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Ancient philosophy | Ancient Chinese philosophy | Ancient Chinese philosophy
Chinese philosophy is the dominant philosophical thought in China and other countries within the East Asian cultural sphere that share a common language, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. |
Ancient philosophy | Schools of thought | Schools of thought |
Ancient philosophy | Hundred Schools of Thought | Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from the 6th century to 221 BCE,"Chinese philosophy", Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed 4/6/2014 an era of significant cultural and intellectual expansion in China. Even though this period – known in its earlier part as the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period – in its latter part was fraught with chaos and bloody battles, it is also known as the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy because a broad range of thoughts and ideas were developed and discussed freely. The thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to the present day in East Asian countries. The intellectual society of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were often employed by various state rulers as advisers on the methods of government, war, and diplomacy. This period ended with the rise of the Qin dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent. The Book of Han lists ten major schools, they are:
Confucianism, which teaches that human beings are teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavors, especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. The main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection. Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.
Legalism. Often compared with Machiavelli, and foundational for the traditional Chinese bureaucratic empire, the Legalists examined administrative methods, emphasizing a realistic consolidation of the wealth and power of autocrat and state.
Taoism (also called Daoism), a philosophy which emphasizes the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility, while Taoist thought generally focuses on nature, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos; health and longevity; and wu wei (action through inaction). Harmony with the Universe, or the source thereof (Tao), is the intended result of many Taoist rules and practices.
Mohism, which advocated the idea of universal love: Mozi believed that "everyone is equal before heaven" and that people should seek to imitate heaven by engaging in the practice of collective love. His epistemology can be regarded as primitive materialist empiricism; he believed that human cognition ought to be based on one's perceptions – one's sensory experiences, such as sight and hearing – instead of imagination or internal logic, elements founded on the human capacity for abstraction. Mozi advocated frugality, condemning the Confucian emphasis on ritual and music, which he denounced as extravagant.
Naturalism, the School of Naturalists or the Yin-yang school, which synthesized the concepts of yin and yang and the Five Elements; Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school.
Agrarianism, or the School of Agrarianism, which advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. The Agrarians believed that Chinese society should be modeled around that of the early sage king Shen Nong, a folk hero which was portrayed in Chinese literature as "working in the fields, along with everyone else, and consulting with everyone else when any decision had to be reached."
The Logicians or the School of Names, which focused on definition and logic. It is said to have parallels with that of the Ancient Greek sophists or dialecticians. The most notable Logician was Gongsun Longzi.
The School of Diplomacy or School of Vertical and Horizontal [Alliances], which focused on practical matters instead of any moral principle, stressed political and diplomatic tactics, debate, and lobbying skills. Scholars from this school were good orators, debaters, and tacticians.
The Miscellaneous School, which integrated teachings from different schools; for instance, Lü Buwei found scholars from different schools to write a book called Lüshi Chunqiu cooperatively. This school tried to integrate the merits of various schools and avoid their perceived flaws.
The School of "Minor-talks" was not a unique school of thought but a philosophy constructed of all the thoughts discussed by and originated from ordinary people on the street.
Another group is the School of the Military that studied strategy and the philosophy of war; Sunzi and Sun Bin were influential leaders. However, this school was not one of the "Ten Schools" defined by Hanshu. |
Ancient philosophy | Early Imperial China | Early Imperial China
The founder of the Qin dynasty, who implemented Legalism as the official philosophy, quashed Mohist and Confucianist schools. Legalism remained influential until the emperors of the Han dynasty adopted Daoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. These latter two became the determining forces of Chinese thought until the introduction of Buddhism.
Confucianism was particularly strong during the Han dynasty, whose greatest thinker was Dong Zhongshu, who integrated Confucianism with the thoughts of the Zhongshu School and the theory of the Five Elements. He also was a promoter of the New Text school, which considered Confucius as a divine figure and a spiritual ruler of China, who foresaw and started the evolution of the world towards the Universal Peace. In contrast, there was an Old Text school that advocated the use of Confucian works written in ancient language (from this comes the denomination Old Text) that were so much more reliable. In particular, they refuted the assumption of Confucius as a godlike figure and considered him as the greatest sage, but simply a human and mortal.
The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the rise of the Xuanxue (mysterious learning), also called Neo-Taoism. The most influential philosophers of this movement were Wang Bi, Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang. The main question of this school was whether Being came before Not-Being (in Chinese, ming and wuming). A peculiar feature of these Taoist thinkers, like the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, was the concept of feng liu (lit. wind and flow), a sort of romantic spirit which encouraged following the natural and instinctive impulse.
Buddhism arrived in China around the 1st century AD, but it was not until the Northern and Southern, Sui and Tang dynasties that it gained considerable influence and acknowledgement. In the beginning, it was considered a sort of Taoist sect, and there was even a theory about Laozi, founder of Taoism, who went to India and taught his philosophy to Buddha. Mahayana Buddhism was far more successful in China than its rival Hinayana, and both Indian schools and local Chinese sects arose from the 5th century. Two chiefly important monk philosophers were Sengzhao and Daosheng. But probably the most influential and original of these schools was the Chan sect, which had an even stronger impact in Japan as the Zen sect. |
Ancient philosophy | Philosophers | Philosophers
Taoism
Laozi (5th–4th century BCE)
Zhuangzi (4th century BCE)
Zhang Daoling
Zhang Jue (died 184 CE)
Ge Hong (283 – 343 CE)
Confucianism
Confucius
Mencius
Xun Zi ( – 230 BCE)
Legalism
Li Si
Li Kui
Han Fei
Mi Su Yu
Shang Yang
Shen Buhai
Shen Dao
Mohism
Mozi
Song Xing
Logicians
Deng Xi
Hui Shi (380–305 BCE)
Gongsun Long ( – )
Agrarianism
Xu Xing
Naturalism
Zou Yan (305 – 240 BCE)
Neotaoism
Wang Bi
Guo Xiang
Xiang Xiu
School of Diplomacy
Guiguzi
Su Qin (380 – 284 BCE)
Zhang Yi (bef. 329 – 309 BCE)
Yue Yi
Li Yiji (268 – 204 BCE)
Military strategy
Sunzi ()
Sun Bin (died 316 BCE) |
Ancient philosophy | See also | See also
Index of ancient philosophy articles
Wisdom literature |
Ancient philosophy | References | References |
Ancient philosophy | Further reading | Further reading
Luchte, James, Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn, in series Bloomsbury Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2011. |
Ancient philosophy | External links | External links
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Ancient philosophy | Table of Content | short description, Overview, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Philosophers, Pre-Socratic philosophers, Classical Greek philosophers, Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic schools of thought, Early Roman and Christian philosophy, Philosophers during Roman times, Ancient Iranian philosophy, Schools of thought, Zoroastrianism, Pre-Manichaean thought, Manichaeism, Mazdakism, Zurvanism, Philosophy and the Empire, Literature, Ancient Jewish philosophy, Ancient Indian philosophy<!--'Ancient Indian philosophy' redirects here-->, Vedic philosophy, Sramana philosophy, Classical Indian philosophy, Ancient Indian philosophers, 1st millennium BCE, Philosophers of Vedic Age (c. 1500 – c. 600 BCE), Philosophers of Axial Age (600–185 BCE), Philosophers of Golden Age (184 BCE – 600 CE), Ancient Chinese philosophy, Schools of thought, Hundred Schools of Thought, Early Imperial China, Philosophers, See also, References, Further reading, External links |
Anaximander | Short description | Anaximander ( ; Anaximandros; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus,"Anaximander" in Chambers's Encyclopædia. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 403. a city of Ionia (in modern-day Turkey). He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales. He succeeded Thales and became the second master of that school where he counted Anaximenes and, arguably, Pythagoras amongst his pupils.
Little of his life and work is known today. According to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies,Themistius, Oratio 26, §317 although only one fragment of his work remains. Fragmentary testimonies found in documents after his death provide a portrait of the man.
Anaximander was an early proponent of science and tried to observe and explain different aspects of the universe, with a particular interest in its origins, claiming that nature is ruled by laws, just like human societies, and anything that disturbs the balance of nature does not last long.Park, David (2005) The Grand Contraption, Princeton University Press Like many thinkers of his time, Anaximander's philosophy included contributions to many disciplines. In astronomy, he attempted to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth. In physics, his postulation that the indefinite (or apeiron) was the source of all things, led Greek philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction. His knowledge of geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon in Greece. He created a map of the world that contributed greatly to the advancement of geography. Anaximander was involved in the politics of Miletus and was sent as a leader to one of its colonies. |
Anaximander | Biography | Biography
thumb|left|Ancient Roman mosaic from Johannisstraße, Trier, dating to the early third century AD, showing Anaximander holding a sundial
Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in the third year of the 42nd Olympiad (610 BC).Hippolytus (?), Refutation of All Heresies (I, 5) According to Apollodorus of Athens, Greek grammarian of the 2nd century BC, he was sixty-four years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547–546 BC) and died shortly afterwards.In his Chronicles, as reported by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (II, 2).
Establishing a timeline of his work is impossible, since no document provides chronological references. Themistius, a 4th-century Byzantine rhetorician, mentions that he was the "first of the known Greeks to publish a written document on nature." Therefore, his texts would be amongst the earliest written in prose, at least in the Western world. By the time of Plato, his philosophy was almost forgotten, and Aristotle, his successor Theophrastus, and a few doxographers provide us with the little information that remains. However, we know from Aristotle that Thales, also from Miletus, precedes Anaximander. It is debatable whether Thales actually was the teacher of Anaximander, but there is no doubt that Anaximander was influenced by Thales' theory that everything is derived from water. One thing that is not debatable is that even the ancient Greeks considered Anaximander to be from the Monist school which began in Miletus, with Thales followed by Anaximander and which ended with Anaximenes. 3rd-century Roman rhetorician Aelian depicts Anaximander as leader of the Milesian colony to Apollonia on the Black Sea coast, and hence some have inferred that he was a prominent citizen. Indeed, Various History (III, 17) explains that philosophers sometimes also dealt with political matters. It is very likely that leaders of Miletus sent him there as a legislator to create a constitution or simply to maintain the colony's allegiance.
Anaximander lived the final few years of his life as a subject of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. |
Anaximander | Theories | Theories
thumb|upright|Detail of Raphael's painting The School of Athens, 1510–1511. This could be a representation of Anaximander leaning towards Pythagoras on his left.This character is traditionally associated with Boethius, however his face offering similarities with the relief of Anaximander (image in the box above), it could be a representation of the philosopher. See for a description of the characters in this painting.
Anaximander's theories were influenced by the Greek mythical tradition, and by some ideas of Thales – the father of Western philosophy – as well as by observations made by older civilizations in the Near East, especially Babylon.C. Mosse (1984) La Grèce archaïque d'Homère à Eschyle. Édition du Seuil. p236 All these were developed rationally. In his desire to find some universal principle, he assumed, like traditional religion, the existence of a cosmic order; and his ideas on this used the old language of myths which ascribed divine control to various spheres of reality. This was a common practice for the Greek philosophers in a society which saw gods everywhere, and therefore could fit their ideas into a tolerably elastic system.C. M. Bowra (1957) The Greek experience. World publishing Company. Cleveland and New York. p168,169.
Some scholars see a gap between the existing mythical and the new rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period (8th to 6th century BC) in the Greek city-states.Herbert Ernest Cushman claims Anaximander has "the first European philosophical conception of god", A beginner's history of philosophy, Volume 1 pg. 24 This has given rise to the phrase "Greek miracle". But there may not have been such an abrupt break as initially appears. The basic elements of nature (water, air, fire, earth) which the first Greek philosophers believed made up the universe in fact represent the primordial forces imagined in earlier ways of thinking. Their collision produced what the mythical tradition had called cosmic harmony. In the old cosmogonies – Hesiod (8th – 7th century BC) and Pherecydes (6th century BC) – Zeus establishes his order in the world by destroying the powers which were threatening this harmony (the Titans). Anaximander claimed that the cosmic order is not monarchic but geometric, and that this causes the equilibrium of the Earth, which is lying in the centre of the universe. This is the projection on nature of a new political order and a new space organized around a centre which is the static point of the system in the society as in nature.C. Mosse (1984) La Grece archaique d'Homere a Eschyle. Edition du Seuil. p 235 In this space there is isonomy (equal rights) and all the forces are symmetrical and transferable. The decisions are now taken by the assembly of demos in the agora which is lying in the middle of the city.J. P. Vernart (1982) Les origins de la pensee grecque. PUF Pariw. p 128, J. P. Vernart (1982) The origins of the Greek thought. Cornell University Press.
The same rational way of thought led him to introduce the abstract apeiron (indefinite, infinite, boundless, unlimitedἀπείρων, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus) as an origin of the universe, a concept that is probably influenced by the original Chaos (gaping void, abyss, formless state) from which everything else appeared in the mythical Greek cosmogony.The Theogony of Hesiod, Transl. H. G. Evelyn White, 736–740 It also takes notice of the mutual changes between the four elements. Origin, then, must be something else unlimited in its source, that could create without experiencing decay, so that genesis would never stop.Aetios, I 3,3 [ Pseudo-Plutarch; DK 12 A 14.]; Aristotle, Phys. Γ5,204b 23sq. [DK 12 A 16.] |
Anaximander | Apeiron | Apeiron
The Refutation attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (I, 5), and the later 6th century Byzantine philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia, attribute to Anaximander the earliest use of the word apeiron ( "infinite" or "limitless") to designate the original principle. He was the first philosopher to employ, in a philosophical context, the term archē (), which until then had meant beginning or origin.
"That Anaximander called this something by the name of is the natural interpretation of what Theophrastos says; the current statement that the term was introduced by him appears to be due to a misunderstanding."
And "Hippolytos, however, is not an independent authority, and the only question is what Theophrastos wrote."
For him, it became no longer a mere point in time, but a source that could perpetually give birth to whatever will be. The indefiniteness is spatial in early usages as in Homer (indefinite sea) and as in Xenophanes (6th century BC) who said that the Earth went down indefinitely (to apeiron) i.e. beyond the imagination or concept of men.
