Aphrodite and Eros

The Development of Greek Erotic Mythology

Barbara Breitenberger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135883768
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This book offers a groundbreaking revision of the popular image of Aphrodite and Eros that lives on in Roman poetry (Venus and Cupid) and has inspired artists for centuries. An interdisciplinary analysis of the Archaic period - using literary, iconographical, and cultic evidence - shows the distinct concept behind the two deities of love. Aphrodite's character, sphere of influence, and function feature in her traditional myths and are well reflected in cult. Eros, however, was not yet a similarly personified mythical figure at that stage, nor did he have an individual cult.
Breitenberger follows the different stages of the development of Eros's personality. Originally a cosmic entity and an unpersonified aspect of Aphrodite, he was given his mythical identity by successive archaic lyric poets who were particularly keen to mythologize a male counterpart to the established love-goddess Aphrodite. This male love-god turns out to be the divinized homoerotic ideal of the male aristocracy 'worshipped' at their symposia. The development of the male love-god is taken as an example to demonstrate that poets' artistic innovation as well as their social and historical background played an important role in creating Greek mythology.

Chapter One

Aphrodite: The Historical Background

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Like other deities in the Olympian pantheon, Aphrodite is not of Greek origin, but was introduced from the Near East, probably during a period of intense exchange.¹ Cult-related iconographic manifestations seem to have played a significant role in this process of transmission. By this means the Greeks came to know the Eastern Ishtar-Astarte² as a fully personified goddess who enjoyed cultic worship. Although the Greek Aphrodite inherited many of the characteristics of her predecessors in her mythical representations and also in cult as regards her province and attributes, she was given a typical Greek varnish which distinguishes her from her Eastern forerunners. This chapter will look briefly at the discussion on Aphrodite's possible predecessors in general and then explore how Greek manifestations of the goddess in early cult, iconography, and myth reflect her Eastern origins, but also modify them so that her Greek character becomes clear. Aphrodite will be seen to be a “composite figure whose Greek configurations are different from the originals”.³

1.2 THE ORIGINS OF APHRODITE

Over the past hundred years Aphrodite's origins have been discussed intensely.⁴ L.R. Farnell was one of the first to claim that she was originally an “oriental divinity”.⁵ Other scholars such as D. Boedeker and P. Friedrich argued in favor of an originally Indoeuropean predecessor,⁶ some in addition emphasize a Hellenic or specifically Minoan-Mycenean character.⁷ These views are not generally accepted, and the more correspondences between Aphrodite and Ishtar-Astarte are discovered, the less convincing they become. However, since our evidence of Indoeuropean mythology is from a stage when it had already been amalgamated with motifs and traditions from the Near East, it cannot be excluded that the Greek Aphrodite may be a complex combination of both origins.⁸

More recent scholarship has limited Aphrodite's provenance to Phoenicia. This view has recently been supported by a possible Semitic etymology in which her name is interpreted as the Greek rendering of a local title of the Semitic goddess Astarte (“she of the villages”) and thus related to the phonology and morphology of the Cypriot Phoenician language.⁹ W. Burkert emphasizes many significant parallels on the basis of cult traditions and iconography. Ishtar-Astarte is the Queen of Heaven, and this title is reflected in Aphrodite's frequent cult epithet Οὐρανία in Greece.¹⁰ Aphrodite is the only deity in Greece worshipped with incense, altars and dove sacrifices, which are also offered to Ishtar-Astarte.¹¹ She is a warrior goddess, and Archaic xoana of an armed Aphrodite are documented in Sparta and Argos as well.¹² One of Aphrodite's most frequent epithets, χρυσέη, together with its compounds (e.g. πολύχρυσος), has been interpreted by W. Burkert as a reflection of artworks made of gold representing the Eastern goddess.¹³ And, of course, both goddesses are associated with sexuality and procreation.

