Aphrodite & Dittany...
Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty and fertility. Born from the sea foam her name means "gift of the sea foam". She was one of the Olympian goddesses of whom Zeus ruled over and played a major role in the Trojan War.
Aphrodite Goddess of Love, Beauty & Fertility
The story of how the Trojan War started begins with Zeus, who was planning a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis. Everyone was to be invited apart from Eris, the goddess of strife and discord.
Eris was understandably unhappy at being snubbed and decided to cause some trouble at the wedding reception. She created a golden apple and wrote upon it the word Kallisti meaning "To the fairest one" and rolled it into the banquet.
Three beautiful Greek goddesses were attendees at the wedding reception and all claimed the golden apple was meant for them. They were Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.
They squabbled over the ownership of the apple and the title of 'the fairest' until Zeus commanded a mere human named Paris to decide which of the goddesses was the most beautiful.
All three goddesses were very beautiful and so it was never going to be an easy decision for the simple shepherd boy Paris. Each goddess offered a bribe to Paris if he chose her. Hera offered great wealth, Athena offered heroic victories and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world – Helen of Troy.
Paris chose Aphrodite and gave her the apple and title of most beautiful. True to her word, Aphrodite gave Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta to Paris. This and the wrath of the rejected goddesses Hera and Athena led to the Trojan War.
In another twist to the Trojan War story Aphrodite's son Aeneas, fathered by a mere mortal Anchises, was a major hero of the war. In his epic of the Trojan War, Homer relates the tale of how Aphrodite protected him during the war and intervened in battle to save Aeneas.
The classical Roman poet Virgil in his epic poem the Aeneid also recounts how when Aeneas suffered a deadly wound in battle and all attempts to heal him failed, his goddess mother, Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) appeared carrying a branch of dittany with downy leaves and purple flowers, which she had plucked on Crete's Mount Ida. After steeping the flower in river water, she gave the water to the aged Lapyx, who washed the wound with it. After the herbal remedy was applied, the tip of the arrow was easily and bloodlessly removed. Suffering no further pain and with his strength renewed Aeneas was ready and able to return to battle.
A branch of healing dittany she brought,
Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought:
Rough is the stem, which woolly leafs surround;
The leafs with flow'rs, the flow'rs with purple crown'd,
(Aeneid 12.411-431)
Pompeian fresco depicting a
scene from Virgil's Aeneid.
Various commentators and writers have linked Aphrodite to Dittany of Crete because of its presumed aphrodisiac qualities and its connection to love. Dittany is known as Eronda which means love and it is understandable where this connection is derived from.