Burnet (1930) in Early Greek Philosophy says:
"Nearly all we know of Anaximander's system is derived in the last resort from Theophrastos, who certainly knew his book. He seems once at least to have quoted Anaximander's own words, and he criticised his style. Here are the remains of what he said of him in the First Book:
"Anaximander of Miletos, son of Praxiades, a fellow-citizen and associate of Thales, said that the material cause and first element of things was the Infinite, he being the first to introduce this name of the material cause. He says it is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a substance different from them which is infinite" [apeiron, or ] "from which arise all the heavens and the worlds within them.—Phys, Op. fr. 2 (Dox. p. 476; R. P. 16)."
Burnet's quote from the "First Book" is his translation of Theophrastos' Physic Opinion fragment 2 as it appears in p. 476 of Historia Philosophiae Graecae (1898) by Ritter and Preller and section 16 of Doxographi Graeci (1879) by Diels.
By ascribing the "Infinite" with a "material cause", Theophrastos is following the Aristotelian tradition of "nearly always discussing the facts from the point of view of his own system".
Aristotle writes (Metaphysics, I.III 3–4) that the Pre-Socratics were searching for the element that constitutes all things. While each pre-Socratic philosopher gave a different answer as to the identity of this element (water for Thales and air for Anaximenes), Anaximander understood the beginning or first principle to be an endless, unlimited primordial mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, that perpetually yielded fresh materials from which everything we perceive is derived.Pseudo-Plutarch, The Doctrines of the Philosophers (I, 3). He proposed the theory of the apeiron in direct response to the earlier theory of his teacher, Thales, who had claimed that the primary substance was water. The notion of temporal infinity was familiar to the Greek mind from remote antiquity in the religious concept of immortality, and Anaximander's description was in terms appropriate to this conception. This archē is called "eternal and ageless". (Hippolytus (?), Refutation, I,6,I;DK B2)
"Aristotle puts things in his own way regardless of historical considerations, and it is difficult to see that it is more of an anachronism to call the Boundless " intermediate between the elements " than to say that it is " distinct from the elements." Indeed, if once we introduce the elements at all, the former description is the more adequate of the two. At any rate, if we refuse to understand these passages as referring to Anaximander, we shall have to say that Aristotle paid a great deal of attention to some one whose very name has been lost, and who not only agreed with some of Anaximander's views, but also used some of his most characteristic expressions. We may add that in one or two places Aristotle certainly seems to identify the " intermediate " with the something " distinct from " the elements."
"It is certain that he [Anaximander] cannot have said anything about elements, which no one thought of before Empedokles, and no one could think of before Parmenides. The question has only been mentioned because it has given rise to a lengthy controversy, and because it throws light on the historical value of Aristotle's statements. From the point of view of his own system, these may be justified; but we shall have to remember in other cases that, when he seems to attribute an idea to some earlier thinker, we are not bound to take what he says in an historical sense."
For Anaximander, the principle of things, the constituent of all substances, is nothing determined and not an element such as water in Thales' view. Neither is it something halfway between air and water, or between air and fire, thicker than air and fire, or more subtle than water and earth.Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption (II, 5) Anaximander argues that water cannot embrace all of the opposites found in nature – for example, water can only be wet, never dry – and therefore cannot be the one primary substance; nor could any of the other candidates. He postulated the apeiron as a substance that, although not directly perceptible to us, could explain the opposites he saw around him.
"If Thales had been right in saying that water was the fundamental reality, it would not be easy to see how anything else could ever have existed. One side of the opposition, the cold and moist, would have had its way unchecked, and the warm and dry would have been driven from the field long ago. We must, then, have something not itself one of the warring opposites, something more primitive, out of which they arise, and into which they once more pass away."
Anaximander explains how the four elements of ancient physics (air, earth, water and fire) are formed, and how Earth and terrestrial beings are formed through their interactions. Unlike other Pre-Socratics, he never defines this principle precisely, and it has generally been understood (e.g., by Aristotle and by Saint Augustine) as a sort of primal chaos. According to him, the Universe originates in the separation of opposites in the primordial matter. It embraces the opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, and directs the movement of things; an entire host of shapes and differences then grow that are found in "all the worlds" (for he believed there were many).
"Anaximander taught, then, that there was an eternal. The indestructible something out of which everything arises, and into which everything returns; a boundless stock from which the waste of existence is continually made good, "elements.". That is only the natural development of the thought we have ascribed to Thales, and there can be no doubt that Anaximander at least formulated it distinctly. Indeed, we can still follow to some extent the reasoning which led him to do so. Thales had regarded water as the most likely thing to be that of which all others are forms; Anaximander appears to have asked how the primary substance could be one of these particular things. His argument seems to be preserved by Aristotle, who has the following passage in his discussion of the Infinite: "Further, there cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, or without this qualification. For there are some who make this. (i.e. a body distinct from the elements). the infinite, and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity. They are in opposition one to another. air is cold, water moist, and fire hot. and therefore, if any one of them were infinite, the rest would have ceased to be by this time. Accordingly they say that what is infinite is something other than the elements, and from it the elements arise.'—Aristotle Physics. F, 5 204 b 22 (Ritter and Preller (1898) Historia Philosophiae Graecae, section 16 b)."
Anaximander maintains that all dying things are returning to the element from which they came (apeiron). The one surviving fragment of Anaximander's writing deals with this matter. Simplicius transmitted it as a quotation, which describes the balanced and mutual changes of the elements:Simplicius, Comments on Aristotle's Physics (24, 13):
""
In Ancient Greek quotes usually blend with surrounding text. Consequently, it is uncertain how much is Anaximander's text and what is by Simplicius.
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
Simplicius mentions that Anaximander said all these "in poetic terms", meaning that he used the old mythical language. The goddess Justice (Dike) keeps the cosmic order. This concept of returning to the element of origin was often revisited afterwards, notably by Aristotle,Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, 3, 983 b 8–11; Physics, III, 5, 204 b 33–34 and by the Greek tragedian Euripides: "what comes from earth must return to earth."EuripidesSupplices, v. 532 Friedrich Nietzsche, in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, stated that Anaximander viewed "... all coming-to-be as though it were an illegitimate emancipation from eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance."Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (1873) § 4. Physicist Max Born, in commenting upon Werner Heisenberg's arriving at the idea that the elementary particles of quantum mechanics are to be seen as different manifestations, different quantum states, of one and the same "primordial substance,"' proposed that this primordial substance be called apeiron. |
Anaximander | A free-floating Earth | A free-floating Earth
Anaximander was the first to conceive a mechanical model of the world. In his model, the Earth floats very still in the centre of the infinite, not supported by anything. It remains "in the same place because of its indifference", a point of view that Aristotle considered ingenious, in On the Heavens.Aristotle, On the Heavens, ii, 13 Its curious shape is that of a cylinder"A column of stone", Aetius reports in De Fide (III, 7, 1), or "similar to a pillar-shaped stone", pseudo-Plutarch (III, 10). with a height one-third of its diameter. The flat top forms the inhabited world.
Carlo Rovelli suggests that Anaximander took the idea of the Earth's shape as a floating disk from Thales, who had imagined the Earth floating in water, the "immense ocean from which everything is born and upon which the Earth floats." Anaximander was then able to envisage the Earth at the centre of an infinite space, in which case it required no support as there was nowhere "down" to fall. In Rovelli's view, the shape – a cylinder or a sphere – is unimportant compared to the appreciation of a "finite body that floats free in space."
thumb|upright=1.75|center|Whereas Thales thought the Earth floated in the great Ocean, Anaximander saw the Earth as floating in the infinite. Where Thales conceived of things falling down to Earth, and Earth being above the Ocean, Anaximander saw the Earth as the centre, and that things could fall from any direction. This has been thought a large conceptual advance in cosmology.
Anaximander's realization that the Earth floats free without falling and does not need to be resting on something has been indicated by many as the first cosmological revolution and the starting point of scientific thinking. Karl Popper calls this idea "one of the boldest, most revolutionary, and most portentous ideas in the whole history of human thinking."Karl Popper, "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge" (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 186. Such a model allowed the concept that celestial bodies could pass under the Earth, opening the way to Greek astronomy. Rovelli suggests that seeing the stars circling the Pole star, and both vanishing below the horizon on one side and reappearing above it on the other, would suggest to the astronomer that there was a void both above and below the Earth.
thumb|upright=1.75|center|The sight of stars circling the Pole star and vanishing and reappearing at the horizon could have suggested to Anaximander that the Earth was surrounded above and below by a void. |
Anaximander | Cosmology | Cosmology
thumb|left|280px|Map of Anaximander's universe
Anaximander's bold use of non-mythological explanatory hypotheses considerably distinguishes him from previous cosmology writers such as Hesiod. It indicates a pre-Socratic effort to demystify physical processes. His major contribution to history was writing the oldest prose document about the Universe and the origins of life; for this he is often called the "Father of Cosmology" and founder of astronomy. However, pseudo-Plutarch states that he still viewed celestial bodies as deities.Pseudo-Plutarch, Doctrines of the Philosophers, i. 7 He placed the celestial bodies in the wrong order. He thought that the stars were nearest to the Earth, then the Moon, and the Sun farthest away. His scheme is compatible with the Indo-Iranian philosophical traditions contained in the Iranian Avesta and the Indian Upanishads.
thumb|right|350px|Illustration of Anaximander's models of the universe. On the left, daytime in summer; on the right, nighttime in winter. Note the sphere represents the combined rings of all of the stars about the very small inner cylinder which represents the Earth.
At the origin, after the separation of hot and cold, a ball of flame appeared that surrounded Earth like bark on a tree. This ball broke apart to form the rest of the Universe. It resembled a system of hollow concentric wheels, filled with fire, with the rims pierced by holes like those of a flute. Consequently, the Sun was the fire that one could see through a hole the same size as the Earth on the farthest wheel, and an eclipse corresponded with the occlusion of that hole. The diameter of the solar wheel was twenty-seven times that of the Earth (or twenty-eight, depending on the sources)In Refutation, it is reported that the circle of the Sun is twenty-seven times bigger than the Moon. and the lunar wheel, whose fire was less intense, eighteen (or nineteen) times. Its hole could change shape, thus explaining lunar phases. The stars and the planets, located closer,Aetius, De Fide (II, 15, 6) followed the same model.Most of Anaximander's model of the Universe comes from pseudo-Plutarch (II, 20–28):
"[The Sun] is a circle twenty-eight times as big as the Earth, with the outline similar to that of a fire-filled chariot wheel, on which appears a mouth in certain places and through which it exposes its fire, as through the hole on a flute. [...] the Sun is equal to the Earth, but the circle on which it breathes and on which it's borne is twenty-seven times as big as the whole earth. [...] [The eclipse] is when the mouth from which comes the fire heat is closed. [...] [The Moon] is a circle nineteen times as big as the whole earth, all filled with fire, like that of the Sun".
Anaximander was the first astronomer to consider the Sun as a huge mass, and consequently, to realize how far from Earth it might be, and the first to present a system where the celestial bodies turned at different distances. Furthermore, according to Diogenes Laertius (II, 2), he built a celestial sphere. This invention undoubtedly made him the first to realize the obliquity of the Zodiac as the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder reports in Natural History (II, 8). It is a little early to use the term ecliptic, but his knowledge and work on astronomy confirm that he must have observed the inclination of the celestial sphere in relation to the plane of the Earth to explain the seasons. The doxographer and theologian Aetius attributes to Pythagoras the exact measurement of the obliquity. |
Anaximander | Multiple worlds | Multiple worlds
According to Simplicius, Anaximander already speculated on the plurality of worlds, similar to atomists Leucippus and Democritus, and later philosopher Epicurus. These thinkers supposed that worlds appeared and disappeared for a while, and that some were born when others perished. They claimed that this movement was eternal, "for without movement, there can be no generation, no destruction".Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, 1121, 5–9
In addition to Simplicius, HippolytusHippolytus (?), Refutation I, 6 reports Anaximander's claim that from the infinite comes the principle of beings, which themselves come from the heavens and the worlds (several doxographers use the plural when this philosopher is referring to the worlds within,Notably pseudo-Plutarch (III, 2) and Aetius, (I, 3, 3; I, 7, 12; II, 1, 3; II, 1, 8). which are often infinite in quantity). Cicero writes that he attributes different gods to the countless worlds.On the Nature of the Gods (I, 10, 25):
"Anaximandri autem opinio est nativos esse deos longis intervallis orientis occidentisque, eosque innumerabiles esse mundos."
"For Anaximander, gods were born, but the time is long between their birth and their death; and the worlds are countless."
This theory places Anaximander close to the Atomists and the Epicureans who, more than a century later, also claimed that an infinity of worlds appeared and disappeared. In the timeline of the Greek history of thought, some thinkers conceptualized a single world (Plato, Aristotle, Anaxagoras and Archelaus), while others instead speculated on the existence of a series of worlds, continuous or non-continuous (Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Diogenes). |
Anaximander | Meteorological phenomena | Meteorological phenomena
Anaximander attributed some phenomena, such as thunder and lightning, to the intervention of elements, rather than to divine causes.Pseudo-Plutarch (III, 3):
"Anaximander claims that all this is done by the wind, for when it happens to be enclosed in a thick cloud, then by its subtlety and lightness, the rupture produces the sound; and the scattering, because of the darkness of the cloud, creates the light." In his system, thunder results from the shock of clouds hitting each other; the loudness of the sound is proportionate with that of the shock. Thunder without lightning is the result of the wind being too weak to emit any flame, but strong enough to produce a sound. A flash of lightning without thunder is a jolt of the air that disperses and falls, allowing a less active fire to break free. Thunderbolts are the result of a thicker and more violent air flow.According to Seneca, Naturales quaestiones (II, 18).
