Aphrodite
is a well-known Greek goddess of love, beauty, sex appeal, and fertility.
Although some research shows her to be a deity of petty desires, overall
Aphrodite was a unique and powerful deity.
She held power over many mortals and immortals.
There are two versions of her birth which are very different.
The first story, according to Hesiod’s Theogony, proclaims that she was
sprung from Uranus, alone. Uranus,
or heaven, had refused to let his children emerge into the light.
So, with revenge, his son Cronus castrated him and threw his genitals
into the sea. Upon doing this, a
white foam appeared around them, containing a lovely goddess with grass growing
beneath her feet. This is the story
of Aphrodite Uranius. It
links Aphrodite’s birth with the creation of heaven and earth and created the
world in between. Aphrodite Uranius
was a stronger, more intelligent, and more spiritual goddess that that of Aphrodite
Pandemos. The following is a
piece of artwork showing Aphrodite Uranius emerging from the foam.
The
birth of Aphrodite Uranius; Attic Pelike, ca 370-360 BC
The second story of Aphrodite’s birth
is from Homer. He states that
Aphrodite was born from the union of Zeus and Dione, a Titan goddess.
This Aphrodite was known as Aphrodite Pandemos, who was known as
being more corrupt and primarily devoted to physical satisfaction.
This story depicts Aphrodite as one of the younger divinities.
Being a goddess, Aphrodite obviously had
many powers in which she used unlike any other god or goddess.
She had a power over love that included the innermost feelings of the
heart and the source of human passion. Aphrodite
had the power to influence some of the most important events in the history of
mythology. One example of this is
when she attended the marriage of Peleus and Thetis.
According to Cyprus, at this wedding, Eris threw an apple, with the
inscription, “for the fairest” into the crowd of guests.
Upon doing this, a fight arose between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
The three women made Paris the judge of their dispute.
Aphrodite promised Paris the marriage to Helen, the most beautiful woman
on Earth. Paris accepted this from
Aphrodite. Helen was the wife of
Menelaus, and it is unknown as to how Aphrodite got Helen to Paris, but her
disappearance is what indirectly caused the Trojan War.
The
Judgement of Paris; Antimenes Painter, ca 530 BC
Aphrodite was also known to cause
misfortune to some in the areas of love or beauty.
In one instance, six of Poseidon’s sons insulted her, so she struck
them mad and they gang-raped their mother.
Another use of her power was that when Aegus wouldn’t introduce her
worship t Athens, she caused him to be childless until he fulfilled her request.
Although she used her powers to hurt
others, she also used her powers to help others.
Once, she helped Meilanion achieve Atalanta for his wife by giving him
golden apples that allowed him to distract and overtake Atalanta in a foot race.
She also raised the orphaned daughters of Panderos and arranged for their
marriages.
As you can see, Aphrodite’s powers
were exposed in her actions to her faithful followers and also those who angered
her.
Being that Aphrodite was the goddess of
love, the reputation she gained was based upon her liberated sexuality.
Her sexual life was very liberated and had an embroidered girdle, which
supposively aroused passion for the wearer, both gods and men.
Every god, especially Zeus, wanted her as his wife, but she was too proud
and rejected every one of them. This
angered Zeus so much that he made her the wife of a homely and lame god,
Hephaestus. Aphrodite didn’t
change her actions after this.
One of the most known affairs of
Aphrodite was the affair with Ares, the god of war.
As myth tells it, one morning Ares and Aphrodite slept in late and were
seen by Helios, the sun. Helios
spread the word to Hephaestus, who tried to catch them in the act.
His trap eventually worked and caught the two together in bed naked.
But, his trap did nothing to stop Aphrodite’s affairs.
Ares
and Aphrodite being caught in the act by Hephaestus
Martin
Van Heemskerk, 1536
Although Aphrodite and Hephaestus never
had children together, Aphrodite did bear many children by many different
lovers. Some of her lovers included Zeus, Hermes, Dionysus, and Ares.
With Zeus, she had a son Eros, who was the creator of sensual love.
With Hermes, she had Hermaphroditus, and with Dionysus she produced both
Hymen and Priapus. During her
affair with Ares, they formed three children.
Hera is the goddess of women and marriage and she is the queen of the
heaven. Being an immortal goddess,
Hera will never die, yet she can be confined.
She is the child of Cronus and Rhea.
She was born in Samos on an island under a very old willow tree.
The Samians say that the Titans Ocean and Tethys brought her up.
It is also said that Hera was born twice.
Her father, Cronus, had thought that his children would grow to overthrow
him, so he swallowed them as soon as they were born.
Zeus, one of Cronus’ sons, later overthrew Cronus and was able to
recover all of the siblings who Cronus had swallowed.
Upon regurgitating, the children were all full-grown.
Hera
seated on her thrown
Museum
of Art, RISD
Although Hera and Zeus are siblings,
they are also married. According to
myth, Zeus and Hera met when Hera wasn’t responding to Zeus’ attempt to
seduce her. Zeus turned himself
into a cuckoo that had appeared to be frozen from the cold weather.
