#aphrodite of the agora

[casskeeps]

aphrodite of the agora

basic information

name: aphrodite of the agora

date: 425-400

artist: unknown (probably school of agorakritos)

function: monumental statue of aphrodite

size: 1.83m (slightly over life-size)

original, reconstructed, or copy: marble original

subject

the statue is significantly damaged, but we can see a female figure wrapped in heavy drapery. she wears a chiton of very fine cloth and a himation of a much heavier material wound around her legs.

context

coming towards the end of the high classical period, sculptors are starting to lean more towards expressive and sensitive sculpture, instead of the highly restrained archaic poses and the dynamic action of the early classical period. the drapery of the aphrodite of the agora demonstrates a lean back towards the expressive and bold, moving slightly away from the subdued high classical period.

composition

she is depicted in a polykleitan contrapposto - her feet are angled and her shoulders are tilted. this pose adds more variation into the compositional lines of the structure, adding an emphasis to diagonal and curved lines, but also makes the pose appear more naturalistic.

there is very little musculature or body shown in this statue, due to the prevalence of the drapery over the sculpture as a whole, but there is still detail to the form underneath the drapery. the stomach curves outward, and we can see the detail used in the depiction of her left foot that is visible under the drapery.

anthropomorphisation of the gods was a relatively new subject - it would become much more common in the late classical period, with statues such as hermes and dionysus, and eirene and ploutos becoming popular examples of this theme.

the drapery is one of the most remarkable aspects of this statue; not only do we have the depiction of thin, finely crinkled drapery over the right side of the chest, but also the thicker wrapped himation that winds around the body. we see vertically falling drapery above the right foot, modelling lines all over the himation as it follows the contour of the body, and the very fine folds as it gathers on top of the right foot.

stylistic features

the more expressive depiction of the drapery and subject of the sculpture are indicative of the transition into the late classical period, although the depiction of a draped female figure has been common for centuries.

scholars

woodford: "virtuoso rendering of exuberant drapery"

[aphrogeneia]

Altars in Ancient Greece

A disclaimer before we get into it: this is a brief explanation of how altars functioned in ancient Greece. I am not telling you how you should set up your own personal altar(s). Rather, I hope this can serve as foundational knowledge for you to consider while figuring out what works best for you and your practice.

Pentelic marble altar from the ancient agora of Athens. Dedicated by the Athenian Boule to Aphrodite and the Graces. c. 194-193 BCE.

The purpose of the altar is to receive offerings for the deity. It is the sacred place where worshipers pour their libations of wine, deposit their gifts of fruit, honey, or cakes, and burn a portion of the sacrificial animal. Offerings in ancient Greece were a key component of religious life; it is how mortals express their honor and build χάρις (kharis, favor). The altar is a highly important point of contact with the divine, and is an essential physical element for any cult to be established.

In fact, we can determine whether or not a deity was worshiped in ancient Greece based on if there were any altars dedicated to them. A god or daimon with no altars was very likely only part of the mythological or literary tradition and did not receive any sacrifices or worship. Altars were generally dedicated to one god or a group of related deities. In rarer cases, they may be dedicated to the whole pantheon (example: the Altar of the Twelve Gods in the Athenian Agora).

An altar for a heavenly (ouranic) god would be a raised surface or pedestal, and it would be oriented towards the East. The typical Greek altar consisted of bricks which were white-washed with lime, or it was carved from stone such as marble or limestone. They could be plain, or they could be decorated with volutes and narrative scenes. They often had the name of the deity inscribed into them. Altars could also come in a variety of shapes, the only real requirement being that the surface on top was flat so it could hold the offerings.

More prominent cult sanctuaries may feature a large, elevated altar with steps leading up to it. There were also natural rock altars, or in very rustic sanctuaries, a collection of stones was grouped to form an altar. If one was worshiping a khthonic god who dwells on or within the earth, they would provide sacrifices at a low-lying altar such as an eschara, or a simple open pit called a bothros.

Indoor altars were very uncommon. At sanctuaries, the altar would be outside of the gods temple, often in front of the entrance. Though a sanctuary could contain several altars and sacrificial sites. Households would have had one in their courtyard for private worship. Other altars were located outside of public buildings or in community gathering places like an agora.

The reason for being outdoors was so that the gods who reside in the sky could observe the sacrifices being made and enjoy the rising smoke of the incense. Meanwhile, a libation poured directly onto the bare earth would seep down below to the khthonic gods. Every altar was ceremonially sanctified when its first sacrifice was performed; from then on, it was considered part of the property of the deity.

Below are my sources. I'll likely make a part two of this post where I go over some ideas for how we can construct our modern altars. Thank you for reading!

Ancient Greek Religion, Jon D. Mikalson

Greek Religion, Walter Burkert

Ancient Greek Cults, Jennifer Larson

[k-hotchoisan]

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[manoelt-finisterrae]

Limiar

que axioma da noite? desexos física contra a noite este nimbo detén ese valor da mentira podes ti pronunciar o espazo navegantes da dúbida de facer facerse como sol e palabra Noite! palabras ti viaxeiros nesta aurora dos amantes vibrar no azul de agora boca pupila pegada de onda

non agaches o silencio do tempo eterna materia que é ángulo e vea sen espada amas nun leito de alento

© Manoel T, 2024

@photoshamanism: Waiting for Aphrodite

[thedivinecove]

I went to college in a literal fortress.

Old Town Rhodos, Greece.

This was a fortress that was once the site of the old acropolis. The large colossus of Rhodes stood here as the water was once much closer, and there was a mote around the castle. It was beautiful to go here every day and study. There was a temple of Aphrodite inside of it. There was also a Roman Agora.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Ideas #28: Percy Jackson, but make it upgraded

As anyone can tell you, the more I love something, the more hypercritical I become of its problems. And while I love PJO and the entire crazy world Rick Riordan created, it is not designed for someone whose idea of a good time is picking out contradictions and logical fallacies in everything they encounter.

So I asked myself: what would it take to have a PJO that works for me on all levels?

Just bear with me:

My biggest problem with PJO is Camp Half-Blood, especially in light of HOO's New Rome, so about half my problems here involve upgrading the Camp to a small city (called New Athens, probably). It's still small and quaint compared to New Rome, but it houses more than a handful of kids year-round. Population of 500 demigods max, most of them under the age of 21 and most of the rest either camp councilors, administration for the strawberry farm, or elderly demigods who can no longer fight monsters on their own.

