the 12th of
April, and lasted several days.

APHRODITE (VENUS).

Aphrodite (from _aphros_, sea-foam, and _dite_, issued), the daughter of
Zeus and a sea-nymph called Dione, was the goddess of Love and Beauty.

Dione, being a sea-nymph, gave birth to her daughter beneath the waves; but
the child of the heaven-inhabiting Zeus was forced to ascend from the
ocean-depths and mount to the snow-capped summits of Olympus, in order to
breathe that ethereal and most refined atmosphere which pertains to the
celestial gods.

Aphrodite was the mother of Eros (Cupid), the god of Love, also of AEneas,
the great Trojan hero and the head of that Greek colony which settled in
Italy, and from which arose the city of Rome. As a mother Aphrodite claims
our sympathy for the tenderness she exhibits towards her children. Homer
tells us in his Iliad, how, when AEneas was wounded in battle, she came to
his assistance, regardless of personal danger, and was herself severely
wounded in attempting to save his life. {59}

Aphrodite was tenderly attached to a lovely youth, called Adonis, whose
exquisite beauty has become proverbial. He was a motherless babe, and
Aphrodite, taking pity on him, placed him in a chest and intrusted him to
the care of Persephone, who became so fond of the beautiful youth that she
refused to part with him. Zeus, being appealed to by the rival
foster-mothers, decided that Adonis should spend four months of every year
with Persephone, four with Aphrodite, whilst during the remaining four
months he should be left to his own devices. He became, however, so
attached to Aphrodite that he voluntarily devoted to her the time at his
own disposal. Adonis was killed, during the chase, by a wild boar, to the
great grief of Aphrodite, who bemoaned his loss so persistently that Aides,
moved with pity, permitted him to pass six months of every year with her,
whilst the remaining half of the year was spent by him in the lower world.

Aphrodite possessed a magic girdle (the famous _cestus_) which she
frequently lent to unhappy maidens suffering from the pangs of unrequited
love, as it was endowed with the power of inspiring affection for the
wearer, whom it invested with every attribute of grace, beauty, and
fascination.

Her usual attendants are the Charites or Graces (Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and
Thalia), who are represented undraped and intertwined in a loving embrace.

In Hesiod's _Theogony_ she is supposed to belong to the more an