Hera, in her nurturing state, felt sorry for the bird and held it tightly
to her breast in order to warm it. Zeus
then turned into his normal self and took advantage of Hera.
She was raped and then persuaded to marry Zeus in order to cover her
shame. There are several stories of
how and where their marriage took place, but the oldest tradition takes place in
the Garden of Hesperides.
According to this story, Gaia gave Hera golden apples of the Hesperides
and Hera found them so beautiful that she planted them in her garden on the
shores of the ocean.
The
Marriage of Zeus and Hera
Being the oldest daughter of Cronus and
Reah, Zeus was deemed to give her the utmost respect.
Because she was a part of Zeus’s sovereignty, she became the chief
feminine deity of Olympus. Being in
this position, she had a very bad temper because of her anger towards Zeus and
his infidelities. Zeus was not
faithful to Hera and this made her very jealous of the other women and the
children that they beared with Zeus. Often,
if she could not hurt the women first hand, she would seek revenge on their
children. One story of her anger is
when she drove Hercules, son of Zeus and Alcmene, to murder his own wife and
children. Zeus supposively tried to
hide the children from affairs in order to protect them from Hera’s anger.
There are many other legends that illustrate Hera’s rage towards Zeus,
resulting from his various affairs with other women.
Because Hera was the goddess of
marriage, she never strayed like her husband.
She was always faithful to him, even though she was sought after by many
gods. One story says that when
Ixion came to dine with the gods, he only had to glance at Hera and he was
consumed with desire. In the
meantime, Zeus had shaped a cloud to look like Hera.
In Ixion’s mad passion for Hera, he clinched on to the cloud.
Ixion was punished for his lack of respect to Zeus and Hera by being
bound to a fiery wheel that whirled him indefinitely into the sky.
Hera and Aphrodite definitely had many differences as well as
similarities. They each had similar
powers, but they used these similar powers in different ways.
Aphrodite, being the goddess of love, seldomly used her power to spread
love, rather she would use it to hurt others who had done wrong by her.
One instance of this is the story of Poseidon’s sons.
When they insulted her, she caused them to gang-rape their mother.
An example of Aphrodite using her powers to spread love is her creation
of the marriage of Paris and Helen, distributing her love to Paris. The only misfortune of this is the fact that it was an
indirect cause of the Trojan War because Helen was taken away from her husband,
Menelaus. Aphrodite was also very
unfaithful to her husband because she was forced to marry him.
She had several children, none of which were bore from Hephaestus.
Hera, goddess of women and marriage,
also used her powers to both help and hurt others.
Since she was a goddess of marriage, she never had affairs with her
husband, Zeus. But she was always
angered, because Zeus would constantly be unfaithful to her.
She would get so mad at him, that she would cause misfortune to his
mistress’s and their families.
We can also see similarities between
Hera and Aphrodite. With Hera being
the goddess of women and marriage and Aphrodite being the goddess of love, there
is a definite connection. These three things have always been closely linked to one
another. The two were also very
beautiful, often being declared the most beautiful goddesses.
They were very aware of their physical attributes and cared for
themselves splendidly. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena, another goddess, were often
foreseen as a triple goddess group. They
were treated as if they were sisters and each of them were very dependent upon
the other two.
As you can see, Hera and Aphrodite share
many similarities as well as differences. They
were both very powerful goddesses who had control over other gods, goddesses,
and mortals. They obviously made great impacts on Greek mythology.
By looking at a
comparison of Aphrodite and Hera with God, I think we are able to see how they
coincide and how they conflict. To
start off, it is very obvious that all three of these deities hold a great
amount of power among other beings. But
the way they use this power is how we are able to distinguish their similarities
and differences.
A way that Aphrodite and Hera differ
from God is that they always seemed to be angry.
They were frequently after revenge for someone who had done them wrong
and people ironically feared them. God,
on the other hand, doesn’t possess these traits at all.
He is always willing to help his followers out and is always looking out
for the best of his believers. People
look up to God and are not frightened by him whatsoever.
There are many traits of God that are
visible in both Hera and Aphrodite. Aphrodite
was always able to control people’s feelings of love and honesty.
God is also somewhat known to have an influence over people’s feelings.
His strong power is able to draw many followers to worship him and
believe in him. Hera had a very
nurturing characteristic that we also see in God.
She was more or less a motherly figure to her followers, where God is a
father figure for his followers. Mother’s
and father’s share very similar characteristics, just as God and Hera shared
these similar characteristics.
Aphrodite and Hera were by far two of the most
beautiful and powerful goddesses of Greek mythology.
They used their powers in their own way, but both of the goddesses used
their beauty to attain what they were after.
They held a high position in the mythology world and were very much
respected.
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This work has been submitted by Lindsay McCann for Issues and Ideas 402 at Monmouth College.