More than that, I want New Athens to be a little more, well, Greek. Yes, Olympus is in NYC, but all the signposts should be in Ancient Greek, and the town should be arranged like an Ancient Greek polis - temples, agora, theaters, the works. There should be temples and altars to each of the major gods at the very least, with the heads of each cabin serving as priests for their divine parents (very much a part-time role, even in ancient Greece).

Instead of cabins, the children of each god have little compounds set somewhat apart from each other, so that it is possible - if somewhat difficult - to spend all one's time only with one's siblings. There's a greater delineation of duties amongst the cabins, but in a less stereotypical manner than Rick fell back on in the earlier books. Poseidon's compound, for instance, is responsible for guarding New Athen's coasts and maintaining its small navy; Demeter's compound grows the food and maintains the weaponized plants; Hermes' kids manage the agora and make supply runs into human towns when necessary; Aphrodite's kids help Hephaestus' clothe and arm the camp, &c.

My other major issue is the very uneven distribution of powers among the cabins. Percy gets all the powers, which works if you assume he's destined for godhood, but other kids seem to get none at all. The powers the demigods get here should still be wildly uneven, but there should be a baseline for each - something passive, like the ability to talk to their parent's sacred animal, or being able to make really good jam (Demeter) or haggle with merchants (Hermes) or see in the dark (minor chthonic gods) - and more attention given to the less well-known domains of the gods. Some Hermes' kids are really good shepherds; at least two of Apollo's kids can turn into wolves, and there's always one who seems to have adopted some of their aunt's roles and serves as Artemis' priest in New Athens; &c.

There should also be more recognized children of minor gods. Not many, and they don't have their own cabins, but they do share compounds with the children of the gods their parents are associated with. This should be a point of contention, especially in cases where there are more children of minor gods than the god in question, and several have left the camp rather than be treated like servants by less decent cabin heads.

There should also be some legacies - not many, but a few, and most of those are second-generation children of other gods. Things like, IDK, a daughter of Apollo who's also a granddaughter of Ares, or a grandson of Hermes who's also the son of a wood nymph; or the rare kid who has two demigod parents. All of Dionysus' kids during this time period should be legacies, given he's largely stuck at New Athens.

All that being said, I imagine the books themselves going in much the same way, with some minor changes:

When Percy comes to camp in TLT, yes, he's Poseidon's only demigod child, but Poseidon's compound is not empty. A handful of water nymphs live there and one or two children of minor water gods - maybe a nephew in a son of Triton, maybe a daughter of Thetis who makes a big deal her half-brother was Achilles. Regardless of the details, Percy being Poseidon's son automatically places him in charge over the older, more experienced demigods and this is a source of contention for quite a while until Percy wins them over.

Annabeth is still Annabeth, but with more adults in camp she was better supervised and not able to do things like, oh, learn the wording of a Great Prophesy and spend her time trying to find The One. (She's still rough around the edges, but she's allowed to mature over the course of the story in a way I don't feel her character was able to in the books.)

There is no Percy/Annabeth romance.

There is, however, more flushing out of the minor characters, some of whom replace Annabeth and/or Grover on Percy's later quests. SoM should be an all water demigod quest given its title, and TTC should be an all female quest with at two Hunters, a daughter of Apollo, and Thalia - and Percy following behind for half the journey.

Percy also spends more time at New Athens - he draws in far too many monsters to be allowed to leave. He either spends weekends visiting his mom in NYC or she's one of the rare humans allowed to visit New Athens often. Maybe Sally can even be the grandchild of a minor god whose demigod parent left New Athens rather than be treated badly by the children of major gods.

I've been a fan of Percy/Apollo ever since stumbling across lorixjake's Reading Percy Jackson fic, so I'd like to shoehorn that into here, but it's not a requirement - though Percy interacting with all the gods (and befriending most) is. Once he's old enough, many of these interactions should turn into blatant flirting, some more welcome than others, because there's nothing gods find so attractive as power.

Lastly, when Zeus offers Percy immortality and Percy goes, "you know, I think I'd rather have you treat your children and the minor gods better instead," Zeus says, "No, you are too dangerous to leave mortal. You must ascend." And so Percy becomes a minor god at the end of PJO rather against his will and spends the rest of eternity badgering Zeus and the others into treating their children and the minor gods better anyway, which probably works out for the better considering the events of HOO.

That's all I really have. I do like PJO, but what I really want is expansion of the early world-building and greater acknowledgment of the darker aspects of the Greek gods than would be appropriate for the age level the books were intended for. As always, feel free to adopt the plot bunny, just link back if you ever do anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[sunkissedchai]

categories of olympian gods

the olympian gods (theoi olympioi) presided over every aspect of ancient life, they were often grouped together according to their common function

THEOI AGORAIOI

★ gods of the agora (people's assembly) - lord zeus (presided over the assembly as the god of kings and princes) - lady athene (presided over the assembly as goddess of good counsel) - lady dike (justice) - lady themis (custom) - lady calliope (eloquence)

★ gods of the marketplace - lord hermes (head of the marketplace as the god of commerce) - lord hephaestus (patron of artisans, metalworkers, sculptors etc.) - lady athene (patron of artisans, weavers, potters, etc.) - lord apollon (as the god of arts)

THEOI DAITOI

★ gods of feasts - lord dionysus (as the god of wine) - lady hestia (as the goddess of feasting, presided over feasts)

★ gods of festivities - lady aphrodite (as the goddess of pleasure) - the charites (goddesses of joy, dancing, and amusement) - theoi mousikoi

THEOI GAMELIOI

★ gods of marriage - king zeus (as god of marriage) - queen hera (as goddess of marriage) - lady aphrodite (as goddess of love) - lady hymenaios (wedding song) - the erotes (loves) - lady peitho (persuasion) - the charites (graces) - lady eunomia (goddess of good order) - lady harmonia (goddess of harmony) - lady hebe (youth)

THEOI GEORGIKOI

★ gods of agriculture - lady demeter (leader of the agricultural gods) + most agricultural gods were chtonic gods

