Aphrodite, goddess of love in all forms, is arguably one of the most powerful deities in Olympus. With love, beauty, and harmony as her associated attributes, her domain is both vast and universal, pervading all aspects of existence.  She is involved in many myths, both small and life-changing, but her origin story is arguably the most well-known. Her most famous origin story written down in the 7th century BCE in Hesiod’s Theogony describes it thusly:

“Then came the sky (Ouranos) bringing night (Nyx) with him, and, eager for love, brooded around Earth (Gaia), and laid stretched on all sides of her. But, his son (Kronos) from out of his ambush grasped at him with his left hand, while in his right he took the huge adamantine sickle, long and jagged toothed, and hastily mowed off the genitals of his father, throwing them backward to be carried off behind him.

Not for no purpose did they slip from his hand; for as many gory drops as jetted forth from there, Earth received them all…

But the genitals, after having severed them with the steel, he cast them into the heaving sea born from the continent; and so, were kept adrift for a long time, up and down the deep, and all around kept rising a white foam from the immortal severed flesh; and in it a maiden was nourished. First, she drew near divine Kythera (Cythera), and thence came next to wave-washed Cyprus. Then forth stepped an awesome, beauteous goddess; and beneath her delicate feet the grass throve around. Gods and men name her Aphrodite, the foam-sprung goddess, and fair-wreathed Kytherea – the first because she was nursed from foam, but Kytherea, because she touched at Kythera; and Cyprus-born, because she was born in wave-dashed Cyprus; and lover of smiles, because she emerged out of the genitals.”

-Hesiod-

This origin story makes her the eldest of the Olympians, having been formed and created by the severed member of the grand-progenitor, Ouranos, of the Olympians to follow.escription text goes here