Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

RELIGION AND EROTIC

spoken of her in her capacity of protectress of marriage (p. 198). In accordance with the frequently mentioned natural conception of the sexual it is only logical that Aphrodite Hetaira (the patron goddess of hetaire) gradually developed into Aphrodite Porné (literally, Aphrodite the Prostitute), which merely means that all varieties of sexual enjoyment, or, as we say, every imaginable form of immorality, were under her protection. This may be recognized at once in Sparta, where a number of surnames were invented for Aphrodite, which must, according to our ideas, be designated in the highest degree shameful. Thus we hear of an Aphrodite Peribaso, that is, who walks the street, and ‘Trymalitis, that is, bored through. (On the names of Aphrodite, see Clem. Alex., Protrept., p. 33P ; and Hesychius under the catchwords.)

In course of time the cult of the so-called Syrian Aphrodite also found an entrance into Greece, so that in the Hellenistic period she was worshipped in several places (Tacitus, Annals, ii, 63; ClG*., Nr. 3137, 3156, 3157; Diod. Sic., v, 77; Pausanias, iv, 31,2} vil, 26, 7). She is the same goddess who, according to Tacitus, was worshipped in Smyrna under the name of Aphrodite Stratonikis, by which it was intended to honour the memory of Stratonike, the wife of the Syrian king Antiochus Soter (280-261 B.c.). Lucian has written an essay, extremely interesting and relating to the history of civilization, in which phallus-worship and eunuchs play a great part, but which is too long to quote here.

As in the worship of the Syrian goddess the phallus has prominent significance, so in general in the cult of Aphrodite everything was important which reminds one of sexual life or arouses the idea of sensuality and luxuriant fruitfulness. First and foremost of course the sexual organs themselves, images or imitations of which were employed in different ways in the service of Aphrodite ; and

206