Name:
Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and beauty (Nicknamed Dite)Appearance: Tall and willowy with long straight blond hair and light blue/Green eyes. Pale skin as well.
Personality:
This depends on your point of view. Some say that Aphrodite, or Dite as she likes to be called is frivolous and cruel in many ways, but the reality is that she is polite and nice to all who visit her. She, yes has moments where her lusts and love get out of control but deep down she is a nice person. She has been called a slut by certain goddesses that do not like her ways. But for the daughter of Zeus, can you blame her? She also has a temper but rarely unleashes it.
Background:
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION:
The poet Hesiod said that Aphrodite was born from sea-foam. Homer, on the other hand, said that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. When the Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge which of three Olympian goddesses was the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena. The latter two had hoped to bribe him with power and victory in battle, but Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This was Helen of Sparta, who became infamous as Helen of Troy when Paris subsequently eloped with her. In the ensuing Trojan War, Hera and Athena were implacable enemies of Troy while Aphrodite was loyal to Paris and the Trojans.
The Trojan War was, of course, not Aphrodite’s fault but her love for Paris, and her meddling caused considerable misery and death among both armies. Aphrodite, once again, entered the fray to save the life of her son Aeneas. As she was shielding her staggering son from the thunderous assault of Diomedes, she was wounded in the hand. Athene, another meddler in the Trojan
War, had given Diomedes the power to see the immortals on the battlefield. She advised him to avoid all the gods except Aphrodite, “her at least you may stab”. Diomedes lunged at Aphrodite and his pitiless bronze spear tore through the robe that the Graces had carefully woven and cut the flesh of her immortal palm. The blood of the gods, ichor, poured darkly on her
perfect skin as she fled the battlefield.
Aphrodite promptly dropped Aeneas, who was rescued by Apollo, another Olympian sponsor of the Trojans. In pain she sought out
her brother Ares, the god of war
who stood nearby admiring the carnage, and borrowed his chariot so that she
might fly up to Olympus and to seek comfort from Dione. Zeus advised her, “No,
my child, not for you are the works of warfare. Rather concern yourself only
with the lovely secrets of marriage...” Again she meddles when she saves Paris
when he is about to be killed in
single combat by Menelaus. The goddess wraps him in a mist and spirits him away,
setting him down in his own bedroom in Troy. She then appears to Helen in the
guise of an elderly handmaiden and tells her that Paris is waiting for
her. Helen recognizes the goddess in disguise and asks if she is being led once more to ruin. For Aphrodite had bewitched her into leaving her husband Menelaus to run off with Paris. She dares to suggest that Aphrodite go to Paris herself.
Suddenly furious, the goddess warns Helen not to go too far, lest she be abandoned to the hatred of Greeks and Trojans alike. "I'll hate you," says the mercurial goddess, "as much as I love you now." Even though Zeus's queen Hera and Aphrodite are on different sides in the Trojan War, the goddess of love loans Hera her magical girdle in order to distract Zeus from the fray. This garment has the property of causing men (and gods) to fall hopelessly in love with whomever is wearing it. Homer calls Aphrodite "the Cyprian", and many of her attributes may have come from Asia via Cyprus (and Cythera) in Mycenaean times. These almost
certainly mixed with a preexisting Hellenic or Aegean goddess. The ancient Greeks themselves felt that Aphrodite was both Greek and foreign. Aphrodite involved herself on other occasions in the affairs of mortal heroes. When Jason asked permission of the king of Colchis to remove the Golden Fleece from the grove in which it hung, the king was clearly unwilling. So the goddess Hera, who sponsored Jason's quest, asked her fellow-Olympian Aphrodite to intervene. The love goddess made the king's daughter Medea fall in love with Jason, and Medea proved instrumental in Jason's success.
Another time, Zeus punished Aphrodite for beguiling her fellow gods into
inappropriate romances. He caused her to become infatuated with the mortal
Anchises. That's how she came to be the mother of Aeneas. She protected this
hero during the Trojan War and its aftermath, when Aeneas quested to Italy and
became the mythological founder of a line of Roman emperors.Without doubt, Aphrodite earned her reputation for frivolity and promiscuity as a result of her very liberated sexuality. However, this reputation was not so much a condemnation of her behavior as it was a fear of her uncontrollable nature.
Aphrodite was one of the most unique of the Greek deities in the freedom of her sexual life. Aphrodite's charms came from her magic cestus, an embroidered girdle that, in both gods and men, aroused passion for the wearer. So great were Aphrodite's seductive abilities that every god, including the great Zeus, desired her as his wife. However, Aphrodite was too proud for any of her suitors and rejected them all. As a punishment, Zeus made her the wife of Hephaestus, the homely and lame smith-god. This
union did nothing to curb Aphrodite's actions, and she discouraged Hephaestus from sharing her bed in additon to being unfaithful to him. Perhaps the most celebrated of Aphrodite's affairs was her relationship with Ares, the god of war. Although such a union may at first seem incongruous, it is actually a match of two divinities of the same nature. Aphrodite, the beautiful maiden who attracts the attention of the most powerful of the gods only to decline him, refuses to be controlled by her marriage to Hephaestus--she will not be denied freedom in the area of her dominion.
Likewise Ares, an alternately ragefull and cowardly god, can never be predicted in his actions. Aphrodite's rebellious nature is reinforced by the creation of many children by her liaison with Ares. In addition, Phobos and Deimos, Anteros, and Harmonia were even passed off as the offspring of Hephaestus. Aphrodite and Ares secretly laid together in the bed of her husband, Lord Hephaestus. Helios, the sun, secretly observed the lovers and told Hephaestus. The smith went to his work and devised clever fastenings that would ensnare and hold the lovers in an unbreakable trap. The careless lovers fell into the trap and Hephaestus stood before the other Olympians and demanded his gifts of courtship be returned. Only after Poseidon offered to pay the adulterer’s damages if Ares defaulted would Hephaestus loose the bonds. After being freed, Aphrodite went to her sacred precinct on Cyprus where she was bathed by the Graces and Ares went Thraceward. Seeing the two lovers in the indignity of the snare, Apollo asked Hermes how he would feel in such a situation. Hermes answered that he would suffer thrice the number of bonds if only he could share the bed of Aphrodite the Golden Hephaestus' trap did nothing to deter Aphrodite from her extramarital
activities, and the goddess had many children by both gods and mortals. Many of these children were associated with different aspects of love and sexuality. By Hermes she became the mother of Eros, the creator of sensual love. Eros often appeared as a winged infant equipped with a bow and a quiver full of love darts which never missed their mark and took effect on both god and man. His brother Anteros, a son of Ares, punished those who failed to return the love of others. By Hermes she was the mother of Hermaphroditus, who was welded with a nymph into a body with both sexes. By Dionysus she had two sons, Hymen and Priapus. While Hymen was worshipped as the god of marriage, the monstrously ugly Priapus represented human lust.
The most prominent of Aphrodite's mortal children was Aeneas, her son by the shepherd Anchises. Aeneas became the founder of the nation of Italy, and the mythical ancestor of the Roman people. Aphrodite's offspring show just how total her control over love and other passions truly was. Through her children, she had power over all areas of human emotion. As all people, despite their character or position in life, possessed some capacity for feeling, Aphrodite's influence was perhaps more widespread than that of any other god.
her affairs are true and
the reasons may seem selfish but then she is a goddess. She loves her children
and her brothers and sisters. She has many faults but still she is a lover
and not a fighter, though when push comes to shove she can be as