THEOI GYMNASTIKOI

★ gods of gymnasium, athletics, and The Games - lord hermes - lord heracles - the dioscuri (twin gods of horsemanship) - lady nike (victory) - lord agon (contest)

THEOI HALIOI

★ gods of the sea - king poseidon (led the gods of the sea) - lord apollon - lady aphrodite - lady artemis - the dioscuri (these gods presided over harbours, safe voyage, and safety from storms)

THEOI IATRIKOI

★ gods of medicine and healing - lord apollon (leader of the healing gods) - lord asclepius - lady epione (soothing) - lady hygeia (good health) - lady panaceia (curative) - lady aegle (radiance) - lady iaso (healing) - lady acesco (cure) - lord telesphorus (accomplisher)

THEOI KTESIOS

★ gods of the house and home - lord zeus (as protector of the home and family courtyard) - lady hestia (goddess of the hearth) - lady hecate (goddess of gates and entryways) - lord hermes (god of gates and entryways)

THEOI MANTIKOI

★ gods of oracles and divination - lord apollon ( god of oracles and seers) - lord zeus (god of fate) - lady phoebe (oracular godess at delphi) - lady themis (oracular goddess at delphi and dodona) - lady dione (oracular goddess at dodona) - lady mnemosyne (oracular goddess at lebadeia) - lord hermes (primitive divination like stone casting, coin throwing, astrology) - lord pan + the nymphs (rustic prophets)

THEOI NOMOI

★ gods of the countryside - lady artemis (as goddess of hunting) - lord hermes (as god of herding) - lord dionysus (most gods in this category were rustic gods)

THEOI MOUSIKOI

★ gods of music, dance, and the arts - lord apollon (presided over music and poetry) - lady artemis (presided over choirs, dances) - the muses - the charites (graces) - hymenaeus + linos (musical demi-gods) - lord dionysus - lord hermes - lady aphrodite

THEOI POLEMIKOI

★ gods of war - lord ares (led the gods) - lady athene (led the gods) - lady enyo - lady eris - lady nike - lord deimos - lord phobos - lord zeus (as the god of fate) - lord apollon (as the god of archery)

THEOI THESMIOI

★ gods of divine law and custom - lord zeus (as god of the laws) - lady demeter (as the law-bringer) - lady dike (justice) - lady eunomia (good order) - lady eirene (peace) - lady themis (custom) - lord apollon

[source]

[zmarylou]

BECKETT FASHION; style guide for Mary-Lou.

Nos últimos meses, Mary-Louise tem experimentado uma transformação notável em seu estilo, guiada pela expertise de Anastasia, filha de Aphrodite. Ela adotou um guarda-roupa renovado que incorpora elementos de diferentes estilos, como hipster, boho e um toque romântico. Suas escolhas de moda agora refletem não apenas um refinamento estético, mas também uma expressão mais vívida de sua personalidade em evolução.

Embora Mary-Louise não tenha tatuagens até o momento, ela ostenta piercings discretos nas orelhas, adicionando um toque sutil de estilo pessoal. Quando se trata de fragrâncias, ela prefere perfumes florais adocicados, como o Daisy de Marc Jacobs, que complementam perfeitamente seu novo guarda-roupa e o ambiente boêmio que ela adotou. Mary-Louise parece estar se sentindo mais confiante e confortável em sua própria pele, refletindo-se não apenas em suas roupas, mas também em sua atitude e presença geral.

[legend-collection]

Hestia

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians.

Pic by Christian Baitg on Getty Images

According to ancient Greek tradition, Hestia, along with four of her five siblings, was devoured by her own father Cronus as an infant due to his fear of being overthrown by one of his offspring, and was only freed when her youngest brother Zeus forced their father to disgorge the children he had eaten. Cronus and the rest of the Titans were cast down, and Hestia then became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters. After the establishment of the new order and in spite of her status, Hestia withdraws from prominence in mythology, with few and sparse appearances in tales. Like Athena and Artemis, Hestia elected to never marry and remain an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus.

Despite her limited mythology, Hestia remained a very important goddess in ancient Greek society. Greek custom required that as the goddess of sacrificial fire, Hestia should receive the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. Whenever a new colony was established, a flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. The goddess Vesta is her Roman equivalent.

Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar". This stems from the PIE root *wes, "burn" (ultimately from *h₂wes- "dwell, pass the night, stay"). It thus refers to the oikos: domestic life, home, household, house, or family. Burkert states that an "early form of the temple is the hearth house; the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner hestia". The Mycenaean great hall (megaron), like Homer's hall of Odysseus at Ithaca, had a central hearth. Likewise, the hearth of the later Greek prytaneum was the community and government's ritual and secular focus. Hestia's naming thus makes her a personification of the hearth and its fire, a symbol of society and family, also denoting authority and kingship.

Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian generation. She is the eldest daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Demeter, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus. Immediately after their birth, Cronus swallowed all his children (Hestia was the first who was swallowed) except the last and youngest, Zeus, who was saved by Rhea. Instead, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them into a war against their father and the other Titans. As "first to be devoured . . . and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia is thus both the eldest and youngest daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC).

Zeus assigned Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods. Wherever food was cooked, or an offering was burnt, she thus had her share of honor; also, in all the temples of the gods, she has a share of honor. "Among all mortals, she was chief of the goddesses".

The gods Poseidon and Apollo (her brother and nephew respectively) both fell in love with Hestia and vied for her hand in marriage. But Hestia would have neither of them, and went to Zeus instead, and swore a great oath, that she would remain a virgin for all time and never marry. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over Hestia.

At Athens, "in Plato's time," notes Kenneth Dorter "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven. The altar to them at the agora, for example, included Hestia, but the east frieze of the Parthenon had Dionysus instead." However, the hearth was immovable, and "there is no story of Hestia's "ever having been removed from her fixed abode". Burkert remarks that "Since the hearth is immovable Hestia is unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the Olympians".

Traditionally, Hestia is absent from ancient depictions of the Gigantomachy as she is the one who must keep the home fires burning when the other gods are away. Nevertheless, her possible participation in the fight against the Giants is evidenced from an inscription on the northern frieze of the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi; Brinkmann suggests that the letter tracings of one of the two goddesses right next to Hephaestus be restored as "Hestia", although other possible candidates include Demeter and Persephone, or two of the three Fates.