He saw the sea as a remnant of the mass of humidity that once surrounded Earth.Pseudo-Plutarch (III, 16) A part of that mass evaporated under the Sun's action, thus causing the winds and even the rotation of the celestial bodies, which he believed were attracted to places where water is more abundant.It is then very likely that by observing the Moon and the tides, Anaximander thought the latter were the cause, and not the effect of the satellite's movement. He explained rain as a product of the humidity pumped up from Earth by the sun. For him, the Earth was slowly drying up and water only remained in the deepest regions, which someday would go dry as well. According to Aristotle's Meteorology (II, 3), Democritus also shared this opinion. |
Anaximander | Origin of mankind | Origin of mankind
Anaximander speculated about the beginnings and origin of animal life, and that humans came from other animals in waters.Anaximander, frag. A30 According to his evolutionary theory, animals sprang out of the sea long ago, born trapped in a spiny bark, but as they got older, the bark would dry up and animals would be able to break it.Aetius, Opinions, V, XIX, 4. The 3rd century Roman writer Censorinus reports:
Anaximander put forward the idea that humans had to spend part of this transition inside the mouths of big fish to protect themselves from the Earth's climate until they could come out in open air and lose their scales.Plutarch also mentions Anaximander's theory that humans were born inside fish, feeding like sharks, and that when they could defend themselves, they were thrown ashore to live on dry land. He thought that, considering humans' extended infancy, we could not have survived in the primeval world in the same manner we do presently. |
Anaximander | Other accomplishments | Other accomplishments |
Anaximander | Cartography | Cartography
thumb|right|280px|Possible rendering of Anaximander's world mapAccording to John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, Houghton and Mifflin, 1968.
Both Strabo and Agathemerus (later Greek geographers) claim that, according to the geographer Eratosthenes, Anaximander was the first to publish a map of the world. The map probably inspired the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus to draw a more accurate version. Strabo viewed both as the first geographers after Homer.
Maps were produced in ancient times, also notably in Egypt, Lydia, the Middle East, and Babylon. Only some small examples survived until today. The unique example of a world map comes from the late Babylonian Map of the World later than 9th century BC but is based probably on a much older map. These maps indicated directions, roads, towns, borders, and geological features. Anaximander's innovation was to represent the entire inhabited land known to the ancient Greeks.
Such an accomplishment is more significant than it at first appears. Anaximander most likely drew this map for three reasons.As established by Marcel Conche, Anaximandre. Fragments et témoignages, introduction (p. 43–47). First, it could be used to improve navigation and trade between Miletus's colonies and other colonies around the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. Second, Thales would probably have found it easier to convince the Ionian city-states to join in a federation in order to push the Median threat away if he possessed such a tool. Finally, the philosophical idea of a global representation of the world simply for the sake of knowledge was reason enough to design one.
Surely aware of the sea's convexity, he may have designed his map on a slightly rounded metal surface. The centre or "navel" of the world ( omphalós gẽs) could have been Delphi, but is more likely in Anaximander's time to have been located near Miletus. The Aegean Sea was near the map's centre and enclosed by three continents, themselves located in the middle of the ocean and isolated like islands by sea and rivers. Europe was bordered on the south by the Mediterranean Sea and was separated from Asia by the Black Sea, the Lake Maeotis, and, further east, either by the Phasis River (now called the Rioni in Georgia) or the Tanais. The Nile flowed south into the ocean, separating Libya (which was the name for the part of the then-known African continent) from Asia. |
Anaximander | Gnomon | Gnomon
The Suda relates that Anaximander explained some basic notions of geometry. It also mentions his interest in the measurement of time and associates him with the introduction in Greece of the gnomon. In Lacedaemon, he participated in the construction, or at least in the adjustment, of sundials to indicate solstices and equinoxes.These accomplishments are often attributed to him, notably by Diogenes Laertius (II, 1) and by the Roman historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel (X, 14, 11). Indeed, a gnomon required adjustments from a place to another because of the difference in latitude.
In his time, the gnomon was simply a vertical pillar or rod mounted on a horizontal plane. The position of its shadow on the plane indicated the time of day. As it moves through its apparent course, the Sun draws a curve with the tip of the projected shadow, which is shortest at noon, when pointing due south. The variation in the tip's position at noon indicates the solar time and the seasons; the shadow is longest on the winter solstice and shortest on the summer solstice.
The invention of the gnomon itself cannot be attributed to Anaximander because its use, as well as the division of days into twelve parts, came from the Babylonians. It is they, according to Herodotus' Histories (II, 109), who gave the Greeks the art of time measurement. It is likely that he was not the first to determine the solstices, because no calculation is necessary. On the other hand, equinoxes do not correspond to the middle point between the positions during solstices, as the Babylonians thought. As the Suda seems to suggest, it is very likely that with his knowledge of geometry, he became the first Greek to determine accurately the equinoxes. |
Anaximander | Prediction of an earthquake | Prediction of an earthquake
In his philosophical work De Divinatione (I, 50, 112), Cicero states that Anaximander convinced the inhabitants of Lacedaemon to abandon their city and spend the night in the country with their weapons because an earthquake was near.Da Divinatione (in Latin) The city collapsed when the top of the Taygetus split like the stern of a ship. Pliny the Elder also mentions this anecdote (II, 81), suggesting that it came from an "admirable inspiration", as opposed to Cicero, who did not associate the prediction with divination. |
Anaximander | Scientific method | Scientific method
Rovelli credits Anaximander with pioneering the "first great scientific revolution in history" by introducing the naturalistic approach to understanding the universe, according to which the universe operates by inviolable laws, without recourse to supernatural explanations. According to Rovelli, Anaximander not only paved the way for modern science, but revolutionized the process for how we form our worldview, by constantly questioning and rejecting certainty. Rovelli further states that Anaximander has not been given his due credit, largely because his naturalistic approach was strongly opposed in antiquity (among others by Aristotle) and had yet to yield the tangible benefits it has today.
+ Anaximander's transformation of method Situation Practice Earlier methodDifferent school Unqualified criticism Earlier methodSame school Unqualified acceptance Anaximander's method Detailed appreciation of teachingThen, teaching is questioned and improved Example Thales: "World is made of water" – Anaximander: "Not so"Thales: "Earth floats on water" – Anaximander: "Earth floats in the infinite"Thales: "Earthquakes due to wobbles in Ocean" – Anaximander: "No, due to Earth splitting open" |
Anaximander | Legacy | Legacy
Bertrand Russell in the History of Western Philosophy interprets Anaximander's theories as an assertion of the necessity of an appropriate balance between earth, fire, and water, all of which may be independently seeking to aggrandize their proportions relative to the others. Anaximander seems to express his belief that a natural order ensures balance among these elements, that where there was fire, ashes (earth) now exist.Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946). His Greek peers echoed this sentiment with their belief in natural boundaries beyond which not even the gods could operate.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, claimed that Anaximander was a pessimist who asserted that the primal being of the world was a state of indefiniteness. In accordance with this, anything definite has to eventually pass back into indefiniteness. In other words, Anaximander viewed "...all coming-to-be as though it were an illegitimate emancipation from eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance". (Ibid., § 4) The world of individual objects, in this way of thinking, has no worth and should perish.Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1962).
Martin Heidegger lectured extensively on Anaximander, and delivered a lecture entitled "Anaximander's Saying" which was subsequently included in Off the Beaten Track. The lecture examines the ontological difference and the oblivion of Being or Dasein in the context of the Anaximander fragment.Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Heidegger's lecture is, in turn, an important influence on the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.Cf. Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 66–7; Derrida, "Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand," in John Sallis (ed.), Deconstruction and Philosophy (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 181–2; Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 159, n. 28.
In the 2017 essay collection Anaximander in Context: New Studies on the Origins of Greek Philosophy, Dirk Couprie, Robert Hahn and Gerald Naddaf describe Anaximander as "one of the greatest minds in history", but one that has not been given his due. Couprie goes to state that he considers him on par with Newton. Similar sentiments are expressed in Carlo Rovelli's 2011 book The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy.
The Anaximander (31st) High School of Thessaloniki, Greece is named after Anaximander. |
Anaximander | Works | Works
According to the Suda:Themistius and Simplicius also mention some work "on nature". The list could refer to book titles or simply their topics. Again, no one can tell because there is no punctuation sign in Ancient Greek. Furthermore, this list is incomplete since the Suda ends it with , thus implying "other works".
On Nature ( / Perì phúseôs)
Rotation of the Earth ( / Gễs períodos)
On Fixed stars ( / Perì tỗn aplanỗn)
The [Celestial] Sphere ( / Sphaĩra) |
Anaximander | See also | See also
Indefinite monism |
Anaximander | References | References |
Anaximander | Sources | Sources |
Anaximander | Primary | Primary
Aelian: Various History (III, 17)
Aëtius: De Fide (I-III; V)
Agathemerus: A Sketch of Geography in Epitome (I, 1)
Aristotle: Meteorology (II, 3) Translated by E. W. Webster
Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption (II, 5) Translated by H. H. Joachim
Aristotle: On the Heavens (II, 13) Translated by J. L. Stocks
(III, 5, 204 b 33–34)
Censorinus: De Die Natali (IV, 7) See original text at LacusCurtius
(I, 50, 112)
Cicero: On the Nature of the Gods (I, 10, 25)
Euripides: The Suppliants (532) Translated by E. P. Coleridge
Eusebius of Caesarea: Preparation for the Gospel (X, 14, 11) Translated by E.H. Gifford
Heidel, W.A. Anaximander's Book: PAAAS, vol. 56, n.7, 1921, pp. 239–288.
Herodotus: Histories (II, 109) See original text in Perseus project
Hippolytus (?): Refutation of All Heresies (I, 5) Translated by Roberts and Donaldson
Pliny the Elder: Natural History (II, 8) See original text in Perseus project
Pseudo-Plutarch: The Doctrines of the Philosophers (I, 3; I, 7; II, 20–28; III, 2–16; V, 19)
Seneca the Younger: Natural Questions (II, 18)
Simplicius: Comments on Aristotle's Physics (24, 13–25; 1121, 5–9)
Strabo: Geography (I, 1) Books 1‑7, 15‑17 translated by H. L. Jones
Themistius: Oratio (36, 317)
The Suda (Suda On Line) |
Anaximander | Secondary | Secondary
The default source; anything not otherwise attributed should be in Conche.
|
Anaximander | External links | External links
Philoctete – Anaximandre: Fragments ((Grk icon))
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Anaximander
Extensive bibliography by Dirk Couprie
Anaximander of Miletus Life and Work – Fragments and Testimonies by Giannis Stamatellos
Category:6th-century BC Greek philosophers
Category:610s BC births
Category:Year of birth unknown
Category:540s BC deaths
Category:Year of death unknown
Category:Ancient Greek astronomers
Category:Ancient Greek cartographers
Category:Ancient Greek metaphysicians
Category:Ancient Greek physicists
Category:Ancient Greeks from the Achaemenid Empire
Category:Ancient Milesians
Category:Natural philosophers
Category:Philosophers of ancient Ionia
Category:Presocratic philosophers
Category:6th-century BC geographers
Category:6th-century BC astronomers |
Anaximander | Table of Content | Short description, Biography, Theories, Apeiron, A free-floating Earth, Cosmology, Multiple worlds, Meteorological phenomena, Origin of mankind, Other accomplishments, Cartography, Gnomon, Prediction of an earthquake, Scientific method, Legacy, Works, See also, References, Sources, Primary, Secondary, External links |
APL | wiktionary | APL is an abbreviation, acronym, or initialism that may refer to: |
APL | Science and technology | Science and technology
132524 APL, an asteroid
Abductor pollicis longus muscle, in the human hand
Acute promyelocytic leukemia, a subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia
Applied Physics Letters, a physics journal
Nampula Airport (IATA airport code: APL), in Mozambique |
APL | Computers | Computers
.apl, the file extension of the Monkey's Audio metadata file
AMD Performance Library, renamed Framewave, a computer compiler library
APL (programming language), an array-based programming language
APL (codepage), the character set for programming in APL
Address Prefix List, a DNS record type
Address (programming language), an early high-level programming language developed in the Soviet Union
Advanced Physical Layer, an extension of Ethernet 10BASE-T1L for field devices
Alexa Presentation Language, a language for developing Amazon Alexa skills
Associative Programming Language, a database query language |
APL | Software licences | Software licences
Adaptive Public License, an Open Source license from the University of Victoria, Canada
AROS Public License, a license of AROS Research Operating System
Arphic Public License, a free font license |
APL | Organizations | Organizations
APL (shipping company), a Singapore-based container and shipping company
Aden Protectorate Levies, a militia force for local defense of the Aden Protectorate
Advanced Production and Loading, a Norwegian marine engineering company formed in 1993
American President Lines, a container transportation and shipping company
American Protective League, a World War I-era pro-war organization
Applied Physics Laboratory, at Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington
Association of Pension Lawyers, UK
Aurora Public Library (disambiguation)
Irish Anti-Partition League, a Northern Ireland political organisation |
APL | Sport | Sport
Abkhazian Premier League, the top-level association football league of Abkhazia
Afghanistan Premier League, an Afghan Twenty20 cricket league
Afghan Premier League, a men's football league in Afghanistan
American Patriot League, a proposed American football spring league
American Premiere League, a Twenty20 cricket league in the US
Armenian Premier League, the top-level association football league of Armenia
Australian Professional Leagues, an Australian soccer governing body
Azerbaijan Premier League, the top-level association football league of Azerbaijan |
APL | Other uses | Other uses
apl.de.ap (born 1974), pseudonym of Allan Pineda Lindo, Filipino–American musician
A US Navy hull classification symbol: Barracks craft (APL) |
APL | Table of Content | wiktionary, Science and technology, Computers, Software licences, Organizations, Sport, Other uses |
Architect | Short description | An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, the term architect derives from the Latin , which derives from the Greek (-, chief + , builder), i.e., chief builder.
The professional requirements for architects vary from location to location. An architect's decisions affect public safety, and thus the architect must undergo specialised training consisting of advanced education and a practicum (or internship) for practical experience to earn a license to practice architecture. Practical, technical, and academic requirements for becoming an architect vary by jurisdiction though the formal study of architecture in academic institutions has played a pivotal role in the development of the profession. |
Architect | Origins | Origins
Throughout ancient and medieval history, most architectural design and construction was carried out by artisans—such as stone masons and carpenters—who rose to the role of master builders. Until modern times, there was no clear distinction between architect and engineer. In Europe, the titles architect and engineer were primarily geographical variations that referred to the same person, often used interchangeably.
