POLYTHEISM is not a stable religion. It changes with the growth of civilization, and we do not know a time in which it was not constantly in a state of transition.
The myths which connect Aphrodite in one place with Adonis, in others with Mars, Hephæstos, Anchises and other gods or mortals, were originally several different developments of the same fundamental idea, the love story of the goddess of love. This is quite natural and ought to be expected, but when in the days of a more international communication these myths were told in different shapes in all localities, they in their combination served greatly to undermine the respect for the goddess and to degrade the conception of her even as early as in the time when the Homeric epics were composed. Nevertheless, since the sarcasm remained limited for a long time to the circle of heretics and scoffers, the noble conception of Aphrodite was preserved down to the latest days of paganism.
In other words Venus was originally the mother{69} of mankind. She was at once the Queen of Heaven or Juno, the Magna Mater or Venus Genetrix, the educator and teacher or Pallas Athene, the eternal virgin or Diana, and the all-nourishing earth-goddess, Demeter or Ceres; and this view had better be stated inversely, that the original mother of mankind became differentiated in the course of history into these several activities of womanhood, as Juno, Venus, Diana, Ceres and Athene, which divinities were again reunited in Christianity in the form of Mary, the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, the Lady as an authority and guide in life, and the Eternal Virgin.
Aphrodite was worshiped in a prehistoric age, and the origin of her cult is plainly traceable to the Orient, especially to Phenicia and further back to Pamphylia, Syria, Canaan and Babylon. The Phenician Astarte was imported to the islands of the Ægean Sea, to Cythera, Paphos and Amathus. Hence even in the Hellenistic age she was still honored with the names Cytherea, Paphia and Amathusia.(the cult of aphrodita/ paul carus /The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood)
