Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
According to the retelling of the story found in the poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18), Adonis was the son of Myrrha, who was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus, [23] [24] [25] after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the goddess.
Around this time, the cult of Adonis is noted in the Book of Ezekiel in Jerusalem, though under the Babylonian name Tammuz. [1] [2] Adonis originally was a Phoenician god of fertility representing the spirit of vegetation. It is further speculated that he was an avatar of the version of Ba'al, worshipped in Ugarit. It is likely that lack of ...
The Greeks considered Adonis's cult to be of Near Eastern origin. Adonis's name comes from a Canaanite word meaning "lord" and most modern scholars consider the story of Aphrodite and Adonis to be derived from a Levantine version of the earlier Mesopotamian myth of Inanna (Ishtar) and Dumuzid (Tammuz).
The story of Aphrodite's birth from the foam was a popular subject matter for painters during the Italian Renaissance, [290] who were attempting to consciously reconstruct Apelles of Kos's lost masterpiece Aphrodite Anadyomene based on the literary ekphrasis of it preserved by Cicero and Pliny the Elder. [291]
Theorizing About Myth is a 1999 book by the University of Aberdeen religious studies scholar Robert A. Segal that offers an alternative interpretation of the Adonis myth. In chapter seven, "Adonis: A Greek Eternal Child", he puts forth his theory of Adonis, not as a vegetation god but as an archetype of the eternal child, the Jungian puer.
Fragment of a Hellenistic relief (1st century BC–1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and spear), Demeter (scepter and wheat sheaf), Hephaestus (staff), Hera (scepter), Poseidon (trident), Athena (owl and helmet), Zeus (thunderbolt and staff ...
The first mention of Hermes and Aphrodite as Hermaphroditus's parents was by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) in his book Bibliotheca historica, book IV, 4.6.5. Hermaphroditus, as he has been called, who was born of Hermes and Aphrodite and received a name which is a combination of those of both his parents.
In Greek mythology, Theias (Ancient Greek: Θείας) was the King of Assyria and father of Myrrha and Adonis. The birth of Adonis existed in two different versions: The most commonly accepted version is that Aphrodite urged Myrrha or Smyrna to commit incest with her father, Theias. Myrrha's nurse helped with the scheme.