Her mythographic status as firstborn of Rhea and Cronus seems to justify the tradition in which a small offering is made to Hestia before any sacrifice ("Hestia comes first"), though this was not universal among the Greeks. In Odyssey 14, the loyal swineherd Eumaeus begins the feast for his master Odysseus by plucking tufts from a boar's head and throwing them into the fire with a prayer addressed to all the powers, then carved the meat into seven equal portions: "one he set aside, lifting up a prayer to the forest nymphs and Hermes, Maia's son."[20]

Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, in contrast to the fire of the forge employed in blacksmithing and metalworking, the province of the god Hephaestus. Portrayals of her are rare and seldom secure.[21] In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman simply and modestly cloaked in a head veil. At times, she is shown with a staff in hand or by a large fire. She sits on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and, Robert Graves declares, "did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself". Her associated sacrificial animal was a domestic pig.

Her Roman equivalent is Vesta; Vesta has similar functions as a divine personification of Rome's "public", domestic, and colonial hearths, binding Romans together within a form of extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and Vesta is, however, misleading: "The relationship hestia-histie-Vesta cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved," according to Walter Burkert. Herodotus equates Hestia with the high ranking Scythian deity Tabiti. Procopius equates her with the Zoroastrian holy fire (atar) of the Sasanians in Adhur Gushnasp. To Vesta is attributed one more story not found in Greek tradition by the Roman poet Ovid in his poem Fasti, where during a feast of the gods Vesta is nearly raped in her sleep by the god Priapus, and only avoids this fate when a donkey cries out, alerting Vesta and prompting the other gods to attack Priapus in defense of the goddess. This story is an almost word-for-word repeat of the myth of Priapus and Lotis, recounted earlier in the same book, with the difference that Lotis had to transform into a lotus tree to escape Priapus, making some scholars suggest the account where Vesta supplants Lotis only exists in order to create some cult drama.

[thoughtportal]

The anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire ranged from 395 till 567. Anti-paganism laws were enacted by the Byzantine Emperors Arcadius,[1][2][3][4][5] Honorius,[6][7][8] Theodosius II,[9][10] Marcian[11] and Leo I the Thracian. They reiterated previous legal bans, especially on pagan religious rites and sacrifices and increased the penalties for their practice. The pagan religions had still many followers but they were increasingly obliged to keep under cover to formally comply with the edicts.[12][13][14] Significant support for paganism was present among Roman nobles,[15] senators, magistrates,[16] imperial palace officers,[17] and other officials.[16]

Many Christians pretended to be such while continuing pagan practices,[18] and many converted back to paganism; numerous laws against apostasy kept being promulgated and penalties increased since the time of Gratian and Theodosius.[19][20][21][22] pagans were openly voicing their resentment in historical works, like the writings of Eunapius and Olympiodorus, and books blaming the Christian hegemony for the 410 Sack of Rome. Christians destroyed almost all such pagan political literature, and threatened copyists with cutting off their hands.[23][24]

Laws declared that buildings belonging to known pagans and heretics were to be appropriated by the churches.[25][26][27] St. Augustine exhorted his congregation in Carthage to smash all tangible symbols of paganism they could lay their hands on.[26]

image: Head of Aphrodite, 1st century AD copy of an original by Praxiteles. Christian cross defacing the chin and forehead. Found in the Agora of Athens. National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

[sciencestyled]

Of Mischief and Molecules: How I, Aphrodite, Became a Science Nerd

It all began on a whimsical Thursday afternoon on Mount Olympus. You see, despite my centuries-long reign as the goddess of love and beauty, I found myself inexplicably drawn to... science! Yes, you heard that right - science, that realm of atoms and molecules, so foreign to our divine dealings.

It was the day Hermes, with his usual flair for drama, burst into my celestial boudoir, babbling excitedly about a mortal invention called "Tumblr." Apparently, it was a digital agora where mortals shared everything from cat scrolls to philosophical musings. My interest piqued, I descended, in a swirl of iridescent mist, to the mortal world to investigate this curious phenomenon.

Dressed in my finest incognito - which, admittedly, wasn't very incognito, considering the trail of rose petals and a persistent halo of sparkles - I embarked on my quest. My first stop? A bustling, mortal university campus, teeming with young minds and, as I was about to discover, Wi-Fi!

There, in the corner of a quaint café, I found a group of students huddled over a glowing screen, discussing something they called "The Science of Beauty." Intrigued, I leaned in (startling a young chap who nearly choked on his latte) and listened.

Their animated conversation revealed a world where beauty was dissected in laboratories, where attraction was analyzed like a chemical reaction! The gods know, I've sparked enough romances to rival any chemical experiment, but this was different. This was... science!

I couldn't resist. Blending in (or so I thought), I joined their conversation. "Why, as the goddess of beauty, I am quite interested in your... how do you say... science-y take on attraction," I declared, with a flourish that accidentally sent a flurry of rose petals into the air.

The students, now thoroughly convinced I was part of some avant-garde theater troupe, welcomed me with a mix of amusement and curiosity. We talked, we debated, and, oh, did we laugh! Especially when I tried to explain how Zeus would look under a microscope!

And then, in a moment of divine inspiration, it hit me: Why not merge my godly insights with this fascinating mortal science? Why not write an article that blended Olympus's eternal wisdom with the rigorous analysis of mortal academia?

The idea was electrifying. I was determined to make my mark on this "Tumblr" and enlighten mortals with my unique perspective. But first, I needed to do my homework.

So, donning the stark white coat of a scientist (which, I must say, did not go well with my sea foam-tinted locks), I dove headfirst into the world of scientific research. From the mathematics of the Golden Ratio to the chemistry of pheromones, I studied it all. I even learned to operate a microscope, which, let me tell you, is no easy feat with nails as perfectly manicured as mine.

The result? My magnum opus, "The Science of Beauty and Attraction by the Goddess Dr. Aphrodite." A piece where I, in all my divine wisdom, take mortals on a rollicking ride through the scientific underpinnings of beauty and attraction, all spiced with a touch of celestial humor.

