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Aphrodite Urania (, as Venus Urania) was an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, signifying a "heavenly" or "spiritual" aspect descended from the sky-god Uranus to distinguish her from the more earthly epithet of Aphrodite Pandemos, "Aphrodite for all the people". The two were used (mostly in literature) to differentiate the more "celestial" love of body and soul from purely physical lust. Plato represented her as a daughter of the Greek god Uranus, conceived and born without a mother. Hesiod described this aspect as being born from the severed genitals of Uranus and emerging from the sea foam.
The most distinctively title of the Greek Aphrodite is Urania, the Semitic "queen of the heavens". It has been explained by reference to the moon character of the goddess, but more probably signifies "she whose seat is in heaven", whence she exercises her sway over the whole world—earth, sea, and air alike.
The same distinction is found in Xenophon although the author is doubtful whether there are two goddesses, or whether Urania and Pandemos are two names for the same goddess, just as Zeus, although one and the same, has many titles; but in any case, he says, the ritual of Urania is "purer, more serious", than that of Pandemos. The same idea is expressed in the statementquoted by Athenaeus, 569d, from Nicander of Colophon that after Solon's time hetaira were put under the protection of Aphrodite Pandemos. But there is no doubt that the cult of Aphrodite was on the whole as "pure" as that of any other divinities, and although a distinction may have existed in later times between the goddess of marriage and the goddess of free love, the titles Urania and Pandemos do not express that idea.
Homosexual artists and activists in the Early Modern and Victorian era eras would further emphasize the distinction between attractions towards men versus women, leading to the adoption of "Uranian" as a term for male homosexuality. The term would be used by many homosexual figures such as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs or Oscar Wilde to describe what they saw as the nobility and legitimacy of "uranian love".
Wine was not used in the libations offered to her.
Aphrodite Urania was represented in Greek art on a swan, a tortoise or a globe.
Anadyomene
Hesiod's description of Urania's birth from the sea foam was artistically depicted through a widespread motif of Venus Anadyomene ("Venus Rising from the Sea"),Pliny the Elder, Natural History, xxxv.86–87. an epithet notably revived during the Renaissance with works such as Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.
Worship and iconography
Her cult was first established in Kythira, probably in connection with the , and at Athens it is associated with the legendary Porphyrion, the purple king. At Thebes, Harmonia (who has been identified as Aphrodite herself) dedicated three statues: of Aphrodite Urania, Pandemos, and Apotrophia.
See also
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