"Aphrodite-Venus, the heavenly, Paphian queen, is far more than just a gorgeous goddes of love; she is an incarnation of, and a guide through, the messy, troubling, quixotic, quickening business of mortal life."

i stumbled upon this book knowing the bare minimum about Aphrodite: the fact that she is the goddess of beauty and love, born out of a phallus thrown into the sea and ready to fight for her claim to absolute beauty ( Homer's Illiad).
and boiiii was i wrong.

this book has opened my eyes completely regarding this mistress of desire, that has become sexualised in such a way that people seem to forget that love is not always about sex. she is simply the goddess of human condition, of desires, wishes and ambition; the meddler goddess that cannot simply stay put and that slithers into every situation.

i loved the way she has been presented multiculturally, the way the image of her has changed through time, literature and art.

I'm a huge fan of Bettany Hughes, but this book just didn't satisfy me. It's very short, with this fascinating topic I anticipated a more substantial book. If you have read Bettany's "Helen of Troy" you will a bit disappointed.

How they are as individuals and together (like one goddess). Pre-Christian into the 1900s. A look at how they were viewed and worshipped through the ages.

Aphrodite and Venus is both a history, and a love letter to the goddess Aphrodite.

It tells the tale of the Goddess Aphrodite (Venus) painted primarily through the gaze of her impact on the very humans who worshiped, admired or were otherwise infatuated with her.

This book definitely had many compelling moments though at times I felt the story would jump too quickly from one bit of information to the next leaving me struggling to catch up, though overall I enjoyed how the story was laid out.

I like how this delved deeper into the history, or the making of the goddess Aphrodite, and her characteristics of which before I only had a surface level understanding; knowing her only as the Greek Goddess of beauty and not much else.

I appreciated that the author gave her a voice and gave us a more in depth view on the goddess herself as well as the ways ancient societies viewed her, as well as, her impact on contemporary society and ideas of womanhood, sexuality, and femininity.

The author paints an interesting and vital picture; in that the more someone is mythologized the less human they become, thus opening their image up to be used for exploitation.

All in all though this book had its flaws it’s also enjoyable and perfect for people who are interested in ancient history, or just the goddess herself.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. It's a very easy-to-read, broad in scope, and interesting investigation into the history of a mysterious goddess from the classical world. The author knows her sources and how to use them well, which I appreciated, but many of the examples were too brief for my tastes and I wish she would've gone into more depth. However, I did appreciate the extensive bibliography, and I'll likely be taking up the author's suggestions for further reading. On the whole, an engaging read for anyone interested in Greek and Roman mythology.