"Architect" derives from Greek (, "master builder," "chief ).
thumb|upright|Filippo Brunelleschi is revered as one of the most inventive and gifted architects in history. It is suggested that various developments in technology and mathematics allowed the development of the professional 'gentleman' architect, separate from the hands-on craftsman. Paper was not used in Europe for drawing until the 15th century but became increasingly available after 1500. Pencils were used for drawing by 1600. The availability of both paper and pencils allowed pre-construction drawings to be made by professionals. Concurrently, the introduction of linear perspective and innovations such as the use of different projections to describe a three-dimensional building in two dimensions, together with an increased understanding of dimensional accuracy, helped building designers communicate their ideas. However, development was gradual and slow-going. Until the 18th century, buildings continued to be designed and set out by craftsmen, with the exception of high-status projects. |
Architect | Architecture | Architecture
In most developed countries only those qualified with an appropriate license, certification, or registration with a relevant body (often a government) may legally practice architecture. Such licensure usually requires a university degree, successful completion of exams, and a training period. Representation of oneself as an architect through the use of terms and titles were restricted to licensed individuals by law, although in general, derivatives such as architectural designer were not legally protected.
To practice architecture implies the ability to practice independently of supervision. The term building design professional (or design professional), by contrast, is a much broader term that includes professionals who practice independently under an alternate profession, such as engineering professionals, or those who assist in the practice of architecture under the supervision of a licensed architect, such as intern architects. In many places, independent, non-licensed individuals may perform design services outside of professional restrictions, such as the design of houses or other smaller structures. |
Architect | Practice | Practice
In the architectural profession, technical and environmental knowledge, design, and construction management require an understanding of business as well as design. However, design is the driving force throughout the project and beyond. An architect accepts a commission from a client. The commission might involve preparing feasibility reports, building audits, and designing a building or several buildings, structures, and the spaces among them. The architect participates in developing the requirements the client wants in the building. Throughout the project (planning to occupancy), the architect coordinates a design team. Structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers are hired by the client or architect, who must ensure that the work is coordinated to construct the design. |
Architect | Design role | Design role
The architect, once hired by a client, is responsible for creating a design concept that meets the requirements of that client and provides a facility suitable to the required use. The architect must meet with and ask questions to the client, to ascertain all the requirements (and nuances) of the planned project.
Often, the full brief is not clear in the beginning. It involves a degree of risk in the design undertaking. The architect may make early proposals to the client which may rework the terms of the brief. The "program" (or brief) is essential to producing a project that meets all the needs of the owner. This becomes a guide for the architect in creating the design concept.
Design proposal(s) are generally expected to be both imaginative and pragmatic. Much depends upon the time, place, finance, culture, and available crafts and technology in which the design takes place. The extent and nature of these expectations will vary. Foresight is a prerequisite when designing buildings as it is a very complex and demanding undertaking.
Any design concept during the early stage of its generation must take into account a great number of issues and variables, including the qualities of the space(s), the end-use and life-cycle of these proposed spaces, connections, relations, and aspects between spaces, including how they are put together, and the impact of proposals on the immediate and wider locality. The selection of appropriate materials and technology must be considered, tested, and reviewed at an early stage in the design to ensure there are no setbacks (such as higher-than-expected costs) which could occur later in the project.
The site and its surrounding environment, as well as the culture and history of the place, will also influence the design. The design must also balance increasing concerns with environmental sustainability. The architect may introduce (intentionally or not), aspects of mathematics and architecture, new or current architectural theory, or references to architectural history.
A key part of the design is that the architect often must consult with engineers, surveyors, and other specialists throughout the design, ensuring that aspects such as structural supports and air conditioning elements are coordinated. The control and planning of construction costs are also part of these consultations. Coordination of the different aspects involves a high degree of specialized communication, including advanced computer technology such as building information modeling (BIM), computer-aided design (CAD), and cloud-based technologies. Finally, at all times, the architect must report back to the client, who may have reservations or recommendations which might introduce further variables into the design.
Architects also deal with local and federal jurisdictions regarding regulations and building codes. The architect might need to comply with local planning and zoning laws such as required setbacks, height limitations, parking requirements, transparency requirements (windows), and land use. Some jurisdictions require adherence to design and historic preservation guidelines. Health and safety risks form a vital part of the current design, and in some jurisdictions, design reports and records are required to include ongoing considerations of materials and contaminants, waste management and recycling, traffic control, and fire safety. |
Architect | Means of design | Means of design
Previously, architects employed drawings to illustrate and generate design proposals. While conceptual sketches are still widely used by architects, computer technology has now become the industry standard. Furthermore, design may include the use of photos, collages, prints, linocuts, 3D scanning technology, and other media in design production.
Increasingly, computer software is shaping how architects work. BIM technology allows for the creation of a virtual building that serves as an information database for the sharing of design and building information throughout the life-cycle of the building's design, construction, and maintenance. Virtual reality (VR) presentations are becoming more common for visualizing structural designs and interior spaces from the point-of-view perspective. |
Architect | Environmental role | Environmental role
Since modern buildings are known to release carbon into the atmosphere, increasing controls are being placed on buildings and associated technology to reduce emissions, increase energy efficiency, and make use of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources may be designed into the proposed building by local or national renewable energy providers. As a result, the architect is required to remain abreast of current regulations that are continually being updated. Some new developments exhibit extremely low energy use or passive solar building design.
However, the architect is also increasingly being required to provide initiatives in a wider environmental sense. Examples of this include making provisions for low-energy transport, natural daylighting instead of artificial lighting, natural ventilation instead of air conditioning, pollution, and waste management, use of recycled materials, and employment of materials which can be easily recycled. |
Architect | Construction role | Construction role
As the design becomes more advanced and detailed, specifications and detail designs are made of all the elements and components of the building. Techniques in the production of a building are continually advancing which places a demand on the architect to ensure that he or she remains up to date with these advances.
Depending on the client's needs and the jurisdiction's requirements, the spectrum of the architect's services during each construction stage may be extensive (detailed document preparation and construction review) or less involved (such as allowing a contractor to exercise considerable design-build functions).
Architects typically put projects to tender on behalf of their clients, advise them on the award of the project to a general contractor, facilitate and administer a contract of agreement, which is often between the client and the contractor. This contract is legally binding and covers a wide range of aspects, including the insurance and commitments of all stakeholders, the status of the design documents, provisions for the architect's access, and procedures for the control of the works as they proceed. Depending on the type of contract used, provisions for further sub-contract tenders may be required. The architect may require that some elements be covered by a warranty which specifies the expected life and other aspects of the material, product, or work.
In most jurisdictions prior notification to the relevant authority must be given before commencement of the project, giving the local authority notice to carry out independent inspections. The architect will then review and inspect the progress of the work in coordination with the local authority.
The architect will typically review contractor shop drawings and other submittals, prepare and issue site instructions, and provide Certificates for Payment to the contractor (see also Design-bid-build) which is based on the work done as well as any materials and other goods purchased or hired in the future. In the United Kingdom and other countries, a quantity surveyor is often part of the team to provide cost consulting. With large, complex projects, an independent construction manager is sometimes hired to assist in the design and management of the construction.
In many jurisdictions mandatory certification or assurance of the completed work or part of the work is required. This demand for certification entails a high degree of risk; therefore, regular inspections of the work as it progresses on site is required to ensure that the design is in compliance itself as well as following all relevant statutes and permissions. |
Architect | Alternate practice and specialisations | Alternate practice and specialisations
Recent decades have seen the rise of specialisations within the profession. Many architects and architectural firms focus on certain project types (e.g. healthcare, retail, public housing, and event management), technological expertise, or project delivery methods. Some architects specialise in building code, building envelope, sustainable design, technical writing, historic preservation(US) or conservation (UK), and accessibility.
Many architects elect to move into real-estate (property) development, corporate facilities planning, project management, construction management, chief sustainability officers interior design, city planning, user experience design, and design research. |
Architect | Professional requirements | Professional requirements
Although there are variations in each location, most of the world's architects are required to register with the appropriate jurisdiction. Architects are typically required to meet three common requirements: education, experience, and examination.
Basic educational requirement generally consist of a university in architecture. The experience requirement for degree candidates is usually satisfied by a practicum or internship (usually two to three years). Finally, a Registration Examination or a series of exams is required prior to licensure.
Professionals who engaged in the design and supervision of construction projects before the late 19th century were not necessarily trained in a separate architecture program in an academic setting. Instead, they often trained under established architects. Prior to modern times, there was no distinction between architects and engineers and the title used varied depending on geographical location. They often carried the title of master builder or surveyor after serving a number of years as an apprentice (such as Sir Christopher Wren). The formal study of architecture in academic institutions played a pivotal role in the development of the profession as a whole, serving as a focal point for advances in architectural technology and theory. The use of "Architect" or abbreviations such as "Ar." as a title attached to a person's name was regulated by law in some countries. |
Architect | Fees | Fees
Architects' fee structure was typically based on a percentage of construction value, as a rate per unit area of the proposed construction, hourly rates, or a fixed lump sum fee. Combination of these structures were also common. Fixed fees were usually based on a project's allocated construction cost and could range between 4 and 12% of new construction cost for commercial and institutional projects, depending on the project's size and complexity. Residential projects ranged from 12 to 20%. Renovation projects typically commanded higher percentages such as 15–20%.
Overall billings for architectural firms range widely, depending on their location and economic climate. Billings have traditionally been dependent on local economic conditions, but with rapid globalization, this is becoming less of a factor for large international firms. Salaries could also vary depending on experience, position within the firm (i.e. staff architect, partner, or shareholder, etc.), and the size and location of the firm. |
Architect | Professional organizations | Professional organizations
A number of national professional organizations exist to promote career and business development in architecture.
The International Union of Architects (UIA)
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) US
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) UK
Architects Registration Board (ARB) UK
The Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) Australia
The South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) South Africa
Association of Consultant Architects (ACA) UK
Association of Licensed Architects (ALA) US
The Consejo Profesional de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (CPAU) Argentina
Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) & Council of Architecture (COA) India
The Jamaican Institute of Architects (JIA)
The National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) US |
Architect | Prizes and awards | Prizes and awards
thumb|Ceremony for the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, presenting the award for the Arcadia Education Centre
A wide variety of prizes is awarded by national professional associations and other bodies, recognizing accomplished architects, their buildings, structures, and professional careers.
The most lucrative award an architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize, sometimes termed the "Nobel Prize for architecture". The inaugural Pritzker Prize winner was Philip Johnson who was cited as having "50 years of imagination and vitality embodied in a myriad of museums, theatres libraries, houses gardens and corporate structures". The Pritzker Prize has been awarded for forty-two straight editions without interruption, and there are now 22 countries with at least one winning architect. Other prestigious architectural awards are the Royal Gold Medal, the AIA Gold Medal (US), AIA Gold Medal (Australia), and the Praemium Imperiale.
Architects in the UK who have made contributions to the profession through design excellence or architectural education or have in some other way advanced the profession might, until 1971, be elected Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects and can write FRIBA after their name if they feel so inclined. Those elected to chartered membership of the RIBA after 1971 may use the initials RIBA but cannot use the old ARIBA and FRIBA. An honorary fellow may use the initials Hon. FRIBA, and an international fellow may use the initials Int. FRIBA. Architects in the US who have made contributions to the profession through design excellence or architectural education or have in some other way advanced the profession are elected Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and can write FAIA after their name. Architects in Canada who have made outstanding contributions to the profession through contributions to research, scholarship, public service, or professional standing to the good of architecture in Canada or elsewhere may be recognized as Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and can write FRAIC after their name. In Hong Kong, those elected to chartered membership may use the initial HKIA, and those who have made a special contribution after nomination and election by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA), may be elected as fellow members of HKIA and may use FHKIA after their name. |
Architect | See also | See also |
Architect | References | References
Category:Architecture occupations
Category:Professional certification in architecture |
Architect | Table of Content | Short description, Origins, Architecture, Practice, Design role, Means of design, Environmental role, Construction role, Alternate practice and specialisations, Professional requirements, Fees, Professional organizations, Prizes and awards, See also, References |
Abbreviation | short description | thumb|upright=1.5|Example of 15th-century Latin manuscript text with scribal abbreviations
An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing period. For example, the term etc. is the usual abbreviation for the Latin phrase . |
Abbreviation | Types | Types
A contraction is an abbreviation formed by replacing letters with an apostrophe. Examples include I'm for I am and li'l for little.
An initialism or acronym is an abbreviation consisting of the initial letter of a sequence of words without other punctuation. For example, FBI (), USA (), IBM (), BBC (). When initialism is used as the preferred term, acronym refers more specifically to when the abbreviation is pronounced as a word rather than as separate letters; examples include SWAT and NASA.
Initialisms, contractions and crasis share some semantic and phonetic functions, and are connected by the term abbreviation in loose parlance. |
Abbreviation | History | History
In early times, abbreviations may have been common due to the effort involved in writing (many inscriptions were carved in stone) or to provide secrecy via obfuscation.
Reduction of a word to a single letter was common in both Greek and Roman writing. In Roman inscriptions, "Words were commonly abbreviated by using the initial letter or letters of words, and most inscriptions have at least one abbreviation". However, "some could have more than one meaning, depending on their context. (For example, can be an abbreviation for many words, such as , , , , , , , and .)" Many frequent abbreviations consisted of more than one letter: for example COS for consul and COSS for its nominative etc. plural consules.
Abbreviations were frequently used in early English. Manuscripts of copies of the Old English poem Beowulf used many abbreviations, for example the Tironian et () or for and, and for since, so that "not much space is wasted". The standardisation of English in the 15th through 17th centuries included a growth in the use of such abbreviations. At first, abbreviations were sometimes represented with various suspension signs, not only periods. For example, sequences like were replaced with , as in for master and for exacerbate. While this may seem trivial, it was symptomatic of an attempt by people manually reproducing academic texts to reduce the copy time.
In the Early Modern English period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the thorn was used for th, as in ('the'). In modern times, was often used (in the form ) for promotional reasons, as in .Lass, R., The Cambridge History of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, 2006, Vol. 2, p. 36.
