birth in the foam. In Hesiod's Theogony, Gaia puts a sickle in Cronus's hands and hides him in ambush. When Uranus comes to lie upon her, Cronus cuts off his father's genitals and casts them into the sea.

Worship and archaeology

The principal sanctuary of Aphrodite in Cyprus was at Paphos. Homeric Hymn 5 (58–59) speaks of her precinct and fragrant altar there, and the Odyssey (8.362–363) sends the goddess to it after the episode with Ares.

How the god was depicted

Ancient texts describe very different images of the goddess. At Sparta, Pausanias saw Aphrodite Morpho seated, veiled and with fetters on her feet (3.15.11); on the Acrocorinth, an armed Aphrodite (2.5.1); in Athens, an…

What scholars debate

The eastern origin of the cult. Herodotus (1.105) states, on the basis of inquiries he made, that the temple of Aphrodite Ourania at Ascalon is the oldest of the goddess and that the one in Cyprus was founded from it, a…

After antiquity

In the Roman tradition, Aphrodite was identified with Venus. As the mother of Aeneas (Homeric Hymn 5; Theogony 1008–1010), she was the ancestor of the Trojan line that the Romans claimed.

Did you know?

At Paphos, according to Tacitus, the altar stood in the open air and was never wetted by rain. The image of the goddess was a rounded mass, broad at the base and narrow at the top, like a cone, and he says that its mean…

Codex relic

Divine Girdle of Chiron. A golden-threaded girdle that makes any being irresistibly attractive.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

The legends, the myth, the cult and relics are part of the full Codex. You can open 1 full entry for free every day; to open all 500 deities with no limits and no ads, subscribe to Codex PRO.

See Codex PRO Get it on Google Play