Inanna. Ishtar. Astarte. Isis. Aphrodite. Venus. For thousands of years, she was worshipped across the Middle East and the Mediterranean, through Egypt, and north across the lands conquered by Rome. Over the centuries, her name changed, but her appeal never diminished: she was love incarnate, desire and despair, lust and beguilement and bittersweet longing and dread all mixed together. Only with the rise of Christianity and Islam did she begin to lose ground, but even then, she morphed into yet new forms … most notably as the mother of the God who had replaced her ….
Hughes’ Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World has been on my reading list for quite some time. When I came across an advance copy of Venus and Aphrodite on netgalley, though, it jumped right to the top of the list. Here at last, it seemed, was a serious history of the worship of an important Goddess, one too often dismissed by academics (and popular culture), but central to the practices of many polytheists today.
For the most part, Venus and Aphrodite did not disappoint. Hughes has penned an engaging, wide-ranging, and well-researched history of the Goddess. She charts devotion to the divinity all the way from Neolithic Cyprus, through ancient Sumer, through the Homeric Age and the spread of Hellenism, through the rise and expansion of Rome, through medieval Europe, the Renaissance, and finally into the modern era and the creation of “beauty culture.”
The insights the Hughes offers into devotion for Aphrodite, into human perceptions of the deity, are fascinating. Such as
We should remember that for these ancient communities the great goddess was not an optional extra, an idea that could be believed or dismissed; she was as real as the sky, as real as the sea. Without her, all was lost.
And also:
It was she who was believed to encourage the carnal, cultural, and emotional mingling of women and men, to inspire relationships across borders and boundaries. She made humans social beings and encouraged civic harmony.
Or here:
Once, she had been a champion of real women, but as the divine gloss of the goddess dulled, she was styled a mere woman [….] Aphrodite-Venus had become an agent not of elevation but of exploitation [….] a thinly veiled excuse for disturbing and degenerate sexism and racism.
Hughes’ discussion of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and of the Venus de Milo are, by themselves, worth the price of the book. Not to mention her scathing critique of Freud, and the parallels she draws between the myth of Aphrodite and Ares, and modern-day slut-shaming and revenge porn.
This is not a dry, weighty tome. Venus and Aphrodite is a popular history written by a serious academic. And make no mistake: I do not mean popular history as an insult. Quite the opposite. Books like this — written in an accessible manner by a scholar who knows what the heck she is talking about — serve an important function: they help bridge the gap between disciplines, and between scholars and laypeople. We can’t all keep abreast of the latest research and theories in physics, chemistry, palaeontology, genetics, et cetera; but we can read popular books that lay out those developments for us, allowing us to figure out their importance and how those impact our lives, our view of the world, and so on.
And so it is with Venus and Aphrodite, which can be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in art history, women’s history, the history of sex, gender studies, archaeology, classical history, medieval history, the film industry, religious studies, the history of Christianity, the evolution of modern polytheism, or philosophy, among other fields. Individuals new to polytheism or Goddess Spirituality will find Venus and Aphrodite especially useful, not just because Hughes so carefully lays out the evolution of the Goddess of Love, but because of the extensive bibliography she includes at the end. There are many, many more titles there which will lead people into an even more in-depth study.
I do have a few complaints. First, the book is very short: only about two hundred pages, a good twenty of which are the above-mentioned bibliography, plus endnotes. It can be easily read in a single day. The book also stops abruptly in the late nineteenth century, with a momentary segue into the late twentieth century: Hughes only briefly discusses the impact of the Venusian ideal on modern women, and the appearance of Aphrodite in such films as The Clash of the Titans. I feel like there is a lot more to discuss there, that the analysis could have been carried forward another century. Aside from a single reference to Warhol, there is no discussion of Aphrodite in modern art, and none at all of modern polytheism* (where there is plenty of devotion, desire, and art being created).
Despite those few complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed Venus and Aphrodite. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the fields mentioned above, as well as fans of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt; and Kara Cooney’s The Woman Who Would Be King.
*For books which do deal with Aphrodite and modern polytheism, check previous publications by Laurelei Black and the forthcoming Pagan Portals: Aphrodite by Irisianya Moon.

A historical exploration of the phenomenon of the goddess of love in the Western world.

The author sets forth the mythology, worship, devotion, and influence of the goddess we have come to know as Aphrodite in Greek (Venus in Latin). She starts with the birth story of Aphrodite and the emphasis of service in Cyprus; she then goes back in time to witness the fertility goddess of prehistoric Western Europe and the Wanassa of Mycenean Greece, then shifts east to Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte of the ancient Near East and the association of love and war. The various permutations of Aphrodite/Venus in Greek and Roman culture are then explored, and the connections between Aphrodite, sexuality, violence, fertility, etc. in Classical culture. She then explores the "post-history" of Aphrodite in medieval, renaissance, and early modern art and culture, and the continuation of her influence in modern society.

The book is written for the lay reader without much experience in the Classics, and written in that British imperial style which emphasizes the personal travels and experiences of the author. The work provides a good introduction to the nature and influence of the goddess of sexuality in Western culture and society.

This book traces the history of the famous goddess from early origins as a symbol of fertility through Greek, Roman , Christian eras till modern times. Each chapter begins with a quote and describes how the goddess had a variety of roles and functions. It becomes clear how the goddess also was used for different purposes at different times.
While I enjoyed getting to know more about this timeless and ever present goddess the style of the author was not always smooth to read. In addition, the book is at times too academic while at other too simplistic.

Three stars - I liked it.

We are all familiar with the Greek myth about Aphrodite' s birth, a much violent act — Kronos throwing his father' s genitals in the sea. It might seem paradoxical, at first, that after such an act was born the goddess of Love, Beauty and Desire, but after all, pain and destruction always accompany those, very much like the Horai accompanying Aphrodite when she came out of the sea on the island of Cyprus.

Hughes takes a look at how a female deity, combining the opposite and yet complimentary characteristic of war and love, both springing from desire, be it Inanna, Ishtar or Astarte, took shape in the Middle East, at a very tumultuous, and vitaly important for the birth of the first civilizations, period. Her focus is mostly on Phoenician Astarte, as the most similar to Aphrodite-Venus.