However, during the last few years correspondences in another area have attracted the attention of scholars. Striking similarities in the structure of mythological contexts and in their representation of deities seem to affirm the parallels in cult and iconography. A recent publication by M.L. West gives the impression that most of the significant contexts and characteristics of Aphrodite, not only in Hesiodic and Homeric epic, but also in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, are inspired by oriental models.¹⁴ The parallels of Aphrodite's complaint in Heaven with that of Ishtar in the Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh have been discussed extensively by W. Burkert and more recently by M.L. West.¹⁵ I will argue later that, in spite of clear parallels, there are modifications in the Iliad which indicate Aphrodite's separation from her predecessor and confirm her own Greek identity.¹⁶

Support for a Phoenician origin gains ground the more one learns the extent to which many different fields of Greek culture, not only literary structures and motifs, but also trade and art, magic and medicine have been influenced by the Near East.¹⁷

1.3 CULTIC AND LITERARY EVIDENCE FOR THE NEAR-EASTERN ORIGINS OF APHRODITE Οὐρανία

There is in fact good evidence that the key role which Cyprus and Cythera played as mediators between the Near East and Greece in general was vital for Aphrodite's entry into Hellas.¹⁸ The customary use of Κύπρις, Κυπρογενής, and Κυθέρεια in the preserved Archaic epics suggests that at the time of their composition these epithets were so well known that Aphrodite can be identified by them. Furthermore, they are likely to reflect a historical development during which these islands became Aphrodite's earliest cult places in Greece.¹⁹

That it was the Phoenicians who established her cults there is not only suggested by their traditional role as sea-trading intermediaries between the Orient and Greece, but endorsed by archaeological findings.²⁰ The Phoenicians’ first settlement en masse in Paphos on Cyprus becomes evident at the beginning of the first millennium.²¹ Recent research dates Aphrodite's famous temple there back to Mycenean times, around 1200 BC.²² However, this does not disprove the assumption that it could have been founded by the Phoenicians. It is quite possible that smaller Phoenician communities were present there already before their actual main settlement. We have evidence from historical times that the adoption of foreign deities does not require a proper settlement of their original worshippers.²³ Furthermore, votive offerings found in another Archaic sanctuary of Aphrodite in Paphos show distinctly Phoenician traits and can thus accord with Aphrodite's Phoenician origin.²⁴ In this context it is important to note that later, in 333 BC, Phoenician merchants received permission to establish a sanctuary of Aphrodite at Athens. They were from Kition on the island of Cyprus which had become a Phoenician city in the mid-9th century BC.²⁵ However, the foundation of the cult at Athens cannot attest a continuous worship of the Phoenicians’ ancestral deity in Greece. Early Phoenician traces have been found on Cythera too. According to G.L. Huxley, the most important cult in Cythera was Aphrodite's, and it was for her worship that the island was famous. He deduces from the evidence of purple industry there that the Phoenicians whom he assumes to have founded the cult settled on Cythera by the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.²⁶

This evidence finds confirmation in historiographical writings. Although Herodotus’ testimony, his source citations in particular, have to be considered with care, as D. Fehling has shown, the historian's view concerning Aphrodite's early cult places and her provenance does not seem to be a product of mere speculation.²⁷ The goddess's epithets Κύπρις, Κυπρογενής and Κυθέρεια, which indicate her special relationship with these islands, are attested as early as Hesiod and Homer. Furthermore, Phoenician influence on Cyprus and Cythera is corroborated by sources other than Herodotus, i.e. archaeological evidence.

Herodotus (1,105,2) mentions the pillaging of the sanctuary of Ἀϕροδίτη Οὐρανία in Ascalon by the Scythians and says that he learnt (ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθανόμενος εὑρίσκω) that this was the oldest of all shrines of the goddess.²⁸ He does not clearly say who his informants were—he probably means the people in Ascalon. Of course, we should not take this statement literally. Certainly, Ascalon in Syria was a Phoenician settlement, and that Phoenician merchants played a role as mediators of the cult of Aphrodite is, as we have seen, otherwise attested. But whether the sanctuary at Ascalon was the oldest ever cannot be proven (cf. Pausanias’ statement, see below). It is doubtful whether Herodotus is referring to a real source here; maybe he is just putting a story into the mouth of a Phoenician local whom he need not even have met in Ascalon. One of the numerous Phoenician settlers in Greece could have told him the story as well—or some locals in Cyprus or Cythera. One can imagine that if he really had gone there and asked the Phoenicians, they would very possibly have claimed their own sanctuary to be the earliest ever, simply out of local patriotism. Considering the maritime expansion and lively exchange with Greece, one can assume that they were aware of their own cult foundations there.

