'''Aphrodite''' was the Olympian goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. She was depicted as a beautiful woman often accompanied by the winged godling Eros (Love). Her attributes included a dove, apple, scallop shell and mirror. In classical sculpture and fresco she was usually depicted nude.

Aphrodite is one of the Twelve Olympians, and ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshiped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.

A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature. In Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. In Homer's Iliad, however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In his Symposium, Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people"). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion. Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete.

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers; in the Odyssey, she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares, the god of war. In the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises. Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar. Along with Athena and Hera, Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and plays a major role throughout the Iliad. Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature. She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions, including the Church of Aphrodite, Wicca, and Hellenism.

She was honoured by the Roman poet Lucretius as Genetrix, the creative element in the world. Her epithets Urania (Heavenly Dweller) and Pandemos (Of All the People) were ironically taken by the philosopher Plato (in the Symposium) to refer to intellectual and common love; rather, the title Urania was honorific and applied to certain Asian deities, while Pandemos referred to her standing within the city-state. Among her symbols were the dove, pomegranate, swan, and myrtle.

Representations of Aphrodite in early Greek art are fully dressed and without distinguishing features that differentiate her from other goddesses. She first attained individuality at the hands of the great 5th-century-bce Greek sculptors. Perhaps the most famous of all statues of Aphrodite was carved by Praxiteles for the Cnidians. The first full-scale female nude, it later became the model for such Hellenistic masterpieces as the Venus de Milo (2nd century bce). The Etruscans equated her with Turan.

Below are characters from Greek mythology who are considered children of Aphrodite. In some cases there are conflicting stories about who their parents are. A complete list is here.
*Eros
*Phobos
*Deimos
*Harmonia
*Pothos
*Anteros
*Himeros
*Hermaphroditus
*Rhodos
*Eryx
*Peitho
*The Graces
*Beroe
*Golgos
*Priapus
*Aeneas

All published appearances of Aphrodite from before January 1, )-(95)}} are public domain in the US.

Notable appearances are listed below:

*Iliad by Homer
*Theogony by Hesiod
*Aphrodite: mœurs antiques by Pierre Louÿs

*Aphrodite by Louis de Gramont, music by Camille Erlanger
*Aphrodite by Hans Liebstoeckl, music by Max von Oberleithner

* The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

*Hercules #2
*Humdinger vol. 1 #4

Aphrodite.jpg|From Humdinger vol. 1 #4

*Wikipedia
*[https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aphrodite_(Venus)_-_the_Greek_goddess_of_love.jpg#mw-jump-to-license Wikimedia Commons]
*[https://comicvine.gamespot.com/aphrodite/4005-18674/ Comicvine]
*[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/ClassicalMythologySecondGenerationOlympians TV Tropes]
*Myths in Media Wiki
*Myth & Folklore Wiki
*[https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html Theoi]
*[https://www.giantbomb.com/aphrodite/3005-14622/ GiantBomb]
*Religion Wiki
*Gacha Games Wiki
*[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aphrodite-Greek-mythology Britannica]
*DC Wiki
*Marvel Wiki
*Ultimate Pop Culture Wiki
*Jenny Everywhere Wiki
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