So, there you have it, my darling Cupids-in-Training. The quirky, unexpected tale of how I, the eternal Aphrodite, goddess of love, became a self-proclaimed science nerd. And all it took was a little nudge from Hermes, a visit to a university café, and the irresistible allure of Tumblr. Now, let's dive into the wonders of beauty and attraction, shall we?

[erospendragon]

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

⚜️

PRINCESS APHRODITE OF OLYMPYA

⚜️

Mother, please, help me.

⚜️

Mãe, qual é exatamente o efeito que eu causo nas mulheres?

"Você não vai entender."

⚜️

"You are dangerous, son."

⚜️

AVENGE ME

⚜️

THE RAGE OF APHRODITE 1

⚜️

PRINCE DIONYSUS OF OLYMPYA

"Eros."

"Yes, bro"

"Brave warrior, look. Do you realize that you are the son of 7 Goddesses?"

"Yes"

"Eros, do you actually understand what it means?"

⚜️

EVOCAÇÃO A DIONISO

⚜️

THE BACCANTES

⚜️

PRINCESS PALAS ATHENA OF OLYMPYA

⚜️

"Rafa, contenta-te com o amor dos deuses e das deusas imortais."

⚜️

THE RAGE OF APHRODITE 2

⚜️

⚜️

PRINCE EROS OF OLYMPYA

⚜️

"E imediatamente chamou seu filho, esse moleque alado e incrivelmente audacioso, de maus hábitos e que completo e evidente desprezo pela disciplina, anda armado com chamas e dardos pelas casas alheias durante a noite, no intuito de desmanchar casamentos e que, impune, comete as mais vergonhosas ações, além de não fazer nada de bom, por natureza malcriado."

⚜️

"Eros, tão apaixonado como nunca, vai diretamente à abertura do céu e pede, expondo sua causa, que o grande Júpiter seja o seu advogado.

Este belisca a bochecha de Eros e, depois de beijá-lo, lhe diz:

-Tu, Senhor Filho, que nunca me homenageaste com a honra que todos os deuses me conferem, mas que feriste bastante este peito no qual são organizadas as leis dos elementos e a revolução dos astros, tu que, através dos inúmeros casos de amor mundano, me desrespeitaste e atentaste contra as leis, até mesmo contra as leis julianas relativas ao adultério, na medida em que transformaste minhas alegres feições em cobras, em fogo, em animais selvagens, em pássaros e rebanhos de pastagens; mas apesar de tudo isso, levando em conta minha ternura e pelo fato de ter-te criado com minhas próprias mãos, te concederei tudo o que pediste."

⚜️

HOUSE OF OLYMPYA

⚜️

Ao ouvir as palavras de seu pai, Atena, a predileta e intocável princesa de Olympya sorriu com enorme satisfação e imediatamente pensou em Dioniso, o único que não estava presente. Então ela chama Hermes, que já seguia seu caminho, tendo algo em mente e diz: "Diga a nosso irmão Dioniso que nosso caçula precisa de sua presença." Hermes acede com um gesto de cabeça, e, partilhando a opinião de Atena, parte para os sombrios bosques das montanhas, onde Dioniso se esconde em sua solidão. No entanto, ao ouvir as palavras de Atenas, apenas se levanta do tronco caído desde onde observava o fogo e ouvia o crepitar da fogueira e partiu, em direção diferente daquela a que Hermes se dirigia. Quando chegou e vou o seu irmão, foi tomado pelo ódio, mas se conteve em respeito a Afrodite, que já se encontrava presente, entretendo a desolação de seu filho. Afrodite sentiu imensa alegria ao ver Dioniso e compreender a seriedade com que o assunto agora era tratado. Dioniso se postou ligeiramente ao lado e atrás de seu irmão, como um cão de guarda, silencioso a ponto de demorar para ter sua presença percebida por Eros, que o adorava. A esse trio, passados alguns dias, se juntou de forma misteriosa a própria Atena, cujos caprichos e indiferença não incluíam seu irmão mais novo, por quem sentia um amor extremamente sensual e carinhoso. Então, pressentindo sua presença, Eros perguntou: "Irmã?" E a orgulhosa deusa susurrou em seu ouvido: "Oi, Rafa." Assim se formou a turma conhecida como Breakfast Club, em torno do vício e isolamento de Eros, para cuidá-lo e protegê-lo. Os 4 passavam todo o tempo juntos.

⚜️

⚜️

🔆

We Are The Resistance

🔆

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Aphrodite Areia - Part 4

Previous

That day in the shop kicked off a new adventure for Aria. A couple days after, the Western Nomads set up a bazaar in the town’s agora. Now that the war was over, trade was returning to Taratheras. She had passed by early, not long after first light, not wanting to deal with the clamour that was sure to come once the sun was higher. After all, people would be out in droves daily for the weeklong market. 

The Western Division of the Nomadic People of Continental Gretheon, had not stepped foot in Taratheras in fourteen years. Not since the King of Midrom had foolishly declared that his country would remain neutral and that he would allow the Blicans to travel the Central Bifur on Goodwill Conditions. Midrom would then shut its borders until the war ended, effectively closing its eyes to its neighbours’ war. It meant that the Blicans were able to take a straight line from their country in the north to the southern nation of Taratheras on the conditions that they caused no harm to Midrom while on its land. The Blicans had been able to reach Taratheras in hours, as opposed to the days it should have taken them had they had to go around Midrom. Even at fourteen she’d known that King Promet had just signed his people’s death and the Western Nomads, the last division who would step foot on their sector of Gretheon, had all left. To the surprise of no one except Midrom herself, she was not able to stick her head in the sand. Once Midrom’s towering walls were sealed and the last Blican safely off her land, they had turned on her. They launched Moltoves and Musgavs over the walls from all sides. The Midromians, having turned inwards for lockdown - like bears right before hibernation, had been unable to escape the fire and gas that rained down on them. The Walls that stood for centuries as their greatest protection, now their catacomb. 

Midrom’s fall had broken something in Gretheon, something that had yet to be fixed. The Westerners presence was a step in the right direction. As a division, they were a people of stability for all that they were wanderers. The last to abandon land and the first to return, they were a signal to both Taratheras and the other nations of Gretheon that peace was returning. In the coming months the other divisions, as well as other traders, would hopefully start returning to Taratheras as well, though Aria knew that it would probably be more than a year before the Northern Division even spoke of returning. 