During the growth of philological linguistic theory in academic Britain, abbreviating became very fashionable. Likewise, a century earlier in Boston, a fad of abbreviation started that swept the United States, with the globally popular term OK generally credited as a remnant of its influence.
Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. This question is considered below.
Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet during the 1990s led to a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant and text messaging. The original SMS supported message lengths of 160 characters at most (using the GSM 03.38 character set), for instance. This brevity gave rise to an informal abbreviation scheme sometimes called Textese, with which 10% or more of the words in a typical SMS message are abbreviated.Crystal, David. Txtng: the Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. More recently Twitter, a popular social networking service, began driving abbreviation use with 140 character message limits.
In HTML, abbreviations can be annotated using <abbr title="Meaning of the abbreviation.">abbreviation</abbr> to reveal its meaning by hovering the cursor. |
Abbreviation | Style conventions in English | Style conventions in English
In modern English, there are multiple conventions for abbreviation, and there is controversy as to which should be used. One generally accepted rule is to be consistent in a body of work. To this end, publishers may express their preferences in a style guide.
Some controversies that arise are described below. |
Abbreviation | Capitalization | Capitalization
If the original word was capitalized then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When a word is abbreviated to more than a single letter and was originally spelled with lower case letters then there is no need for capitalization. However, when abbreviating a phrase where only the first letter of each word is taken, then all letters should be capitalized, as in YTD for year-to-date, PCB for printed circuit board and FYI for for your information. However, see the following section regarding abbreviations that have become common vocabulary: these are no longer written with capital letters. |
Abbreviation | Periods | Periods
thumb|Sign in New York City subway, reading "Penna." for Pennsylvania, showing American style of including the period even for contractions
A period (a.k.a. full stop) is sometimes used to signify abbreviation, but opinion is divided as to when and if this convention is best practice.
According to Hart's Rules, a word shortened by dropping letters from the end terminates with a period, whereas a word shorted by dropping letters from the middle does not. Fowler's Modern English Usage says a period is used for both of these shortened forms, but recommends against this practice: advising it only for end-shortened words and lower-case initialisms; not for middle-shortened words and upper-case initialisms.
Full formShorteningShort formSourceDoctormidDrD——rProfessorendProf.Prof...The ReverendendRev.Rev...The ReverendmidRevdRev——dThe Right Honourablemid and endRt Hon.R——t Hon...
Some British style guides, such as for The Guardian and The Economist, disallow periods for all abbreviations.
In American English, the period is usually included regardless of whether or not it is a contraction, e.g. Dr. or Mrs. In some cases, periods are optional, as in either US or U.S. for United States, EU or E.U. for European Union, and UN or U.N. for United Nations. There are some house styles, however—American ones included—that remove the periods from almost all abbreviations. For example:
The U.S. Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices advises that periods should not be used with abbreviations on road signs, except for cardinal directions as part of a destination name. (For example, "Northwest Blvd", "W. Jefferson", and "PED XING" all follow this recommendation.)
AMA style, used in many medical journals, uses no periods in abbreviations or acronyms, with almost no exceptions. Thus eg, ie, vs, et al., Dr, Mr, MRI, ICU, and hundreds of others contain no periods. The only exceptions are (an abbreviation of Numero, Number), to avoid confusion with the word "No"; initials within persons' names (such as "George R. Smith"); and "St." within persons' names when the person prefers it (such as "Emily R. St. Clair") (but not in city names such as St Louis or St Paul).
Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since entered the vocabulary as generic words are no longer written with capital letters nor with any periods. Examples are sonar, radar, lidar, laser, snafu, and scuba.
When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, only one period is used: The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C.
In the past, some initialisms were styled with a period after each letter and a space between each pair. For example, U. S., but today this is typically US. |
Abbreviation | Plural | Plural
There are multiple ways to pluralize an abbreviation. Sometimes this accomplished by adding an apostrophe and an s (), as in "two PC's have broken screens". But, some find this confusing since the notation can indicate possessive case. And, this style is deprecated by many style guides. For instance, Kate Turabian, writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". For example, "DVDs" and "URLs" and "Ph.D.'s", while the Modern Language AssociationModern Language Association (MLA) Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition 2009, subsection 3.2.7.g explicitly says, "do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation". Also, the American Psychological Association specifically says,Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 5th Edition 2001, subsection 3.28Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition 2010, subsection 4.29 "without an apostrophe".
However, the 1999 style guide for The New York Times states that the addition of an apostrophe is necessary when pluralizing all abbreviations, preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's".Siegal, AM., Connolly, WG., The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Three Rivers Press, 1999, p. 24.
Forming a plural of an initialization without an apostrophe can also be used for a number, or a letter. Examples:
Runs batted in, RBIs
The roaring 20s
Mind your Ps and Qs
For units of measure, the same form is used for both singular and plural. Examples:
1 lb or 20 lb
1 ft or 16 ft
1 min or 45 min
When an abbreviation contains more than one period, Hart's Rules recommends putting the s after the final one. Examples:
Ph.D.s
M.Phil.s
The d.t.s
However, the same plurals may be rendered less formally as:
PhDs
MPhils
The DTs (This is the recommended form in the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.)
According to Hart's Rules, an apostrophe may be used in rare cases where clarity calls for it, for example when letters or symbols are referred to as objects.
The x's of the equation
Dot the i's and cross the t's
However, the apostrophe can be dispensed with if the items are set in italics or quotes:
The xs of the equation
Dot the 'i's and cross the 't's
In Latin, and continuing to the derivative forms in European languages as well as English, single-letter abbreviations had the plural being a doubling of the letter for note-taking. Most of these deal with writing and publishing. A few longer abbreviations use this as well.
Singular abbreviationWord/phrasePlural abbreviationDisciplined. didotdd. typographyf. following line or pageff.notesF. folioFf.literatureh. handhh. horse heightJ. JusticeJJ.law (job title)l. linell.notesMS manuscriptMSSnotesop. opus (plural: opera)opp.notesp.pagepp.notesQ. quartoQq.literatures. (or §)sectionss. (or §§)notesv.volumevv.notes |
Abbreviation | Conventions followed by publications and newspapers | Conventions followed by publications and newspapers |
Abbreviation | United States | United States
Publications based in the U.S. tend to follow the style guides of The Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press. The U.S. government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The National Institute of Standards and Technology sets the style for abbreviations of units. |
Abbreviation | United Kingdom | United Kingdom
Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the BBC and The Guardian, have completely done away with the use of periods in all abbreviations. These include:
Social titles, e.g. Ms or Mr (though these would usually have not had periods—see above) Capt, Prof, etc.;
Two-letter abbreviations for countries ("US", not "U.S.");
Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initialisms);
Words seldom abbreviated with lower case letters ("PR", instead of "p.r.", or "pr")
Names ("FW de Klerk", "GB Whiteley", "Park JS"). A notable exception is The Economist which writes "Mr F. W. de Klerk".
Scientific units (see Measurements below).
Acronyms are often referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalized. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can be abbreviated as "Nato" or "NATO", and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as "Sars" or "SARS" (compare with "laser" which has made the full transition to an English word and is rarely capitalised at all).
Initialisms are always written in capitals; for example the "British Broadcasting Corporation" is abbreviated to "BBC", never "Bbc". An initialism is also an acronym but is not pronounced as a word.
When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10°C). (This is contrary to the SI standard; see below.) |
Abbreviation | Miscellaneous and general rules | Miscellaneous and general rules
A doubled letter appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (British prime minister) David Lloyd George.
Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States.
A repeatedly used abbreviation should be spelt out for identification on its first occurrence in a written or spoken passage.Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly, The Elements of Technical Writing, pg. 53. New York City: Macmillan Publishers, 1993. Abbreviations likely to be unfamiliar to many readers should be avoided. |
Abbreviation | Measurements: abbreviations or symbols | Measurements: abbreviations or symbols
Writers often use shorthand to denote units of measure. Such shorthand can be an abbreviation, such as "in" for "inch" or can be a symbol such as "km" for "kilometre".
In the International System of Units (SI) manual the word "symbol" is used consistently to define the shorthand used to represent the various SI units of measure. The manual also defines the way in which units should be written, the principal rules being:
The conventions for upper and lower case letters must be observed—for example 1 MW (megawatts) is equal to 1,000,000 watts and 1,000,000,000 mW (milliwatts).
No periods should be inserted between letters—for example "m.s" (which is an approximation of "m·s", which correctly uses middle dot) is the symbol for "metres multiplied by seconds", but "ms" is the symbol for milliseconds.
No periods should follow the symbol unless the syntax of the sentence demands otherwise (for example a full stop at the end of a sentence).
The singular and plural versions of the symbol are identical—not all languages use the letter "s" to denote a plural. |
Abbreviation | Syllabic abbreviation | Syllabic abbreviation
A syllabic abbreviation is usually formed from the initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol = International + police. It is a variant of the acronym. Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from portmanteaus, which combine two words without necessarily taking whole syllables from each. |
Abbreviation | English | English
Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English. Some UK government agencies such as Ofcom (Office of Communications) and the former Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) use this style.
New York City has various neighborhoods named by syllabic abbreviation, such as Tribeca (Triangle below Canal Street) and SoHo (South of Houston Street). This usage has spread into other American cities, giving SoMa, San Francisco (South of Market) and LoDo, Denver (Lower Downtown), amongst others.
Chicago-based electric service provider ComEd is a syllabic abbreviation of Commonwealth and (Thomas) Edison.
Sections of California are also often colloquially syllabically abbreviated, as in NorCal (Northern California), CenCal (Central California), and SoCal (Southern California). Additionally, in the context of Los Angeles, the syllabic abbreviation SoHo (Southern Hollywood) refers to the southern portion of the Hollywood neighborhood.
Partially syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy, as they increase readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence DESRON 6 is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6", while COMNAVAIRLANT would be "Commander, Naval Air Force (in the) Atlantic".
Syllabic abbreviations are a prominent feature of Newspeak, the fictional language of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The political contractions of Newspeak—Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty)—are described by Orwell as similar to real examples of German (see below) and Russian (see below) contractions in the 20th century. The contractions in Newspeak are supposed to have a political function by virtue of their abbreviated structure itself: nice sounding and easily pronounceable, their purpose is to mask all ideological content from the speaker.
A more recent syllabic abbreviation has emerged with the disease COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019) caused by the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (itself frequently abbreviated to SARS-CoV-2, partly an initialism). |
Abbreviation | Albanian | Albanian
In Albanian, syllabic acronyms are sometimes used for composing a person's name, such as Migjeni—an abbreviation from his original name (Millosh Gjergj Nikolla) a famous Albanian poet and writer—or ASDRENI (Aleksander Stavre Drenova), another famous Albanian poet.
Other such names which are used commonly in recent decades are GETOAR, composed from Gegeria + Tosks (representing the two main dialects of the Albanian language, Gegë and Toskë), and Arbanon—which is an alternative way used to describe all Albanian lands. |
Abbreviation | German | German
Syllabic abbreviations were and are common in German; much like acronyms in English, they have a distinctly modern connotation, although contrary to popular belief, many date back to before 1933, if not the end of the Great War. , literally criminal police but idiomatically the Criminal Investigation Department of any German police force, begat (variously capitalised), and likewise (protection police or uniform department) begat . Along the same lines, the Swiss Federal Railways' Transit Police—the —are abbreviated as the .
With the National Socialist German Workers' Party gaining power came a frenzy of government reorganisation, and with it a series of entirely new syllabic abbreviations. The single national police force amalgamated from the of the various states became the OrPo (, "order police"); the state KriPos together formed the "SiPo" (, "security police"); and there was also the Gestapo (, "secret state police"). The new order of the German Democratic Republic in the east brought about a conscious denazification, but also a repudiation of earlier turns of phrase in favour of neologisms such as for ("state security", the secret police) and for . The phrase , which may be rendered literally as "office of politics" or idiomatically as "political party steering committee", became .
Syllabic abbreviations are not only used in politics, however. Many business names, trademarks, and service marks from across Germany are created on the same pattern: for a few examples, there is Aldi, from Theo Albrecht, the name of its founder, followed by discount; Haribo, from Hans Riegel, the name of its founder, followed by Bonn, the town of its head office; and Adidas, from Adolf "Adi" Dassler, the nickname of its founder followed by his surname. |
Abbreviation | Russian | Russian
Syllabic abbreviations are very common in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. They are often used as names of organizations. Historically, popularization of abbreviations was a way to simplify mass-education in 1920s (see Likbez). The word kolkhoz (kollektívnoye khozyáystvo, collective farm) is another example.
Leninist organisations such as the Comintern (Communist International) and Komsomol (Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi, or "Communist youth union") used Russian language syllabic abbreviations. In the modern Russian language, words like Rosselkhozbank (from Rossiysky selskokhozyaystvenny bank — Russian Agricultural Bank, RusAg) and Minobrnauki (from Ministerstvo obrazovaniya i nauki — Ministry of Education and Science) are still commonly used. In nearby Belarus, there are Beltelecom (Belarus Telecommunication) and Belsat (Belarus Satellite). |
Abbreviation | Spanish | Spanish
Syllabic abbreviations are common in Spanish; examples abound in organization names such as Pemex for Petróleos Mexicanos ("Mexican Petroleums") or Fonafifo for Fondo Nacional de Financimiento Forestal (National Forestry Financing Fund). |
Abbreviation | Malay and Indonesian | Malay and Indonesian
In Southeast Asian languages, especially in Malay languages, abbreviations are common; examples include Petronas (for Petroliam Nasional, "National Petroleum"), its Indonesian equivalent Pertamina (from its original name Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak dan Gas Bumi Negara, "State Oil and Natural Gas Mining Company"), and Kemenhub (from Kementerian Perhubungan, "Ministry of Transportation").
