Cyprus does not pay enough tribute to the memory of this ancient divinity, and is not sufficiently proud of having been her chosen birthplace and of sheltering her greatest sanctuary. There is no doubt that Christian moral tradition has contributed towards stifling the memory of a far too pagan cult, considered to be generating licentiousness even though Christian religion in Cyprus has sometimes adopted certain sites and aspects of ancient worship. Indeed, Aphrodite of Cyprus is not merely the blonde goddess of love, grace and beauty, who indulges in her amorous whims, as depicted in a simplistic mythology. She is an ancient-old divinity whose origins are linked to the worshipping of the powers of life.

How has the island become famous as the Island of Venus? This fame was preserved thanks to the Greek and Latin texts which were rediscovered by the humanists of the Renaissance who quoted them frequently. They bequeathed to our poets and painters this alluring image of Cyprus, island of Venus. Tradition says that the goddess was born from the foam of the sea and was carried by the sea

[INLINE] Petra tou Romiou, the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite.

waves on the coasts of Cyprus, to Paphos, which has become the sacred place where Aphrodite was venerated. It is true that Cyprus was throughout antiquity one of the most important, if not the most famous place, where Aphrodite was venerated. In historical times, the goddess had several sanctuaries on the island, the most famous being in Paphos, a place called "omphalos of the earth", on an equal footing with Delphi (Hesychius). Archaeological findings have confirmed the legend.

However, if one goes back to the sources, the legend is far from being so simple as the poets describe it, and the archaeological findings have revealed other aspects of the goddess which differ from the ones attributed by Greek mythology. Myths are uncertain. They provide clues, which are however difficult to be interpreted.

It is Hesiod in the 8th century B.C. who refers us in his Theogony to the mythical birth of Aphrodite in the midst of a cosmogony which explains the creating of the world. In the beginning there was Chaos. Then Earth was created (Gaea) and with her Love, (Eros)... Gaea bore starry Heaven (Uranus), with whom she conceived Oceanus and numerous sons and daughters, the youngest being Cronos who developed a hatred for his father Uranus. Gaea herself wished to free herself from Uranus who was suffocating her. She thus equipped her son Cronos with a sickle... Here comes the famous passage referring to the birth of Aphrodite: Cronos chopped off his father's members and cast them away to fall behind him ... they were swept away over the main for a long time, and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh. In this foam grew a maiden who first drew near Cythera, and from there she was carried to sea girt Cyprus, and it is there where the beautiful and respectable goddess came forth and green grass grew about her beneath her light feet. (Theogony 190- 195).

Aphrodite, according to this strange myth, is therefore the daughter of Heaven (Uranus), as she was born out of the foam which was created by the sperm of Uranus. Hesiod's Theogony, which has no doubt borrowed elements from oriental cosmogonies, where there is often reference to power struggles among the first generations of gods, also copies a

[INLINE] Chalcolithic stone figurine (Cyprus Museum)

[INLINE] Chalcolithic terracotta figurine of a woman giving birth. (Cyprus Museum)

Theogony attributed to Orpheus: in the beginning there was Chaos. Creation was monstrous and anarchic. Cronos, by mutilating his father, put an end to this disorderly creation and from then began the reign of Aphrodite associated with Eros. We must surely see in the goddess called Aphrodite the goddess of fertility who perpetuates life through power of desire among the species to reproduce. Already, the Ancients, through a kind of pre-scientific thinking, conceived life being born out of the sea, as experts confirm nowadays. Aphrodite created grass under her feet, for her ar rival fertilised the earth.

Hesiod is the only source to reveal this supernatural birth, but there are other texts that mention the arrival of Aphrodite to Cyprus, carried by the waves of the sea. Hymn 11 to Aphrodite, going back to the 7th century B.C. describes beautiful Aphrodite, wearing a golden crown, the venerated goddess who possesses an exclusive privilege to the island of Cyprus, where the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over the waves of the loud moaning sea in soft foam. There the Hours welcomed her joyously and clothed her with heavenly garments (Hymn 11, 1-6). The myth of the birth of Aphrodite from the sea has remained embedded in the memory, and has often been quoted by poets of the Classical period, scholars of the Alexandrine and later periods and Latin authors such as Ovid and Virgil. However, Homer makes no mention of her supernatural birth; for him she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione (Illiad, III, 374, and OdysseyVIII, 308). He associates her very closely with Cyprus, referring to her as Kypris in the lliad (V, 330, 422, 458).

Hesiod situates the arrival of Aphrodite in Cyprus, although not explicitly in Paphos. The link between Aphrodite and Paphos was, however, well established among the Ancients. Cyprus and in particular Paphos, is the birthplace of Aphrodite, writes Aeschylus (quoted by Strabon). Pomponius Mela, a Latin poet of the 1 st century A . D. mentions Paphos as the place where the goddess was said to have touched ground: Paphos and Palaepaphos, where Venus emerged for the first time from the sea, as its inhabitants confirm it (11, 7). Nonnos, a poet of the 5th century A.D. mentions that the inhabitants of Cyprus still show traces of Aphrodite's footprints.

The mythical place where she was said to have come ashore is called "Petra tou Romiou" or the "Rock of the Greek", as sociated by popular tradition to Dighenis Akritas, the legendary hero of the Byzantine era in Cyprus. The site is certainly of sublime beauty, with three large rocks protruding above the water in a small bay lined on the east by white cliffs. The question that arises is: why precisely in this spot? Several explanations have been put forward, some more convincing than others: the sea is more foamy at this spot. When there is a storm, the waves strike the beach and "break" into foam; in exceptional cases the "breaker" shoots up in a column like a water-spout and falls back in an outward cascade of foam in which one can imagine seeing a human figure rising from the sea (a phenomenon described by J.L. Myres in BSA, 41, p.99). Or could it be the presence of the upright protruding rocks, cult objects in ancient oriental religions, that has given rise to the myth? Did the coastline, however, look the same during ancient times? Un- doubtedly, oral tradition alone has con- secrated the site.

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