The Western Nomads had gone all out, bringing both the most current items as well as samples of the goods Taratheras had missed out on since their last visit. It was as important an event to them as it was to Taratheras. The Nomadic People did not see borders and legislatively all of Gretheon was their home and as such, they were able to travel unrestricted. But to the Western Division in particular, with their sacred connection to the earth, returning to Taratheras was a reclamation of their homeland as much as it was a signal of safety.

At first Aria just wandered through the bazaar, amazed at not only how much Taratheras had missed due to the war but also how the rest of Gretheon moved on without them. The Westerners had laid out their goods so that each stall showed a progression, starting at where they’d left off fourteen years ago and moving linearly to current times. It was upsetting at first, to see how quickly goods from the further nations progressed, the ones that turned their eyes away from the Central conflict. However, the more Aria looked, the more she saw the echoes of the war. In obvious things, like the decrease in limestone work after the fall of Midrom, the main exporter, but also in subtler things. The trend of beaded jewellery which all had a streak of teal, the exact shade of Kazm’s flag, which appeared to have started in the days after Taratheras’ momentous reclamation of Kazm and continued for months. The umbrellas made of cypress and detailed with poppies, aloe, peonies and marigolds around the time of the Massacre of Luvi. One stall stopped Aria in her tracks. It sold painted wares, plates, bowls, vases, etc with stories detailed on them. They depicted the war as heard by the people in Eethia, the Grethon nation furthest from Taratheras. One character in particular was what made Aria pause, first appearing in the background about ten years ago and then in every year since, gradually coming more into the spotlight as the wares progressed. It’s a horse, with a mechanical front left leg from shoulder to hoof and a mechanical back right leg from the thigh down. It gained scars as it progressed from grunt to leader, its mane got shorter, its legs and weapons got upgraded. The wares made directly after the final battle all depicted the same thing, the horse under Taratheras’ flag, victorious. Something about it made her feel ill, which is a foreign almost-forgotten feeling seeing as she hasn��t been ill in over a decade; she couldn’t anymore. Realisation set in then, made her want to turn away and head back. Everyone depicted in the wares is human, except Taratheras’ War Horse. Augmentations F12, 15, & 18, done about seven years ago now, meant that Aria can no longer cry, but the sinking feeling in her chest and the twisting of her stomach wanted to test that. Aria didn’t know how to process it, but she did know that she no longer wanted to be here and so she went to flee. The stall owner caught Aria’s attention before she could, pressed a ware into her hands with a soft smile and a wbgo, the westerner’s bow of gratitude, before turning away. Confused, Aria glanced at the ware then sucked in a shocked breath. It’s a glazed plate with four panels, depicting the horse shown in so many of the others. The horse born from the ashes of a charred valley, the horse leading the charge to battle, the horse under Taratheras’ flag, the horse turning into a woman draped in Valia’s flag, wearing a crown of bimflor, statice, blackthorn & bluebells, looking towards a new dawn. Shakily, Aria gently deposited the plate into her bag. She gave a nod to the vendor, then deposited a stack of coins on the stall and walked away. 

She ignored the noise of surprise the vendor makes, made sure she’s far enough that she could pretend to not hear them call her back. Of course, Augmentations S-2, 7, 14 & 23 meant she could hear them perfectly, but she did not care that the plate was a gift, or that she left four times the cost of the most expensive ware. Before this Eethian artisan and Western trader, only the dead had ever held hope that Aria could move forward after the war. Aria herself feels she’s a bighozm, a body on the wrong side of the veil, moving aimlessly aside from following the occasional whispers of long departed souls. These strangers were alive and believed not in a hope of a distant future, but in the hope of present times. Most days, Aria did not know what she was doing, did not know why she was here, did not know how to be a person but today, she knew this. The strangers believed there was hope, possibilities and new beginnings for her. She did not know what her new dawn would bring, what her sun would rise on, but she’s going to find out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This got so far away from me it isn't even funny. The other chapters are all less than 600 words, this one is about twice that. This chapter was supposed to be about Aria buying some cute clothes and getting into art, instead we got ~450 words of lore, some history, some trauma and a plate😂😂. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast worlding building but the final chapter count is now 7 and at this point, what was originally supposed to be a short 5 chapter story is going to end up double that. I also realised after that I switched tenses about 3/4 way through. I went back and fixed it but let me know if I missed anything, if anything is confusing or talk flower meanings with me in the comments! ~Eli Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

[culturecalypsosblog]

Iconoclasm: The destruction of God/Goddess statues, figurines & paintings

Why do so many statues have broken noses, body parts ECT This is a question that a lot of people have asked. If you have ever visited a museum, you have probably seen ancient sculptures such as the one below—a Greek marble head of the poet Sappho currently held in the Glyptothek in Munich, with a missing nose:

Bibi Saint-Pol, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

A smashed or missing nose is a common feature on ancient sculptures from all cultures and all time periods of ancient history. It is by no means a feature that is confined to sculptures of any particular culture or era. Even the nose on the Great Sphinx, which stands on the Giza Plateau in Egypt alongside the great pyramids, is famously missing:

If you have seen one of these sculptures, you have probably wondered: “What happened to the nose?” Some people seem to have a false impression that the noses on the majority of these sculptures were deliberately removed by someone.

It is true that a few ancient sculptures were indeed deliberately defaced by people at various times for different reasons. For instance, there is a first-century AD Greek marble head of the goddess Aphrodite that was discovered in the Athenian Agora. You can tell that this particular marble head was at some point deliberately vandalized by Christians because they chiseled a cross into the goddess’s forehead.

This marble head, however, is an exceptional case that is not representative of the majority of ancient sculptures that are missing noses. For the vast majority of ancient sculptures that are missing noses, the reason for the missing nose has nothing to do with people at all. Instead, the reason for the missing nose simply has to do with the natural wear that the sculpture has suffered over time.

The fact is, ancient sculptures are thousands of years old and they have all undergone considerable natural wear over time. The statues we see in museums today are almost always beaten, battered, and damaged by time and exposure to the elements. Parts of sculptures that stick out, such as noses, arms, heads, and other appendages are almost always the first parts to break off. Other parts that are more securely attached, such as legs and torsos, are generally more likely to remain intact.

