The Warlike?

Luis Royo is known for his mastery in painting girls with swords. Do you wonder why I put a girl with a sword to depict the goddess of love and beauty? Not only because the one on the picture is “kind of” beautiful. There are at least two more reasons.

First one is directly related to the title of the painting.

“Uranos Drops”

Luis Royo at his best. With a piece of artwork that fits perfectly into our article. Let me explain why.
At the beginning of the world, there was a god Uranus (English use to change “-os” to “-us” in Greek names), who behaved a bit “strangely” towards his eldest children. For this he got punished and lost his power over the world together with …ekhm… his balls. Drops of his blood fell into the sea and from these Aphrodite was born. (In case you wanted to own Uranos Drops – you can get a puzzled version here). To read more about Uranus – click “continue reading” below.

Uranus

The second reason is a bit less obvious, unless you know well the Homer’s Iliad.

Back to Trojan War again.

I’ve already published two posts about the most formidable Greek warriors of the Trojan War: here and here. The second one concerns Diomedes. Interestingly, he had a namesake, who preceded him in the Greek mythology timeline, but that first Diomedes was a weirdo and completely out of this article’s topic. There will be more about him, when we will talk about Heracles. So let’s move to the proper Diomedes.
To begin with, I want to remind you the insanely good artwork by Mariusz Kozik – that’s how the best of Achaeans could look like. Quite intimidating, isn’t he?

Why some bloody warrior appears in the article on Aphrodite, who was known as the goddess of love in the first place?
All because they had an unusual encounter. Diomedes literally stabbed her. With a spear…

And you know what? He did not get ANY punishment for that. What is more, right after that happened he took on another Olympian! World record in kicking divine asses was his. All because he was a champion of Athena, who had certain reasons to punish both Aphrodite and Ares.

For the full entry on Diomedes, click “continue reading” below.

Diomedes

Aphrodite Areía

In my opinion it was not the unfortunate confrontation with Diomedes that earned Aphrodite this “strange” epithet. I think that it was the Trojan War as a whole. As a matter of fact, it was neither Paris nor Helen who bear the responsibility for starting the epic conflict, but Aphrodite. The Warlike. The one who offered Helen to Paris, knowing that a real man always chooses a woman over anything else. It is hard to believe that the goddess didn’t know about the oath that the girl’s multiple suitors had taken. For they all vowed to aid her husband – Menelaus – in case anyone threatened their marriage… Because – yes – she was married when Aphrodite was making her promise.
Some say that Trojan War broke out by the will of Zeus, but would you expect the goddess of love to play a key role in such dirty schemes? The Warlike – she definitely earned this name for herself.

Read the full encyclopaedia entry on the goddess.

Aphrodite

When starting article on Aphrodite I first thought about another epithet of her – Kallípygos (of the Beautiful Buttocks) – which would be much easier to depict with one of the Luis Royo’s paintings. But as I never take the easiest paths I’ll let you find one by yourself – enjoy his official gallery (not for kids!).

[POST UPDATE]
I just found a great piece to depict Aphrodítē Kallípygos.

There is nothing to explain this time. She’s just Kallípygos!

Bye for now!

Majoj