Malaysian abbreviation often uses letters from each word, while Indonesia usually uses syllables; although some cases do not follow the style. For example, general elections in Malaysian Malay often shortened into PRU (pilihan raya umum) while Indonesian often shortened into pemilu (pemilihan umum). Another example is Ministry of Health in which Malaysian Malay uses KKM (Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia), compared to Indonesian Kemenkes (Kementerian Kesehatan). |
Abbreviation | Chinese and Japanese kanji | Chinese and Japanese kanji
East Asian languages whose writing systems use Chinese characters form abbreviations similarly by using key Chinese characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō (国際連合) is often abbreviated to kokuren (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese; see also Japanese abbreviated and contracted words). The syllabic abbreviation of kanji words is frequently used for universities: for instance, Tōdai (東大) for Tōkyō daigaku (東京大学, University of Tokyo) and is used similarly in Chinese: Běidà (北大) for Běijīng Dàxué (北京大学, Peking University). Korean universities often follow the same conventions, such as Hongdae (홍대) as short for Hongik Daehakgyo, or Hongik University. The English phrase "Gung ho" originated as a Chinese abbreviation. |
Abbreviation | See also | See also
The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary
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Abbreviation | Notes | Notes |
Abbreviation | References | References
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Abbreviation | Table of Content | short description, Types, History, Style conventions in English, Capitalization, Periods, Plural, Conventions followed by publications and newspapers, United States, United Kingdom, Miscellaneous and general rules, Measurements: abbreviations or symbols, Syllabic abbreviation, English, Albanian, German, Russian, Spanish, Malay and Indonesian, Chinese and Japanese kanji, See also, Notes, References |
Aphrodite | Short description | Aphrodite (, ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature. In Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam (, ) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. In Homer's Iliad, however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In his Symposium, Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people").This claim is made at Symposium 180e. It is hard to interpret the role of the various speeches in the dialogue and their relationship to what Plato actually thought; therefore, it is controversial whether Plato, in fact, believed this claim about Aphrodite. See Frisbee Sheffield, "The Role of the Earlier Speeches in the "Symposium": Plato's Endoxic Method?" in J. H. Lesher, Debra Nails & Frisbee C. C. Sheffield (eds.), Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, Harvard University Press, (2006). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion. Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete.
In Greek mythology, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. 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. Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar. Along with Athena and Hera, Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and plays a major role throughout the Iliad. Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature. She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions, including the Church of Aphrodite, Wicca, and Hellenism. |
Aphrodite | Etymology | Etymology
Hesiod derives the name Aphrodite from () "sea-foam", interpreting the name as "risen from the foam",Hesiod, Theogony, 190–197. but most modern scholars regard this as a spurious folk etymology. Early-modern scholars of classical mythology attempted to argue that Aphrodite's name was of Greek or Indo-European origin, but these efforts have mostly been abandoned. Aphrodite's name is generally accepted to be of non-Greek (probably Semitic) origin, but its exact derivation cannot be determined with confidence.
Scholars in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, accepting Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed the second part of Aphrodite's name as *-odítē "wanderer"Paul Kretschmer, "Zum pamphylischen Dialekt", Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiet der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 33 (1895), 267. or as *-dítē "bright".Ernst Maaß, "Aphrodite und die hl. Pelagia", Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, 27 (1911), 457–468.Vittore Pisani, "Akmon e Dieus", Archivio glottologico italiano, 24 (1930), 65–73. More recently, Michael Janda, also accepting Hesiod's etymology, has argued in favor of the latter of these interpretations and claims the story of a birth from the foam as an Indo-European mytheme. Similarly, Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak proposes an Indo-European compound "very" and "to shine", also referring to Eos, and Daniel Kölligan has interpreted Aphrodite's name as "shining up from the mist/foam". Other scholars have argued that these hypotheses are unlikely, since Aphrodite's attributes are entirely different from those of both Eos and the Vedic deity Ushas.
Modern scholars, due to the believed Near Eastern origins of Aphrodite's worship, have since proposed Semitic origins for the name. Some scholars, such as Fritz Hommel, have suggested that Aphrodite's name is a hellenized pronunciation of the name "Astarte"; other scholars, however, reject this as being linguistically untenable. Martin West reconstructs a Cyprian Canaanite form of the name as either or , and cautiously suggests the latter as being an epithet with the meaning "She of the Villages". Aren Wilson-Wright suggests the Phoenician form as an elative epithet meaning "unique, excellent, sublime".
A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have also been suggested. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu, the name of a female demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts.Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, vol. 2, p.111. HammarströmM. Hammarström, "Griechisch-etruskische Wortgleichungen", Glotta: Zeitschrift für griechische und lateinische Sprache 11 (1921), 215–216. looks to Etruscan, comparing (e)prθni "lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις. This would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady". Most scholars reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite's name actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru (from Greek , clipped form of Aphrodite). The medieval Etymologicum Magnum () offers a highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos (), "she who lives delicately", from habrós and díaita. The alteration from b to ph is explained as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the Macedonians".Etymologicum Magnum, Ἀφροδίτη
In the Cypriot syllabary, a syllabic script used on the island of Cyprus from the eleventh until the fourth centuries BC, Aphrodite's name is attested in the forms (a-po-ro-ta-o-i, read right-to-left), (a-po-ro-ti-ta-i, samewise), and finally (a-po-ro-ti-si-jo, "", "related to Aphrodite", in the context of a month). |
Aphrodite | Origins | Origins |
Aphrodite | Near Eastern love goddess | Near Eastern love goddess
The cult of Aphrodite in Greece was imported from, or at least influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia, which, in turn, was influenced by the cult of the Mesopotamian goddess known as "Ishtar" to the East Semitic peoples and as "Inanna" to the Sumerians. Pausanias states that the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians, followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon. The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera.Pausanias, Description of Greece, I. XIV.7
Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. Furthermore, she was known as Ourania (Οὐρανία), which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven. Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess; the second-century AD Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in the oldest strata of her worship and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins.
Nineteenth-century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BC, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. |
Aphrodite | Indo-European dawn goddess | Indo-European dawn goddess
Some early comparative mythologists opposed to the idea of a Near Eastern origin argued that Aphrodite originated as an aspect of the Greek dawn goddess Eos and that she was therefore ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess *Haéusōs (properly Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Sanskrit Ushas). Most modern scholars have now rejected the notion of a purely Indo-European Aphrodite, but it is possible that Aphrodite, originally a Semitic deity, may have been influenced by the Indo-European dawn goddess. Both Aphrodite and Eos were known for their erotic beauty and aggressive sexuality and both had relationships with mortal lovers. Both goddesses were associated with the colors red, white, and gold. Michael Janda etymologizes Aphrodite's name as an epithet of Eos meaning "she who rises from the foam [of the ocean]" and points to Hesiod's Theogony account of Aphrodite's birth as an archaic reflex of Indo-European myth. Aphrodite rising out of the waters after Cronus defeats Uranus as a mytheme would then be directly cognate to the Rigvedic myth of Indra defeating Vrtra, liberating Ushas. Another key similarity between Aphrodite and the Indo-European dawn goddess is her close kinship to the Greek sky deity, since both of the main claimants to her paternity (Zeus and Uranus) are sky deities. |
Aphrodite | Forms and epithets | Forms and epithets
Aphrodite's most common cultic epithet was Ourania, meaning "heavenly", but this epithet almost never occurs in literary texts, indicating a purely cultic significance. Another common name for Aphrodite was Pandemos ("For All the Folk"). In her role as Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite was associated with Peithō (), meaning "persuasion", and could be prayed to for aid in seduction. The character of Pausanias in Plato's Symposium, takes differing cult-practices associated with different epithets of the goddess to claim that Ourania and Pandemos are, in fact, separate goddesses. He asserts that Aphrodite Ourania is the celestial Aphrodite, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and the older of the two goddesses. According to the Symposium, Aphrodite Ourania is the inspiration of male homosexual desire, specifically the ephebic eros, and pederasty. Aphrodite Pandemos, by contrast, is the younger of the two goddesses: the common Aphrodite, born from the union of Zeus and Dione, and the inspiration of heterosexual desire and sexual promiscuity, the "lesser" of the two loves.Plato, Symposium, 181a-d.Richard L. Hunter, Plato's Symposium, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 44–47 Paphian (Παφία), was one of her epithets, after the Paphos in Cyprus where she had emerged from the sea at her birth.
Among the Neoplatonists and, later, their Christian interpreters, Ourania is associated with spiritual love, and Pandemos with physical love (desire). A representation of Ourania with her foot resting on a tortoise came to be seen as emblematic of discretion in conjugal love; it was the subject of a chryselephantine sculpture by Phidias for Elis, known only from a parenthetical comment by the geographer Pausanias.Pausanias, Periegesis, vi.25.1; Aphrodite Pandemos was represented in the same temple riding on a goat, symbol of purely carnal rut: "The meaning of the tortoise and of the he-goat I leave to those who care to guess", Pausanias remarks. The image was taken up again after the Renaissance.Andrea Alciato, Emblemata / Les emblemes (1584).
One of Aphrodite's most common literary epithets is Philommeidḗs (), which means "smile-loving", but is sometimes mistranslated as "laughter-loving". This epithet occurs throughout both of the Homeric epics and the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. Hesiod references it once in his Theogony in the context of Aphrodite's birth, but interprets it as "genital-loving" rather than "smile-loving". Monica Cyrino notes that the epithet may relate to the fact that, in many artistic depictions of Aphrodite, she is shown smiling. Other epithets of her include Mechanitis meaning skilled in inventing and Automata because, according to Servius, she was the source of spontaneous love.
Common literary epithets of Aphrodite are Cypris and Cythereia, which derive from her associations with the islands of Cyprus and Cythera respectively. On Cyprus, Aphrodite was sometimes called Eleemon ("the merciful"). In Athens, she was known as Aphrodite en kēpois ("Aphrodite of the Gardens"). At Cape Colias, a town along the Attic coast, she was venerated as Genetyllis "Mother". The Spartans worshipped her as Potnia "Mistress", Enoplios "Armed", Morpho "Shapely", Ambologera "She who Postpones Old Age". Across the Greek world, she was known under epithets such as Melainis in Corinth "Black or Dark One", Skotia "Dark One", Androphonos "Killer of Men", Anosia "Unholy", and Tymborychos "Gravedigger", all of which indicate her darker, more violent nature.
A male version of Aphrodite known as Aphroditus was worshipped in the city of Amathus on Cyprus. Aphroditus was depicted with the figure and dress of a woman, but had a beard, and was shown lifting his dress to reveal an erect phallus. This gesture was believed to be an apotropaic symbol, and was thought to convey good fortune upon the viewer. Eventually, the popularity of Aphroditus waned as the mainstream, fully feminine version of Aphrodite became more popular, but traces of his cult are preserved in the later legends of Hermaphroditus. |
Aphrodite | List of epithets | List of epithets
Nlisson, Vol I, pp. 521–526Cyrino, 2010, pp. 38–40Kerenyi, 1951, pp. 80–81
Androphagos, eating men.
Anosia, unholly.
Aphrogeneia, foam-sprung.Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Aphrogeneia
Areia, related to war. There was an old xoanon of the goddess at Cythera.Pausanias 3.17.5 Several depictions in Greek art show Aphrodite as the opponent of the giant Mimas.Giuliani, Luca. Schefold, Karl. Gods and Heroes in Late Archaic Greek Art. Cambridge University Press. Dec. 3, 1992. pgs. 57-59.
Cypris, Cyprus is her homeland by Homer and Hesiod.
Cytheria, of Cythera.
Eleēmon, merciful
Enoplios, armed at Sparta.
Euploia, good sailing, related to ships. She had a temple at Piraeus.Pausanias 1.1.3
Genetyllis, by Aristophanes,an epithet close to Kolias.Pausanias 1.1.5
Hera, at Sparta there was a temple of Hera-Hypercheiria and a xoanon of Aphrodite-Hera that was offered to the brides.Pausanias 3.13.8)
En kẽpois, of the gardens. The oldest of the fates was called "Άφροδίτη έν κήποις" (Aphrodite of the Gardens).
Epistrophia, of the return.
Kolias, goddess of childbirth in Attica, with a temple on the mountain "Kolias".
Limenia, of the harbour at Hermione.Pausanias 2.34.11
Melainis, dark one.
Melaina, black.
Morpho, at Sparta. She was depicted with a veil and rocks near her feet.Pausanias 3.15.11
Nymphia, of the marriage. She had a temple on the road from Troezen to Hermione.
Olympia, of Olympia.
Pandemos, of the whole demos. In Athens a great festival was celebrated on the Acropolis.
Paphia, of Paphos, with a great festival. The priests performed her mysteries.
Philomeidēs, smile loving.
Pontia, of the open sea, at Hermione.Pausanias 2.34.11
Praxis, act.
Skotia, dark one.
Ourania, heavenly that indicates her oriental descent. |
Aphrodite | Worship | Worship |
Aphrodite | Classical period | Classical period
thumb|upright=1.3|Ruins of the temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias
Aphrodite's main festival, the Aphrodisia, was celebrated across Greece, but particularly in Athens and Corinth. In Athens, the Aphrodisia was celebrated on the fourth day of the month of Hekatombaion in honor of Aphrodite's role in the unification of Attica. During this festival, the priests of Aphrodite would purify the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos on the southwestern slope of the Acropolis with the blood of a sacrificed dove. Next, the altars would be anointed and the cult statues of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho would be escorted in a majestic procession to a place where they would be ritually bathed. Aphrodite was also honored in Athens as part of the Arrhephoria festival. The fourth day of every month was sacred to Aphrodite.
Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike". This epithet stresses Aphrodite's connections to Ares, with whom she had extramarital relations. Pausanias also records that, in Sparta and on Cythera, a number of extremely ancient cult statues of Aphrodite portrayed her bearing arms. Other cult statues showed her bound in chains.
Aphrodite was the patron goddess of prostitutes of all varieties, ranging from pornai (cheap street prostitutes typically owned as slaves by wealthy pimps) to hetairai (expensive, well-educated hired companions, who were usually self-employed and sometimes provided sex to their customers). The city of Corinth was renowned throughout the ancient world for its many hetairai, who had a widespread reputation for being among the most skilled, but also the most expensive, prostitutes in the Greek world. Corinth also had a major temple to Aphrodite located on the Acrocorinth and was one of the main centers of her cult. Records of numerous dedications to Aphrodite made by successful courtesans have survived in poems and in pottery inscriptions. References to Aphrodite in association with prostitution are found in Corinth as well as on the islands of Cyprus, Cythera, and Sicily. Aphrodite's Mesopotamian precursor Inanna-Ishtar was also closely associated with prostitution.
Scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries believed that the cult of Aphrodite may have involved ritual prostitution, an assumption based on ambiguous passages in certain ancient texts, particularly a fragment of a skolion by the Boeotian poet Pindar, which mentions prostitutes in Corinth in association with Aphrodite. Modern scholars now dismiss the notion of ritual prostitution in Greece as a "historiographic myth" with no factual basis. |
Aphrodite | Hellenistic and Roman periods | Hellenistic and Roman periods
thumb|Greek relief from Aphrodisias, depicting a Roman-influenced Aphrodite sitting on a throne holding an infant while the shepherd Anchises stands beside her.
During the Hellenistic period, the Greeks identified Aphrodite with the ancient Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis.Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. Aphrodite was the patron goddess of the Lagid queens and Queen Arsinoe II was identified as her mortal incarnation. Aphrodite was worshipped in Alexandria and had numerous temples in and around the city. Arsinoe II introduced the cult of Adonis to Alexandria and many of the women there partook in it. The Tessarakonteres, a gigantic catamaran galley designed by Archimedes for Ptolemy IV Philopator, had a circular temple to Aphrodite on it with a marble statue of the goddess herself. In the second century BC, Ptolemy VIII Physcon and his wives Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III dedicated a temple to Aphrodite Hathor at Philae. Statuettes of Aphrodite for personal devotion became common in Egypt starting in the early Ptolemaic times and extending until long after Egypt became a Roman province.
The ancient Romans identified Aphrodite with their goddess Venus, who was originally a goddess of agricultural fertility, vegetation, and springtime. According to the Roman historian Livy, Aphrodite and Venus were officially identified in the third century BC when the cult of Venus Erycina was introduced to Rome from the Greek sanctuary of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in Sicily. After this point, Romans adopted Aphrodite's iconography and myths and applied them to Venus. Because Aphrodite was the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas in Greek mythology and the Roman tradition claimed Aeneas as the founder of Rome, Venus became venerated as Venus Genetrix, the mother of the entire Roman nation. Julius Caesar claimed to be directly descended from Aeneas's son Iulus and became a strong proponent of the cult of Venus. This precedent was later followed by his nephew Augustus and the later emperors claiming succession from him.
This syncretism greatly impacted Greek worship of Aphrodite. During the Roman era, the cults of Aphrodite in many Greek cities began to emphasize her relationship with Troy and Aeneas. They also began to adopt distinctively Roman elements, portraying Aphrodite as more maternal, more militaristic, and more concerned with administrative bureaucracy. She was claimed as a divine guardian by many political magistrates. Appearances of Aphrodite in Greek literature also vastly proliferated, usually showing Aphrodite in a characteristically Roman manner. |
Aphrodite | Mythology | Mythology |
Aphrodite | Birth | Birth
thumb|left|upright=1.35|The Birth of Venus () by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence
thumb|Early fourth-century BC Attic pottery vessel in the shape of Aphrodite inside a shell from the Phanagoria cemetery in the Taman Peninsula
thumb|Petra tou Romiou ("The rock of the Greek"), Aphrodite's legendary birthplace in Paphos, Cyprus
Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, which is why she is sometimes called "Cyprian", especially in the poetic works of Sappho. The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia, marking her birthplace, was a place of pilgrimage in the ancient world for centuries. Other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera, hence another of her names, "Cytherea".Homer, Odyssey, viii, 288; Herodotus i. 105; Pausanias iii, 23, § 1; Anacreon v. 9; Horace, Carmina, i, 4, 5. Cythera was a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus, so these stories may preserve traces of the migration of Aphrodite's cult from the Middle East to mainland Greece.
According to the version of her birth recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony,Hesiod, Theogony 191–192. Cronus severed Uranus' genitals and threw them behind him into the sea. The foam from his genitals gave rise to Aphrodite (hence her name, which Hesiod interprets as "foam-arisen"), while the Giants, the Erinyes (furies), and the Meliae emerged from the drops of his blood. Hesiod states that the genitals "were carried over the sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew". After Aphrodite was born from the sea-foam, she washed up to shore in the presence of the other gods. Hesiod's account of Aphrodite's birth following Uranus's castration is probably derived from The Song of Kumarbi, an ancient Hittite epic poem in which the god Kumarbi overthrows his father Anu, the god of the sky, and bites off his genitals, causing him to become pregnant and give birth to Anu's children, which include Ishtar and her brother Teshub, the Hittite storm god.
In the Iliad,Homer, Iliad 5.370 and xx, 105 Aphrodite is described as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Dione's name appears to be a feminine cognate to Dios and Dion, which are oblique forms of the name Zeus. Zeus and Dione shared a cult at Dodona in northwestern Greece. In the Theogony, Hesiod describes Dione as an Oceanid, but Apollodorus makes her the thirteenth Titan, child of Gaia and Uranus.Apollodorus, 1.1.3 |
Aphrodite | Marriage | Marriage
thumb|left|First-century AD Roman fresco of Mars and Venus from Pompeii
Aphrodite is consistently portrayed as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult, having had no childhood. She is often depicted nude. In the Iliad, Aphrodite is the apparently unmarried consort of Ares, the god of war, and the wife of Hephaestus is a different goddess named Charis. Likewise, in Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is unmarried and the wife of Hephaestus is Aglaea, the youngest of the three Charites.
In Book Eight of the Odyssey, however, the blind singer Demodocus describes Aphrodite as the wife of Hephaestus and tells how she committed adultery with Ares during the Trojan War. The sun-god Helios saw Aphrodite and Ares having sex in Hephaestus's bed and warned Hephaestus, who fashioned a fine, near invisible net. The next time Ares and Aphrodite had sex together, the net trapped them both. Hephaestus brought all the gods into the bedchamber to laugh at the captured adulterers, but Apollo, Hermes, and Poseidon had sympathy for Ares and Poseidon agreed to pay Hephaestus for Ares's release. Aphrodite returned to her temple in Cyprus, where she was attended by the Charites. This narrative probably originated as a Greek folk tale, originally independent of the Odyssey. In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon by the door to warn of Helios's arrival but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus; Ares in rage turned Alectryon into a rooster, which unfailingly crows to announce the sunrise.Lucian, Gallus 3, see also scholiast on Aristophanes, Birds, 835; Eustathius, Ad Odysseam, 1.300; Ausonius, 26.2.27; Libanius, Progymnasmata 2.26
After exposing them, Hephaestus asks Zeus for his wedding gifts and dowry to be returned to him;Homer, Odyssey 8.267 ff by the time of the Trojan War, he is married to Charis/Aglaea, one of the Graces, apparently divorced from Aphrodite.Homer, Iliad 18.382 Afterwards, it was generally Ares who was regarded as the husband or official consort of the goddess; on the François Vase, the two arrive at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on the same chariot, as do Zeus with Hera and Poseidon with Amphitrite. The poets Pindar and Aeschylus refer to Ares as Aphrodite's husband.Hard, p. 202
Later stories were invented to explain Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus. In the most famous story, Zeus hastily married Aphrodite to Hephaestus in order to prevent the other gods from fighting over her. In another version of the myth, Hephaestus gave his mother Hera a golden throne, but when she sat on it, she became trapped and he refused to let her go until she agreed to give him Aphrodite's hand in marriage. Hephaestus was overjoyed to be married to the goddess of beauty, and forged her beautiful jewelry, including a strophion () known as the (), a saltire-shaped undergarment (usually translated as the girdle of Aphrodite), which accentuated her breasts and made her even more irresistible to men. Such strophia were commonly used in depictions of the Near Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Atargatis. |
Aphrodite | Attendants | Attendants
thumb|Satala Aphrodite, discovered in Satala, Armenia Minor (present-day Gümüşhane Province, Turkey) in 1873, British Museum
Aphrodite is almost always accompanied by Eros, the god of lust and sexual desire. In his Theogony, Hesiod describes Eros as one of the four original primeval forces born at the beginning of time, but, after the birth of Aphrodite from the sea foam, he is joined by Himeros and, together, they become Aphrodite's constant companions. In early Greek art, Eros and Himeros are both shown as idealized handsome youths with wings. The Greek lyric poets regarded the power of Eros and Himeros as dangerous, compulsive, and impossible for anyone to resist. In modern times, Eros is often seen as Aphrodite's son, but this is actually a comparatively late innovation. A scholion on Theocritus's Idylls remarks that the sixth-century BC poet Sappho had described Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Uranus, but the first surviving reference to Eros as Aphrodite's son comes from Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, written in the third century BC, which makes him the son of Aphrodite and Ares. Later, the Romans, who saw Venus as a mother goddess, seized on this idea of Eros as Aphrodite's son and popularized it, making it the predominant portrayal in works on mythology until the present day.
Aphrodite's main attendants were the three Charites, whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome and names as Aglaea ("Splendor"), Euphrosyne ("Good Cheer"), and Thalia ("Abundance"). The Charites had been worshipped as goddesses in Greece since the beginning of Greek history, long before Aphrodite was introduced to the pantheon. Aphrodite's other set of attendants was the three Horae (the "Hours"), whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Themis and names as Eunomia ("Good Order"), Dike ("Justice"), and Eirene ("Peace"). Aphrodite was also sometimes accompanied by Harmonia, her daughter by Ares, and Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera.
The fertility god Priapus was usually considered to be Aphrodite's son by Dionysus, but he was sometimes also described as her son by Hermes, Adonis, or even Zeus. A scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica states that, while Aphrodite was pregnant with Priapus, Hera envied her and applied an evil potion to her belly while she was sleeping to ensure that the child would be hideous. In another version, Hera cursed Aphrodite's unborn son because he had been fathered by Zeus."Priapus", Suda On Line, Tr. Ross Scaife, 10 August 2014, Entry When Aphrodite gave birth, she was horrified to see that the child had a massive, permanently erect penis, a potbelly, and a huge tongue. Aphrodite abandoned the infant to die in the wilderness, but a herdsman found him and raised him, later discovering that Priapus could use his massive penis to aid in the growth of plants. |
Aphrodite | Anchises | Anchises
thumb|upright=1.5|Venus and Anchises (1889 or 1890) by William Blake Richmond
The First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Hymn 5), which was probably composed sometime in the mid-seventh century BC, describes how Zeus once became annoyed with Aphrodite for causing deities to fall in love with mortals, so he caused her to fall in love with Anchises, a handsome mortal shepherd who lived in the foothills beneath Mount Ida near the city of Troy. Aphrodite appears to Anchises in the form of a tall, beautiful, mortal virgin while he is alone in his home. Anchises sees her dressed in bright clothing and gleaming jewelry, with her breasts shining with divine radiance. He asks her if she is Aphrodite and promises to build her an altar on top of the mountain if she will bless him and his family.
Aphrodite lies and tells him that she is not a goddess, but the daughter of one of the noble families of Phrygia. She claims to be able to understand the Trojan language because she had a Trojan nurse as a child and says that she found herself on the mountainside after she was snatched up by Hermes while dancing in a celebration in honor of Artemis, the goddess of virginity. Aphrodite tells Anchises that she is still a virgin and begs him to take her to his parents. Anchises immediately becomes overcome with mad lust for Aphrodite and swears that he will have sex with her. Anchises takes Aphrodite, with her eyes cast downwards, to his bed, which is covered in the furs of lions and bears. He then strips her naked and makes love to her.
After the lovemaking is complete, Aphrodite reveals her true divine form. Anchises is terrified, but Aphrodite consoles him and promises that she will bear him a son. She prophesies that their son will be the demigod Aeneas, who will be raised by the nymphs of the wilderness for five years before going to Troy to become a nobleman like his father. The story of Aeneas's conception is also mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony and in Book II of Homer's Iliad.Hesiod, Theogony 1008–10; Homer, Iliad 2.819–21. |
Aphrodite | Adonis | Adonis
The myth of Aphrodite and Adonis is probably derived from the ancient Sumerian legend of Inanna and Dumuzid. The Greek name (Adōnis, ) is derived from the Canaanite word ʼadōn, meaning "lord". The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the Lesbian poet Sappho ( – ), in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis's death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. Later references flesh out the story with more details. According to the retelling of the story found in the poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD), Adonis was the son of Myrrha, who was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus, after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the goddess. Driven out after becoming pregnant, Myrrha was changed into a myrrh tree, but still gave birth to Adonis.
Aphrodite found the baby and took him to the underworld to be fostered by Persephone. She returned for him once he was grown and discovered him to be strikingly handsome. Persephone wanted to keep Adonis, resulting in a custody battle between the two goddesses over whom should rightly possess Adonis. Zeus settled the dispute by decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend that time with Aphrodite. Then, one day, while Adonis was hunting, he was wounded by a wild boar and bled to death in Aphrodite's arms. In a semi-mocking work, the Dialogues of the Gods, the satirical author Lucian comedically relates how a frustrated Aphrodite complains to the moon goddess Selene about her son Eros making Persephone fall in love with Adonis and now she has to share him with her.Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods, Aphrodite and the Moon
In different versions of the story, the boar was either sent by Ares, who was jealous that Aphrodite was spending so much time with Adonis, or by Artemis, who wanted revenge against Aphrodite for having killed her devoted follower Hippolytus. In another version, Apollo in fury changed himself into a boar and killed Adonis because Aphrodite had blinded his son Erymanthus when he stumbled upon Aphrodite naked as she was bathing after intercourse with Adonis.: Some translations erroneously add Apollo as one of the men Aphrodite had sex with before Erymanthus saw her. The story also provides an etiology for Aphrodite's associations with certain flowers. Reportedly, as she mourned Adonis's death, she caused anemones to grow wherever his blood fell and declared a festival on the anniversary of his death. In one version of the story, Aphrodite injured herself on a thorn from a rose bush and the rose, which had previously been white, was stained red by her blood. According to Lucian's On the Syrian Goddess, each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River in Lebanon (now known as the Abraham River) ran red with blood.
