Aphrodite Urania
Aphrodite Urania (
Etymology and names
According to
The most distinctively
Significance alongside other epithets
Aphrodite Pandemos was originally an extension of the idea of the goddess Aphrodite to family and city life to include the whole people, the political community. Hence the name was supposed to go back to the time of Theseus, the reputed author of the reorganization of Attica and its demes. Aphrodite Pandemos was held in equal regard with Urania; she was called σεμνή semnē (holy), and was served by priestesses upon whom strict chastity was enjoined. In time, however, the meaning of the term underwent a change, probably due to the philosophers and moralists, by whom a radical distinction was drawn between Aphrodite Urania and Pandemos.[clarification needed]
The Symposium
According to Pausanias's dialogue in Plato's Symposium, there are two Aphrodites, "the elder, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite [Urania] — she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione — her we call 'common' [Pandemos]."[citation needed] Pandemos was equated by Pausanias with sexual gratification and attraction towards the body of a lover, born of a man and woman and embodying attraction towards women and boys, while Urania was associated with a nobler attraction to the mind and soul, born without the involvement of a woman and embodying attraction towards young men.[7]
The same distinction is found in Xenophon[3] although the author is doubtful whether there are two goddesses, or whether Urania and Pandemos are two names for the same goddess, just as Zeus, although one and the same, has many titles; but in any case, he says, the ritual of Urania is "purer, more serious", than that of Pandemos. The same idea is expressed in the statement[8] that after Solon's time courtesans were put under the protection of Aphrodite Pandemos. But there is no doubt that the cult of Aphrodite was on the whole as "pure" as that of any other divinities, and although a distinction may have existed in later times between the goddess of legal marriage and the goddess of free love, the titles Urania and Pandemos do not express that idea.
Homosexual artists and activists in the
Anadyomene
Hesiod's description of Urania's birth from the sea foam was artistically depicted through a widespread motif of Venus Anadyomene ("Venus Rising from the Sea"),[11] an epithet notably revived during the Renaissance with works such as Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.
Worship and iconography
Her cult was first established in Cythera, probably in connection with the purple trade, and at Athens it is associated with the legendary Porphyrion, the purple king. At Thebes, Harmonia (who has been identified as Aphrodite herself) dedicated three statues: of Aphrodite Urania, Pandemos, and Apotrophia.[b]
Wine was not used in the libations offered to her.[14][15][16]
Aphrodite Urania was represented in Greek art on a swan, a tortoise or a globe.[17]
See also
- Temple of Aphrodite Urania
- Aphrodite Areia
Footnotes
- ^ "In the temple is the image of the goddess whom they call Ourania; it is made of ivory and gold and is the work of Pheidias; it stands with one foot upon a tortoise" — Pausanias
[The tortoise was a symbol of domestic modesty and chastity.] - ^ Ἀφροδίτη Ἀποτροφία, Aphrodítē Apotrophía means "Aphrodite the Expeller", because in this role, she expels lust and evil desires from the hearts of men.[12][13]
References
- ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). . In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 3. Little, Brown and Company. p. 1284.
- ^ Plato. Symposium. 180.
- ^ a b Xenophon. Symposium. 8 § 9.
- ^ Hesiod. Theogony. 188–206.
- ^ Herodotus, i. 131., iii. 8
- ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). . In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Little, Brown and Company. p. 132.
- ^ Translation by W. Hamilton.
- Nicander of Colophon
- ISBN 978-0-8797-5859-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-5915-1.
- ^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, xxxv.86–87.
- ]
- ISBN 9788173413087.)
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Scholiast. ad Soph. Oed. Col. 101.
- ^ Herodotus. [title not cited]. i. 105.
- ^ "νηφάλια" ["nephalia" = "without libation"]. Suda.
- ^ Freese, John Henry (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 167. . In