CAMELOT FANTASIES

Aphrodité is the Greek god associated with love (and its various activities), and often referred to as Venus. Her worship can be traced from Mycenean times in the 12th century BC to the 6th century AD when she was known as Isis, her cult having merged with that of the Egyptian god. Her religion has been practised longer than that of Christianity, Judaism or Islam, much longer if you take the Middle Eastern gods who preceded her cult into consideration. In fact, when the Christian church was founded in the 4th century AD (in distinction to the Christian religion, founded in the 1st century AD by Paul of Tarsus) the most widespread religion in the Graeco-Roman world was that of Isis, with that of Mithras and Jesus the other major faiths. Most traces of the cult of Aphrodite have vanished. Her cultic images, paintings and statues, have not survived, except in battered 1st century BC and AD copies of earlier originals. The most authentic example of her cult that does survive is a prayer written by Sappho of Lesbos, a contemporary of Jeremiah and Gautama:


Immortal daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite,
Weaver of spells,
Hear me, oh, do not abandon me…

Come again, release me from torment,
Join my fire with your divine fire,
Let me have her I desire.