Aphrodite was furious with Eos because Ares had fallen in love with her. She cursed her to live the rest of her life in a futile quest of true love. She had multiple lovers and gave birth to many children but never managed to find the ideal partner who would live up to her expectations.
Theseus' son Hippolytus became a devotee of the virgin goddess, Artemis, and thus shunned the pleasures of the flesh. This angered Aphrodite, who felt that Hippolytus did not worship her sufficiently.
Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers; in the Odyssey, she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares, the god of war. In the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises.
With punishments ranging from being turned into an animal and being accused of rape to having to kill your own children, Aphrodite was anything but forgiving. These are three stories about people who infuriated Aphrodite and got what they had coming.
SWINE The pig was an animal believed to be offensive to the goddess Aphrodite, for it was a wild swine which gored to death her beloved Adonis. Pig-sacrifice was therefore prohibited in her cult, except in Kypros and Argos where pigs were offered to assuage her grief for Adonis.
Aphrodite punished Psyche for falling in love with a god, setting her a series of seemingly impossible tasks, including separating different grains from one another, shearing shining gold fleeces from the backs of violent rams, and collecting the black water from the River Styx.
The myths tell us that Aphrodite qualities are essential for the joy of life, but the shadow side of Aphrodite manifests when a woman is completely identified with Aphrodite's powers, when other archetypal qualities of the feminine are unimportant to her.
While that approach has certainly yielded important information on gender dynamics in late-Classical Greece, it tends to overlook the fact that though this Aphrodite is female, she is also divine.
Beauty and Omnipotent allure: As the Goddess of Beauty, Aphrodite could change her appearance at will, depending on the perception of beauty of the person she is in the presence of. She is so breathtakingly beautiful, that Percy's jaw dropped and he was speechless for a couple of seconds after first seeing her.
Aphrodite was compelled by Zeus to marry Hephaestus, the god of fire. However, they were an imperfect match, and Aphrodite consequently spent time cheating with the god of war, Ares, as well as a slew of mortal lovers, such as the Trojan nobleman Anchises and the youth Adonis.
In another legend, the goddess Aphrodite wept tears of sorrow at the death of her handsome lover, Adonis. Where her tears fell, windflowers sprang up.
(4) WRATH HYBRISTIC BOASTS
KENKHREIS (Cenchreis) A queen of Kypros (eastern Mediterranean) who boasted that her daughter Myrrha was more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. The goddess cursed the girl to fall in love with and consumate a union with her own father.
In Greek mythology, Psyche was a mortal woman whose beauty was so great that it rivaled that of the goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite became so jealous of Psyche that she sent her son, Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man in the world.
It's not that people get cursed, (myths aren't literal) it's that to say something is prettier than Aphrodite is to say something is more beautiful than Beauty itself, which is meaningless/paradoxical. So it's not "cursed" it's just silly.
Her most famous lover, however, was the handsome and youthful mortal Adonis. Aphrodite was so attracted by his good looks that her jealous husband, Hephaestus, disguised himself as a boar and killed Adonis.
Aphrodite could be both generous and vengeful. She gave Paris the most beautiful woman in the world as payment for naming her the fairest of the goddesses. The women of Lemnos saw the other side of Aphrodite. These women failed to honor the goddess, so Aphrodite cursed the women with a bad case of body odor.
As one of the Twelve Olympians alongside Zeus, the Greek god of the skies and the king of the gods, Zeus was afraid that Aphrodite's beauty would cause a war among the gods. He was afraid they would fight each other to win her love, and the war would be irreparable.
Aphrodite's manipulative character is most apparent in the story of Helen, queen of Sparta, whom she offered as her bribe in the Judgment of Paris, inciting ten years of dreadful war at Troy. The Judgment was a popular subject in Pompeian wall painting, an example of which is shown here.
Type of Hero
Despite being known to have frequent affairs against her husband Hephaestus (especially with her lover Ares, the God of War), she is often portrayed in myths as a friendly, kind, benevolent, and even generous entity.
Yes: punished for being raped. In classical sources, in fact, she's not always monstrous.
In Ancient Greek mythology Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. According to her myth when she wept in sorrow and grief her tears were transformed into flowers and as they fell to the ground they blossomed into anemones.
Goddess Aphrodite Married Hephaestus
Aphrodite was the goddess of love, pleasure, and beauty. This meant that she enjoyed flirtatious occasions with a number of others. However, her father Zeus decided that she should marry and end her dallying with men. Zeus forced Aphrodite to marry Hephaestus.
At the start, Aphrodite explains that Hippolytus refuses to honor her, having sworn a vow of chastity to Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Disregarding warnings from others to show respect to Aphrodite, Hippolytus remains steadfast in his commitment to Artemis- something that sets Aphrodite on a path of revenge.
Any woman considering herself too beautiful for any man or even more beautiful than Aphrodite herself would have to pay the price of her foolishness. Only after Psyche surrenders and submits herself to the goddess's trials does she receive the reward associated with beauty: true love and a good spouse.