s practised at Corinth are due to its
early commercial relations with Asia Minor; the fame of her temple
worship on Mount Eryx spread to Carthage, Rome and Latium.

In the _Iliad_, Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, a name by
which she herself is sometimes called. This has been supposed to point
to a confusion between Aphrodite and Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and
Hera, Dione being an Epirot name for the last-named goddess. In the
_Odyssey_, she is the wife of Hephaestus, her place being taken in the
_Iliad_ by Charis, the personification of grace and divine skill,
possibly supplanted by Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Her
amour with Ares, by whom she became the mother of Harmonia, the wife of
Cadmus, is famous (_Od._ viii. 266). From her relations with these
acknowledged Hellenic divinites it is argued that there once existed a
primitive Greek goddess of love. This view is examined in detail and
rejected by Farnell (_Cults_, ii. pp. 619-626).

It is admitted that few traces remain of direct relations of the Greek
goddess to the moon, although such possibly survive in the epithets
[Greek: pasiphes, asteria, ourania]. It is suggested that this is due to
the fact that, at the time of the adoption of the oriental goddess, the
Greeks already possessed lunar divinities in Hecate, Selene, Artemis.
But, although her connexion with the moon has practically disappeared,
in all other aspects a development from the Semitic divinity is clearly
manifest.

Aphrodite as the goddess of all fruitfulness in the animal and vegetable
world is especially prominent. In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite she is
described as ruling over all living things on earth, in the air, and in
the water, even the gods being subject to her influence. She is the
goddess of gardens, especially worshipped in spring and near lowlands
and marshes, favourable to the growth of vegetation. As such in Crete
she is called Antheia ("the flower-goddess"), at Athens [Greek: en
kepois] ("in the gardens"), and [Greek: en kalamois] ("in the
reed-beds") or [Greek: en elei] ("in the marsh") at Samos. Her character
as a goddess of vegetation is clearly shown in the cult and ritual of
Adonis (q.v.; also Farnell, ii. p. 644) and Attis (q.v.). In the animal
world she is the goddess of sexual impulse; amongst men, of birth,
marriage, and family life. To this aspect may be referred the names
Genetyllis ("bringing about birth"), Arma ([Greek: aro], "to join,"
i.e