The Female Deities
Chapter 9
Demeter
Goddess of agriculture, especially wheat
Eleusis
Her daughter is Persephone

Demeter Hestia, The Hearth
“hearth”
Protectress of the home
Few stories about her, soon replaced by Dionysus
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Goddess of sexual attraction
Eros, “sexual desire” (Ares)
Connection with Cyprus (Cypris) and Cythera (Cytherea)
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Temple prostitution in her temples at Corinth and Cythera
Sappho celebrated Aphrodite in her poetry.
Sappho’s fr. 1
“O deathless Aphrodite, fancy-throned, daughter of Zeus, weaver of deceit, I beg you, do not conquer me with pain and sorrow, o mistress deep in my heart, but come here…set me free form anguish. Give me my desire. Be yourself my companion in arms”
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Aphrodite+ Hermes→ Hermaphroditus
A being with a woman’s breasts and a man’s genitals

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Aphrodite + Hermes/Dionysus→ Priapus, a garden deity who warded off the evil eye.
Priapus was especially popular among the Romans
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Pygmalion (Ovid)
Pygmalion, a famous sculptor, carved the ivory statue of a beautiful woman. So beautiful was the statue, that he fell in love with it and asked Aphrodite (Venus) to give him a wife as beautiful as it. Aphrodite granted his wish…the statue came to life

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
“…it seemed to get warm…the ivory softened the chill of her flesh passed off, it gladly yielded to his touch…”

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Aphrodite caused Myrrha to fall in love with her father, Cinyras, and sleep with him. When Cinyras discovered the truth, he pursued Myrrha (now pregnant by her father) with a sword but the gods turned her into the myrrh tree.
The tree split open and Adonis emerged
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Aphrodite falls in love with Adonis and warns him against pursuing big game
One day a boar gauges him in the thigh
From his blood sprouts anemone

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
Aphrodite + Anchises (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite)
No one can resist Aphrodite’s power, only Athena, Artemis, Hestia
Aphrodite falls in love with Anchises, a mortal prince.
“On her Zeus cast a sweet spell of desire of lust for a mortal man…”
Striking in her beauty, Aphrodite enchants Anchises
“…the Graces washed and anointed her body…Then Aphrodite dressed in her finest array, decked her body with gold…”
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
When Anchises asks for her identity, Aphrodite denies that she is a goddess
“I am no more than a woman…unpracticed in love.”
“Hermes insisted that I was to share the bed of Anchises, be named as his wedded wife, and bear you magnificent children”

Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love
“At that he took hold of her hand. She, coyly averted her face, and, dropping her beautiful eyelids, modestly feigning resistance, crept to the soft-covered bed…”
Aphrodite reveals herself and predicts that their son will be Aeneas the founder of the race of the Romans. She demands that Anchises keeps it a secret
Anchises reveals who the mother of his son is and Zeus strikes him in the thigh with a thunderbolt; Anchises ever since was lame
Aphrodite, Goddess of Sexual Love

Artemis, Mistress of Animals
Artemis is the daughter of Leto and Zeus and the twin sister of Apollo.
Ephesus
the alluring virgin-goddess who protects the animals a deadly huntress, wandering the wild. When a woman died suddenly, it was because she was “struck by the arrows of Artemis.”
Artemis, Mistress of Animals

Artemis, Mistress of Animals
Niobe:
Niobe, in a moment of arrogance, boasted about her twelve children and claimed superiority over Leto who had only given birth to Apollo and Artemis.
In retaliation, Apollo and Artemis, with their arrows, killed Niobe’s children. Niobe turned into a stone out of grief
Artemis, Mistress of Animals
Orion:
Orion, a giant and a devotee of Artemis, raped the daughter of king