Love and beauty reign supreme in empowering, high-interest narrative text telling the story of Greek mythology's Aphrodite. Core legends show Aphrodite's matchmaking as well as her own lovers among gods and mortals. Fascinating myths also uncover Aphrodite's past, detailing her creation and how she fits into the family of deities. Further explore Aphrodite's role in Greek culture through her signature powers, symbols, and attire. Additional facts and historical information connect the goddess's influence through popular culture today.

Introduces the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, who had no mother or father, but arose from the sea.

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian. Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus -- and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an avatar of commercialized romance, historian Bettany Hughes reveals the remarkable lifestory of one of antiquity's most potent myths. Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art, mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire. From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today -- and how we trivialize her power at our peril.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Oct. 26, 2011-Feb. 20, 2012, J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, Malibu, Mar. 28-July 9, 212, and San Antonio Museum of Art, Sept. 15, 2012-Feb. 17, 2013.

Hephaestus is less than pleased when his father Zeus comes to him with a request: Marry Aphrodite. But what the King of the Gods commands of him, Hephaestus will do, even if it's being tied to Aphrodite for eternity. Now he is stuck with a beautiful, sexual goddess who is in love with his brother Ares. When Aphrodite is order by the King of the Olympians that she will marry the grouchy, crippled Hephaestus and remain faithful to her marriage vows or inhabit a cell in Tartarus, she has little choice except to follow Zeus' demands. But her objections to the marriage are not the reasons everyone believes them to be.