You are probably familiar with the ancient Greek statue shown below. It was found on the Greek island of Melos and was originally sculpted by Alexandros of Antioch in around the late second century BC. It is known as the Aphrodite of Melos or, more commonly, Venus de Milo. It famously has no arms:

Once upon a time, the Aphrodite of Melos did, in fact, have arms, but they broke off at some point, as arms, noses, and legs often tend to do. The exact same thing has happened to many other sculptures’ noses. Because the noses stick out, they tend to break off easily.

Greek sculptures as we see them today are merely worn-out husks of their former glory. They were originally brightly painted, but most of the original pigments faded or flaked off long ago, leaving the bare, white marble exposed. Some exceptionally well-preserved sculptures do still retain traces of their original coloration, though.

Ever wonder why the Sphinx has no nose? Why many Ancient Egyptian artifacts are found without an arm, a nose, a head, or another body part? It’s not from wear and tear, or the natural damage of thousands of years, they were a calculated effort by Ancient Egyptians to strip the figure, god, or king of their power especially in the afterlife.

The destruction of statues, figurines, and paintings, known as iconoclasm, is the subject of a new exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, which will attempt to understand the cultural practice of defacing Ancient Egyptian monuments.

No matter if they were the former regime seeking to strip the power of those they overthrew, grave robbers looking to strip tombs of the valuables yet still feared the power of those that are dead, or even early Christians who wished to communicate the power of the new God over the pagan polytheists, all defaced monuments to thumb their nose at the gods, pharaohs, and ancient Egyptian elite.

When Set wished to destroy his brother Osiris, he could not kill an immortal god, so what to do? Dismember him, scatter his body parts across the country, and Osiris would no more be able to challenge his brother. This ritual formed the belief in Ancient Egyptians that dismemberment was the only means to break the power of the divine, an effort that needed to be undertaken for one reason or another over the centuries.

Ancient Egyptians believed that their mummies, monuments, and statues served as a vessel for divine energy to fill. When making offerings, it was thought that the deity would fill the statue in the home, temple, or necropolis, with the dead wielding just as much power as the living.

Edward Bleiberg states in his essay on iconoclasm that “Once the deity has occupied it, the sculpture or relief containing the god becomes a piece of equipment for conducting the essential rituals of offering and worship. The rituals performed with images center specifically on offering and receiving food, drink, clothing, and other necessities. Deceased kings and deceased humans were able to make such offerings to the gods in the afterlife by means of images placed in temples for that purpose. When a statue or image is disabled, it is sometimes clear that it is this particular purpose of the image that has been attacked.”

From time to time, a Pharaoh, elite, or great figure would fall out of favor. The biggest example being Hapshepsut who, along with her husband, attempted to create one god that stood above the other ancient deities. The Cult of Aten was a scandal for Ancient Egyptians, and after the Aten revolution was suppressed, the old regime systematically defaced every statue of Hatshepsut in the country as a means of weakening Aten.

Pharaohs were so anxious about their image being defaced that a royal decree passed in the First Intermediate Period stated that anyone who defaced a statue lost their right to a soul and a place in the afterlife.

Egyptologist Betsy Bryan has established that damaging a mummy as a means of attacking a person in the next world started in Egypt at the very beginning of its history, during the Pre-Dynastic period. This action was in fact analogous to the attacks on statues and reliefs that would occur in the historical period of Egyptian history.

In every era of the following three thousand years of ancient Egyptian history, there is good evidence that the practice of damaging images of the human form, as either protection from, or an attack on, perceived enemies, remained common.

So, why the nose? And why not just break the statue into smithereens? For the Ancient Egyptians, the nose was essential in re-creating life after death. The incense placed in the nose allowed the breath of life to enter the soul of the deceased. When tomb-raiders destroyed and looted a tomb, they still feared the power of the pharaoh, so damaging the nose was an important way to avoid punishment. If the buried pharaoh couldn’t continue his life after death, he wouldn’t be a witness when those tomb-raiders were dead themselves.

Yet total destruction of a statue was regarded as less efficacious than partial damage, as many examples cited here show. In his late fourth- and early fifth-century CE preaching, Saint Augustine recommended partial breakage of polytheistic statues, saying, “Brethren, I deem it more shameful for Hercules to have his beard shaved than to have his head taken off.”

In this case, shaving Hercules’s beard was thought to show that his statue was powerless in the face of Christianity. The presence of damaged statues of Greek or Egyptian gods was understood to definitively demonstrate the power of Christianity and the helplessness of the gods of earlier polytheistic religions.

Thus, Christian monks in Egypt damaged the parts of the temples that had been dedicated for a deity or for ritual, damaging but not destroying. In a way, they updated the historical statues to reflect the times. While we in the modern-day see this as an attack on civilization, the early converts saw it and an enduring testament to the biggest revolution in spirituality up to that point; the transition from polytheism to monotheism and the ancient world to the pre-modern.

When the Christians of Egypt saw that the polytheistic Egyptians still made tributes and rituals in the sight of the Sphinx of Giza, they cracked off the nose to make the Sphinx eternally flawed and incomplete which was successful in breaking the true power that the Sphinx had over Egypt. Not even the Egyptians knew what the meaning and nature of the Sphinx was, it was the embodiment of enigma, mystery, secrets, and thus power and unity. Even today secrets have a psychological effect to bond people together. By breaking the nose, the mystic vanished. No retribution came. So the mystery of the Sphinx was revealed, that it had no true secret.

Bleiberg counters the idea that Muslims defaced these statues, saying it was far more likely the Christians as the Christians communicated the power of God by speaking the language of the pagans whereas Muslims just mined tombs, statues, and temples for valuable stones. Muslim conquerors were not interested in demonstrating to the pagans the greatness of God, they felt that the dismantling of Ancient Egypt for material concerns would demonstrate to the pagans what happens to a civilization that doesn’t keep the true god.

So, it many ways the Christians continued the same practice of the Ancient Egyptians, and mark a continuity of Egyptian customs under a new religious creed. The Christians would continue this concept through the medieval ages, with Constantinople carrying out an empire-wide iconoclasm numerous times. Even today we burn effigies and symbols of figures we hate as an attack on the image, and thus power, of the individual and system they represent. So, the practice of chiseling a nose off should not be a shock to us today.

