More than a Goddess of Love: The Many Other Aspects of Aphrodite
The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, has a very distinctive image in classical arts. In 458 BCE, the playwright Aeschylus, in his play Agamemnon, used the name of Aphrodite to denote “beauty, charm, and grace”. Her birth from the sea in a bas-relief dating from 470 to 460 BCE depicts her as a grown woman fully aware of her charms. No other Greek goddess was sculpted emphasizing her physical beauty as frequently as Aphrodite. Statues of Aphrodite from Cyrene and the Esquiline, both from the first century BCE, were even named Aphrodite Kallipygos, which means “Aphrodite with a beautiful derriere”.
Aphrodite Kallipygos, meaning “Aphrodite with a beautiful derriere”. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
But if the gorgeousness of the Greek goddess of love has been established as scholarly facts, what else can be said about her? Looking at classical arts alone, Aphrodite seems to have no distinctive attributes other than her beauty, however, she was much more than just beautiful. The goddess was worshiped by everyone from prostitutes to magistrates, virgins to soldiers, sailors to poets – and not always for her beauty and domain over love.
