by iakul

Created on: July 30, 2010

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty and sexuality. Her name, as written in Greek, could also be read as "risen from the sea-foam" and according to the Greek poet Hesiod, that is precisely what happens at the moment of her birth. Cronus, who would later on father the gods Zeus, Pluto and Poseidon, overthrew his father, Uranus, castrating him in the process and throwing his gentials into the sea, and Aphrodite rose from the sea-foam.

Other accounts of her birth place her as the daughter of Dione, and there were also a number of poets who described her as the daughter of Zeus.

Aphrodite was the wife of Hephaestus, the lame, grotesque Greek god of smithing. Here again, accounts differed as to how this came about. One account held that, Zeus, fearing that her immense beauty would cause the gods to war and fight over her, married her off to Hephaestus, as he was deemed the most unfaltering of the gods. In another version, Hephaestus trapped Hera his mother in a golden throne to take revenge for her casting him out from Olympus, and would only relent when Aphrodite's hand was offered in marriage to him.

While Hephaestus was overjoyed with the marriage, forging Aphrodite several gifts, including a girdle which made her even more irresistible to men, it was far from the case for Aphrodite. She frequently sought out the companionship of others, in particular the Greek god of war, Ares.

Perhaps the most well-known story which involved Aphrodite is her role in the fall of Troy.

As the story goes, Eris, the goddess of discord caused the three goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera and Athena quarrel among themselves about who among them was the fairest. The goddesses sought Zeus' judgement, and not wanting to appear partial to any of them, instead directed them to get Paris, the prince of Troy to judge.

Thus, the goddesses all appeared to Paris in turn, and offered him a bribe to choose them. Hera offered rulership over Asia Minor, Athena offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. Paris chose Aphrodite and she rewarded him with Helen. However, Helen was already married to Menelaus, the ruler of Sparta at that point in time. Enraged, he gathered his allies and launched a war against Troy, in what would come to be known as the Trojan War.

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