The myth of Adonis is associated with the festival of the Adonia, which was celebrated by Greek women every year in midsummer. The festival, which was evidently already celebrated in Lesbos by Sappho's time, seems to have first become popular in Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. At the start of the festival, the women would plant a "garden of Adonis", a small garden planted inside a small basket or a shallow piece of broken pottery containing a variety of quick-growing plants, such as lettuce and fennel, or even quick-sprouting grains such as wheat and barley. The women would then climb ladders to the roofs of their houses, where they would place the gardens out under the heat of the summer sun. The plants would sprout in the sunlight but wither quickly in the heat. Then the women would mourn and lament loudly over the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. |
Aphrodite | Divine favoritism | Divine favoritism
thumb|Pygmalion and Galatea (1717) by Jean Raoux, showing Aphrodite bringing the statue to life
In Hesiod's Works and Days, Zeus orders Aphrodite to make Pandora, the first woman, physically beautiful and sexually attractive. so "men will love to embrace" her. Aphrodite "spills grace" over Pandora's head and equips her with "painful desire and knee-weakening anguish". Aphrodite's attendants, Peitho, the Charites, and the Horae, adorn Pandora with finery and jewelry.
After the deaths of their parents, the orphaned Cleothera along with Merope were raised by Aphrodite.Homer, Odyssey 20.66-78 The other Olympian goddesses also blessed the girls with gifts and blessings; Hera gave them beauty, Artemis high stature, and Athena taught them women's crafts.Pausanias 10.30.1 When Cleothera and Merope were of age, Aphrodite consulted with Zeus to secure happy marriages for them.Codex Palatino-Vaticanus, scholia on Homer's Odyssey 19.517
According to one myth, Aphrodite aided Hippomenes, a noble youth who wished to marry Atalanta, a maiden who was renowned throughout the land for her beauty, but who refused to marry any man unless he could outrun her in a footrace. Atalanta was an exceedingly swift runner and she beheaded all of the men who lost to her. Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides and instructed him to toss them in front of Atalanta as he raced her. Hippomenes obeyed Aphrodite's order and Atalanta, seeing the beautiful, golden fruits, bent down to pick up each one, allowing Hippomenes to outrun her. In the version of the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Hippomenes forgets to repay Aphrodite for her aid, so she causes the couple to become inflamed with lust while they are staying at the temple of Cybele. The couple desecrate the temple by having sex in it, leading Cybele to turn them into lions as punishment.
The myth of Pygmalion is first mentioned by the third-century BC Greek writer Philostephanus of Cyrene,Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 4 but is first recounted in detail in Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Ovid, Pygmalion was an exceedingly handsome sculptor from the island of Cyprus, who was so sickened by the immorality of women that he refused to marry. He fell madly and passionately in love with the ivory cult statue he was carving of Aphrodite and longed to marry it. Because Pygmalion was extremely pious and devoted to Aphrodite, the goddess brought the statue to life. Pygmalion married the girl the statue became and they had a son named Paphos, after whom the capital of Cyprus received its name. Pseudo-Apollodorus later mentions "Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus".Apollodorus, 3.14.3. |
Aphrodite | Anger myths | Anger myths
thumb|First-century AD Roman fresco from Pompeii showing the virgin Hippolytus spurning the advances of his stepmother Phaedra, whom Aphrodite caused to fall in love with him in order to bring about his tragic death.
thumb|left|Aphrodite of Rhodes, , Rhodes Archaeological Museum.
thumb|Marble statue of Aphrodite Rhithymnia, mid-2nd century AD, Archaeological Museum of Rethymno, Crete.
thumb|left|upright=1.2|Terracotta figurine of Aphrodite, 2nd century BC, Archaeological Museum of Pella.
Aphrodite generously rewarded those who honored her, but also punished those who disrespected her, often quite brutally. A myth described in Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica and later summarized in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus tells how, when the women of the island of Lemnos refused to sacrifice to Aphrodite, the goddess cursed them to stink horribly so that their husbands would never have sex with them. Instead, their husbands started having sex with their Thracian slave-girls. In anger, the women of Lemnos murdered the entire male population of the island, as well as all the Thracian slaves. When Jason and his crew of Argonauts arrived on Lemnos, they mated with the sex-starved women under Aphrodite's approval and repopulated the island. From then on, the women of Lemnos never disrespected Aphrodite again.
In Euripides's tragedy Hippolytus, which was first performed at the City Dionysia in 428 BC, Theseus's son Hippolytus worships only Artemis, the goddess of virginity, and refuses to engage in any form of sexual contact. Aphrodite is infuriated by his prideful behavior and, in the prologue to the play, she declares that, by honoring only Artemis and refusing to venerate her, Hippolytus has directly challenged her authority. Aphrodite therefore causes Hippolytus's stepmother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus will reject her. After being rejected, Phaedra commits suicide and leaves a suicide note to Theseus telling him that she killed herself because Hippolytus attempted to rape her. Theseus prays to Poseidon to kill Hippolytus for his transgression. Poseidon sends a wild bull to scare Hippolytus's horses as he is riding by the sea in his chariot, causing the horses to bolt and smash the chariot against the cliffs, dragging Hippolytus to a bloody death across the rocky shoreline. The play concludes with Artemis vowing to kill Aphrodite's own mortal beloved (presumably Adonis) in revenge.
Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite by refusing to let his horses for chariot racing mate, since doing so would hinder their speed.Vergil, Georgics 3.266–88, with Servius's note to line 268; Hand, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, pp. 432, 663. During the chariot race at the funeral games of King Pelias, Aphrodite drove his horses mad and they tore him apart.Hyginus, Fabulae 250.3, 273.11; Pausanias, Guide to Greece 6.20.19
Polyphonte was a young woman who chose a virginal life with Artemis instead of marriage and children, as favoured by Aphrodite. Aphrodite cursed her, causing her to have children by a bear. The resulting bear-like offspring Agrius and Oreius were wild cannibals who incurred the hatred of Zeus for attacking traveling strangers. Ultimately, Ares (who was Polyphonte's grandfather) and Hermes (who was originally dispatched by Zeus to kill them) transformed all Polyphonte, Agrius, and Oreius into birds of ill omen while the servant who begged for mercy was transformed into a woodpecker.Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 21
According to Apollodorus, a jealous Aphrodite cursed Eos, the goddess of dawn, to be perpetually in love and have insatiable sexual desire because Eos once had lain with Aphrodite's sweetheart Ares.Apollodorus, 1.4.4.
According to Ovid in his Metamorphoses (book 10.238 ff.), Propoetides who are the daughters of Propoetus from the city of Amathus on the island of Cyprus denied Aphrodite's divinity and failed to worship her properly. Therefore, Aphrodite turned them into the world's first prostitutes. According to Diodorus Siculus, when the Rhodian sea nymphe Halia's six sons by Poseidon arrogantly refused to let Aphrodite land upon their shore, the goddess cursed them with insanity. In their madness, they raped Halia. As punishment, Poseidon buried them in the island's sea-caverns.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 5.55.4–7
Xanthius, a descendant of Bellerophon, had two children: Leucippus and an unnamed daughter. Through the wrath of Aphrodite (reasons unknown), Leucippus fell in love with his own sister. They started a secret relationship but the girl was already betrothed to another man and he went on to inform her father Xanthius, without telling him the name of the seducer. Xanthius went straight to his daughter's chamber where she was together with Leucippus right at the moment. On hearing him enter, she tried to escape, but Xanthius hit her with a dagger, thinking that he was slaying the seducer, and killed her. Leucippus, failing to recognise his father at first, slew him. When the truth was revealed, he had to leave the country and took part in colonisation of Crete and the lands in Asia Minor.Parthenius, Erotica Pathemata 5
Queen Cenchreis of Cyprus, wife of King Cinyras, bragged that her daughter Myrrha was more beautiful than Aphrodite. Therefore, Myrrha was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus and he slept with her unknowingly in the dark. She eventually transformed into the myrrh tree and gave birth to Adonis in this form.Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.298–518 In another version of the same story, King of Assyria Theias was the father of Myrrha and Adonis, and again Aphrodite urged Myrrha, or Smyrna, to commit incest with her father, Theias. Myrrha's nurse helped with the scheme. When Theias discovered this, he flew into a rage, chasing his daughter with a knife. The gods turned her into a myrrh tree and Adonis eventually sprung from this tree. It was also said that Myrrha fled from her father, and Aphrodite transformed her into a tree. Adonis was then born when Theias shot an arrow into the tree or when a boar used its tusks to tear the tree's bark off.Apollodorus, 3.14.4; Antoninus Liberalis, 34 Cinyras also had three other daughters: Braesia, Laogora, and Orsedice. These girls by the wrath of Aphrodite (reasons unknown) cohabited with foreigners and ended their life in Egypt.Pseudo-Apollodorus, 3.14.3; 3.9.1 for Laodice.
The Muse Clio derided the goddess' own love for Adonis. Therefore, Clio fell in love with Pierus, son of Magnes and bore Hyacinth.Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.3.3
Aegiale was a daughter of Adrastus and Amphithea and was married to Diomedes. Because of anger of Aphrodite, whom Diomedes had wounded in the war against Troy, she had multiple lovers, including a certain Hippolytus.Scholia on Iliad 5.411 when Aegiale went so far as to threaten his life, he fled to Italy.Tzetzes on Lycophron 610.Ovid, Metamorphoses, 14.476 According to Stesichorus and Hesiod while Tyndareus sacrificing to the gods he forgot Aphrodite, therefore the goddess made his daughters twice and thrice wed and deserters of their husbands. Timandra deserted Echemus and went and came to Phyleus and Clytaemnestra deserted Agamemnon and lay with Aegisthus who was a worse mate for her and eventually killed her husband with her lover and finally, Helen of Troy deserted Menelaus under the influence of Aphrodite for Paris and her unfaitfulness eventually causes the War of Troy. As a result of her actions, Aphrodite caused the War of Troy in order to take Priam's kingdom and pass it down to her descendants.Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, s.v. "Aineias"
In one of the versions of the legend, Pasiphae did not make offerings to the goddess Venus [Aphrodite]. Because of this, Venus [Aphrodite] inspired in her an unnatural love for a bull resulting in the birth of the MinotaurHyginus, Fabulae 40 or she cursed her because she was Helios's daughter who revealed her adultery to Hephaestus.Seneca, Phaedra 124Scholia on Euripides' Hippolytus 47. For Helios' own tale-telling, she cursed him with uncontrollable lust over the mortal princess Leucothoe, which led to him abandoning his then-lover Clytie, leaving her heartbroken.Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.192–270; Hard, p. 45
Lysippe was the mother of Tanais by Berossos. Her son only venerated Ares and was fully devoted to war, neglecting love and marriage. Aphrodite cursed him with falling in love with his own mother. Preferring to die rather than give up his chastity, he threw himself into the river Amazonius, which was subsequently renamed Tanais.Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers, 14
According to Hyginus, Orpheus's mother Calliope of the Muses at the behest of Zeus, judged the dispute between the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone over Adonis and decided that both shall possess him half of the year. This enraged Venus [Aphrodite], because she had not been granted what she thought was her right. Therefore, Venus [Aphrodite] inspired love for Orpheus in the women of Thrace, causing them to tear him apart as each of them sought Orpheus for herself.Hyginus, Astronomica 2.7.4
Aphrodite personally witnessed the young huntress Rhodopis swear eternal devotion and chastity to Artemis when she joined her group. Aphrodite then summoned her son Eros, and convinced him that such lifestyle was an insult to them both. So under her command, Eros made Rhodopis and Euthynicus, another young hunter who had shunned love and romance just like her, to fall in love with each other. Despite their chaste life, Rhodopis and Euthynicus withdrew to some cavern where they violated their vows. Artemis was not slow to take notice after seeing Aphrodite laugh, so she changed Rhodopis into a fountain as a punishment instead. |
Aphrodite | Judgment of Paris and Trojan War | Judgment of Paris and Trojan War
thumb|upright=1.2|Ancient Greek mosaic from Antioch dating to the second century AD, depicting the Judgement of Paris
The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad, but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle, which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles). Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. She was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.
The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince. After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision. In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed. Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked.All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe, and Athena offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, but Aphrodite promised Paris that, if he were to choose her as the fairest, she would let him marry the most beautiful woman on earth. This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.
Aphrodite plays an important and active role throughout the entirety of Homer's Iliad. In Book III, she rescues Paris from Menelaus after he foolishly challenges him to a one-on-one duel. She then appears to Helen in the form of an old woman and attempts to persuade her to have sex with Paris, reminding her of his physical beauty and athletic prowess. Helen immediately recognizes Aphrodite by her beautiful neck, perfect breasts, and flashing eyes and sharply chides the goddess. Aphrodite rebukes Helen, reminding her that, if she vexes her, she will punish her just as much as she has favored her already. Helen demurely follows Aphrodite's command.
In Book V, Aphrodite charges into battle to rescue her son Aeneas from the Greek hero Diomedes. Diomedes recognizes Aphrodite as a "weakling" goddess and, thrusting his spear under Athena's guidence, nicks her wrist through her "ambrosial robe". Aphrodite borrows Ares's chariot to ride back to Mount Olympus, where she meets Dione. Aphrodite complains to her mother about Diomedes' handiwork, and Dione consoles her daughter with examples of gods wounded by mortals and notes that Diomedes is risking his life by fighting against the gods. In fact, Diomedes subsequently fought both Apollo and Ares but lived to an old age, his wife Aegialia, however, took other lovers with the help of the vengeful Aphrodite and never permitted him to return home to Argos after the war. Dione then heals Aphrodite's wounds while Zeus chides her for putting herself in danger, reminding her that "her specialty is love, not war." According to Walter Burkert, this scene directly parallels a scene from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh in which Ishtar, Aphrodite's Akkadian precursor, cries to her mother Antu after the hero Gilgamesh rejects her sexual advances, but she is mildly rebuked by her father Anu. In Book XIV of the Iliad, during the Dios Apate episode, Aphrodite lends her kestos himas to Hera for the purpose of seducing Zeus and distracting him from the battlefield, so the gods could interfere without the fear of Zeus. In the Theomachia in Book XXI, Aphrodite again enters the battlefield to carry Ares away after he is wounded by Athena.Homer, Iliad 21.416–17. |