In the same passage Herodotus mentions the tradition, allegedly narrated by his Cypriot informants, in which the Greek sanctuary of Cyprus was also founded from Ascalon, and adds (without indicating a source) that Aphrodite's temple in Cythera was established by the Phoenicians from Syria. We have seen that Aphrodite's links with Cyprus and Cythera are attested as early as Hesiodic and Homeric epic, and thus in this respect Herodotus’ statements are certainly correct. We may, however, wonder whether Herodotus really would have had to question these informants to be able to tell us what we read in his work. It is very likely that these things were common knowledge in Greece at the time of Herodotus.²⁹

Six centuries later Aphrodite's early settlement in Cythera is reaffirmed by Pausanias.³⁰ His testimony alone, however, cannot back up Herodotus. Pausanias is much later and may in certain aspects have been influenced by Herodotus. Interestingly he diverges from Herodotus’ account on one important point. While the latter says that it was the Phoenicians who established Ἀϕροδίτη Οὐρανία's oldest sanctuary ever, Pausanias emphasizes their role as mediators. He says that the Assyrians were the first to venerate Ἀϕροδίτη Οὐρανία. Then, he continues, the Paphians from Cyprus and the Phoenicians in Ascalon took over the worship of the goddess, and it was from the latter that the people from Cythera learnt how to venerate Aphrodite.³⁰ Elsewhere he says that the “oldest and most sacred sanctuary” of Ἀϕροδίτη Οὐρανία in Greece is the one in Cythera, where she is represented by an armed xoanon.³¹While in Herodotus the cult in Cyprus is said to have been founded from Ascalon, Pausanias claims that it goes back to the Assyrians. This would actually mean that the cult in Cyprus, since founded by its original worshippers, is earlier than the one in Cythera which was established by Phoenicians, who then represent an intermediate stage. Pausanias stresses the function of the Phoenicians as mediators of the cult rather than as the very first worshippers of this kind of goddess. This is certainly correct, since other peoples also venerated a lovegoddess or Queen of Heaven (Inanna, the goddess worshipped by the Sumerians in the 3rd millennium, for instance).³² One can imagine that some traits of the Phoenician goddess may go back to features of an even earlier predecessor. Nevertheless, one can still consider it likely that it was the goddess's specific Phoenician idiosyncrasy with which the Greeks became acquainted.

Herodotus and Pausanias usually refer to the goddess's cults as those of Ἀϕροδίτη Οὐρανία.³³ The assumed provenance of the cult title certainly suggests that one should relate it with Ishtar-Astarte's title “Queen of Heaven” which is attested for example in the Old Testament.³⁴ That Οὐρανία is an inheritance from Ishtar-Astarte in the sphere of cult is indicated by the fact that Οὐρανία is Aphrodite's most frequently documented cult title in Greece, but never seems to have been used as a literary epithet in mythical accounts about Aphrodite.³⁵ We know that Phoenicians, when expressing themselves in Greek, identify their goddess as Aphrodite Οὐρανία in 4th-century BC inscriptions.³⁶ In addition, a dedication is made to Aphrodite Οὐρανία at Piraeus by a Phoenician woman, Aristoklea.³⁷ The cult epiclesis Οὐρανία is almost uniquely Aphrodite's and is by far her most widespread cult title all over Greece...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter One Aphrodite: The Historical Background
• Chapter Two Some Aspects of Mythmaking and Cults of Aphrodite
• Chapter Three Losing Her Own Game: Aphrodite in the Homeric Hymn
• Chapter Four Erotic Personifications
• Chapter Five Goddesses of Grace and Beauty: the Charites
• Chapter Six Peitho: the Power of Persuasion
• Chapter Seven The Origins of Eros
• Chapter Eight The Creation and Birth of Eros at the Symposium
• Chapter Nine Some Final Conclusions
• Notes
• Appendix Figure 1
• Appendix Figure 2
• Bibliography
• Index