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The Gods of Ancient Greece: Aphrodite Her sacred animal is the dove. The rose is also sacred to her. In a myth it is told that as Aphrodite ran to the side of the wounded Adonis, she pricked herself on a rose thorn, and her blood stained the flower red.
Paphos, in Cyprus, is one of her most famous shrines. It is of considerable age, dating back to perhaps the 12th
century BC. (Burkert, p. 153) At Corinth priestess of the goddess reportedly engaged in “acts of love” as part of
their worship.
Epithets
Aligena, “sea born”
Basilis, “queen”
Epipontia, “on the sea”
Khruse, “golden”
Kupris, “Cyprian”
Kuprogenes, “Cyprus-born”
Melainis, “black”
Morpho, “shapely”
Ourania, "heavenly, of Ouranos”
Pandemos, “of all people”
Tumborukhos, “gravedigger”
(Campbell, p. 57)
Myths
The story of Aphrodite’s birth begins with another myth: the castration of Ouranos by his son, Kronos. (That story
will be told in the section about Kronos.)
Kronos, after castrating his father Ouranos, threw the parts into the sea. The waves tossed the pieces around for
a while, and then foam began to issue from them. It increased in volume, and from that foam a shape began to emerge.
Soon, up from the foam rose a beautiful goddess. She was Aphrodite. She swam to Cyprus, and was welcomed there by
the Horai, who clothed & anointed her. Then she was taken to Olympos, where the other gods greeted her with
excitement, commenting on her beauty.
Here are some hymns to Aphrodite.