I hope you enjoyed this blog,

Culture Calypso’s Blog

[mister-re]

Beautiful Acropolis and Ancient Agora

[paganimagevault]

Venus Pandemos by Marc Charles Gabriel Gleyre 1852

"Aphrodite Pandemos (Ancient Greek: Πάνδημος, romanized: Pándēmos; "common to all the people") occurs as an epithet of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite. This epithet can be interpreted in different ways. In Plato's Symposium, Pausanias of Athens describes Aphrodite Pandemos as the Goddess of sensual pleasures, in opposition to Aphrodite Urania, or "the heavenly Aphrodite". At Elis, she was represented as riding on a ram by Scopas. Another interpretation is that of Aphrodite uniting all the inhabitants of a country into one social or political body. In this respect she was worshipped at Athens along with Peitho (persuasion), and her worship was said to have been instituted by Theseus at the time when he united the scattered townships into one great body of citizens. According to some authorities, it was Solon who erected the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos, either because her image stood in the agora, or because the hetairai had to pay the costs of its erection. The worship of Aphrodite Pandemos also occurs at Megalopolis in Arcadia, and at Thebes. A festival in honour of her is mentioned by Athenaeus. The sacrifices offered to her consisted of white goats. Pandemos occurs also as a surname of Eros. According to Harpocration, who quotes Apollodorus, Aphrodite Pandemos has very old origins, "the title Pandemos was given to the Goddess established in the neighborhood of the Old Agora because all the Demos (people) gathered there of old in their assemblies which they called agorai." To honour Aphrodite's and Peitho's role in the unification of Attica, the Aphrodisia festival was organized annually on the fourth of the month of Hekatombaion (the fourth day of each month was the sacred day of Aphrodite). The Synoikia that honoured Athena, the protectress of Theseus and main patron of Athens, also took place in the month of Hekatombaion."

From Plato's Symposium:

"Such in the main was Phaedrus' speech as reported to me. It was followed by several others, which my friend could not recollect at all clearly; so he passed them over and related that of Pausanias, which ran as follows: "I do not consider, Phaedrus, our plan of speaking a good one, if the rule is simply that we are to make eulogies of Love. If Love were only one, it would be right; but, you see, he is not one, and this being the case, it would be more correct to have it previously announced what sort we ought to praise. Now this defect I will endeavor to amend, and will first decide on a Love who deserves our praise, and then will praise him in terms worthy of his Godhead. We are all aware that there is no Aphrodite or Love-passion without a Love. True, if that Goddess were one, then Love would be one: but since there are two of her, there must needs be two Loves also. Does anyone doubt that she is double? Surely there is the elder, of no mother born, but daughter of Heaven, whence we name her Heavenly; while the younger was the child of Zeus and Dione, and her we call Popular. It follows then that of the two Loves also the one ought to be called Popular, as fellow-worker with the one of those Goddesses, and the other Heavenly. All Gods, of course, ought to be praised: but none the less I must try to describe the faculties of each of these two. For of every action it may be observed that as acted by itself it is neither noble nor base. For instance, in our conduct at this moment, whether we drink or sing or converse, none of these things is noble in itself; each only turns out to be such in the doing, as the manner of doing it may be. For when the doing of it is noble and right, the thing itself becomes noble; when wrong, it becomes base. So also it is with loving, and Love is not in every case noble or worthy of celebration, but only when he impels us to love in a noble manner.

“Now the Love that belongs to the Popular Aphrodite is in very truth popular and does his work at haphazard: this is the Love we see in the meaner sort of men; who, in the first place, love women as well as boys; secondly, where they love, they are set on the body more than the soul; and thirdly, they choose the most witless people they can find, since they look merely to the accomplishment and care not if the manner be noble or no. Hence they find themselves doing everything at haphazard, good or its opposite, without distinction: for this Love proceeds from the Goddess who is far the younger of the two, and who in her origin partakes of both female and male. But the other Love springs from the Heavenly Goddess who, firstly, partakes not of the female but only of the male; and secondly, is the elder, untinged with wantonness: wherefore those who are inspired by this Love betake them to the male, in fondness for what has the robuster nature and a larger share of mind. Even in the passion for boys you may note the way of those who are under the single incitement of this Love: they love boys only when they begin to acquire some mind—a growth associated with that of down on their chins. For I conceive that those who begin to love them at this age are prepared to be always with them and share all with them as long as life shall last: they will not take advantage of a boy's green thoughtlessness to deceive him and make a mock of him by running straight off to another. Against this love of boys a law should have been enacted, to prevent the sad waste of attentions paid to an object so uncertain: for who can tell where a boy will end at last, vicious or virtuous in body and soul? Good men, however, voluntarily make this law for themselves, and it is a rule which those ‘popular’ lovers ought to be forced to obey, just as we force them, so far as we can, to refrain from loving our freeborn women. These are the persons responsible for the scandal which prompts some to say it is a shame to gratify one's lover: such are the cases they have in view, for they observe all their reckless and wrongful doings; and surely, whatsoever is done in an orderly and lawful manner can never justly bring reproach.

“Further, it is easy to note the rule with regard to love in other cities: there it is laid down in simple terms, while ours here is complicated. For in Elis and Boeotia and where there is no skill in speech they have simply an ordinance that it is seemly to gratify lovers, and no one whether young or old will call it shameful, in order, I suppose, to save themselves the trouble of trying what speech can do to persuade the youths; for they have no ability for speaking. But in Ionia and many other regions where they live under foreign sway, it is counted a disgrace. Foreigners hold this thing, and all training in philosophy and sports, to be disgraceful, because of their despotic government; since, I presume, it is not to the interest of their princes to have lofty notions engendered in their subjects, or any strong friendships and communions; all of which Love is pre-eminently apt to create. It is a lesson that our despots learnt by experience; for Aristogeiton's love and Harmodius's friendship grew to be so steadfast that it wrecked their power. Thus where it was held a disgrace to gratify one's lover, the tradition is due to the evil ways of those who made such a law— that is, to the encroachments of the rulers and to the cowardice of the ruled. But where it was accepted as honorable without any reserve, this was due to a sluggishness of mind in the law-makers. In our city we have far better regulations, which, as I said, are not so easily grasped."

-taken from wikipedia and Plato's Symposium 180c-182d