Sanctuary of Eros and Aphrodite

Eros – the power of love, born from the union of Gaia (earth) and Tartaros (underworld) – that is how Hesiod describes the god of love. Other sources, however, say that it was the union of Eros and Chaos that created the world. In the beginnin being emblematic for a great vital power, the love god comes to be a boyish figure, that we usually will find with his bow and arrows.

Aphrodite, being goddess of love, laugther, beauty and elegance, was one of the most venerated goddesses. As in case of most other deities, we cannot be sure about her origin. Aphrodite Pandemos is daughter of Zeus and the nymph Dione; however, there is another version, that of Aphrodite Urania, daughter of the sky god Uranos, from whose sperm she was born in the sea’s foam as the “foam born Aphrodite“.