Figure of Aphrodite at The British Museum, London

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Aphrodite is identified as the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman equivalent is Venus, the goddess. She is linked to the planet Venus. As with many ancient Greek deities, there are more than one story about her origins. According to Hesiod's Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus's genitals and threw them into the sea, and she emerged from the sea foam (aphros). According to Homer's Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. According to Plato (Symposium, 180e), these two origins were entirely separate entities: Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos. Because of her beauty, other gods feared that their rivalry over her would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, so Zeus married her to Hephaestus. He was not seen as a threat because of his ugliness and deformity. Aphrodite had many lovers - both gods, such as Ares, and men, such as Anchises. She played a role in the Eros and Psyche legend, and later was both Adonis's lover and his surrogate mother. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite. Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus). These are names given after the two cult sites, Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed to be her place of birth. Myrtle, doves, sparrows, horses, and swans were said to be sacred to her. The ancient Greeks identified her with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor. Aphrodite had many other names, such as Acidalia, Cytherea, and Cerigo. Each was used by a different local cult of the goddess in Greece. The Greeks recognized all these names as referring to the single goddess Aphrodite. Despite slight differences in what these local cults believed the goddess demanded of them. The Attic philosophers of the 4th century drew a distinction between a celestial Aphrodite (Aphrodite Urania) of transcendent principles, and a separate "common" Aphrodite who was the goddess of the people (Aphrodite Pandemos).