As it is known, not only food, building materials, luxury items and etc. were exchanged between traders in prehistoric times, but also ideas. And indeed the phoenicians were pioneers in the area of long-distance (and not-so-long distance) trade, so it comes natural to suggest that their portrayal of a love-and-hate goddess would be the one to influence the newly arising Mediterranean civilizations and their forming cultures. Of course, Cyprus with its abundance of copper, was a highly preferred client for trade.

At the point of arrival of the idea of Astarte on Cyprus, there were already established cults, Hughes starts her work with what is left of a Chalcholitic fertility cult — stone intersex figurines, abundant in quantities, found near what is thought to have been birthing centers. After this cult lost its influence, another began, headed by a wanassa (local priestess/goddess/queen), in which central role was played by the production and trade of perfumes.

For a long time this wanassa lacked a name, so how did it adopt that of Aphrodite? As Hughes finds out, it is quite impossible to tell. We are only (almost) certain that the Cypriot Goddess began being called Aphrodite during the Iron Age and was worshipped in Paleo Paphos as a heavily sexualized figure.

Venus, the roman aspect of Aphrodite, was most powerful in the city of Pompeii, known after 89 BC as Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum. In fact, Hughes finds connections between Venus-Aphrodite and port towns overall, she also seems to have protected sailors and of course, where sailors are, there are prostitutes. Aphrodite's relationship with the last, from what we can gather of the ancient sources, was a protective one and even motherly.

According to Hughes, Aphrodite also promotes “sexual fluidity and experimentation.” The author spends a whole chapter on this matter, and from the archaeological and written evidence she has gathered, it seems androgyny was at all times prevalent in connection to fertility cults.

The Aphrodite portrayed by Hughes is not just a goddess of love and desire, she is much more, she is the one who “mixes-it-all-up”, the one who encourages socialization and civic harmony, the one who unites and of course, being able to hold that power, she also holds its opposite — the power to ruin, to to drive men to battles, to create conflict whenever she wants (the Trojan war, for example). Under her epithets of Mechanitis and Epistrophia she was known as a deviser and deceiver. Aphrodite, above all other gods, stands as a proof of the morale and ethics of her worshippers. Under what epithet she was venerated showed the reality of society and its aspirations.

Hughes also criticizes the gradual sexualization of the goddess, visible through art and literature, from being an appropriately clothed woman at the beginning to, after the fourth century BC, a woman slowly shedding her garments.

Overall, Hughes has written a very easy-to-ride, wide-ranged and brief (sometimes too brief, like seriously, I would like more information on some of the topics) book about Aphrodite-Venus, her past and her future, reaching even to contemporary times. The author knows her sources and uses them abundantly which I really appreciate. There is also an extensive bibliography for the curious reader with a lot of great suggestions for further reading! The book also includes illustrations, which I always appreciate.

VENUS AND APHRODITE: a biography of desire – Bettany Hughes
Basic Books, Hachette Book Group
ISBN-10: 1474610366
ISBN-13: 978-1474610360
September 22, 2020
Non-Fiction

Everyone knows of Venus as the beautiful Roman goddess of love, lust, and debauchery, and the definitive symbol of desire. She was closely based on the Greek goddess Aphrodite and has defined the beauty of the female form in artworks, whether clothed or naked, for centuries. Author and historian Bettany Hughes explores the goddess’ past and what she represents and how her influence is still at work. She explains that in the Middle East earlier civilizations other than the Greeks had similar goddesses such as Inanna, Ishtar, and Astarte. Why were so many goddesses who combine wantonness and warfare created?

The story starts on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, the historical home of the goddess, where an annual celebration and worship of the miracle of life was held long before the Greek civilization. Archeology now traces the basic idea of the goddess of womanhood and birth, which of course involves sex, back more than 4,000 years as represented in many small voluptuous rock carvings of a female form with a penis head called the Lady of Lemba. It is most likely that each of these goddesses influenced the next permutation. Within the chapters, a fuller explanation develops of the goddess as a symbol of life. Eventually, lust leads to many urges of humankind, including war which Venus also exemplifies by her affair with Mars, the god of war.

VENUS AND APHRODITE describes the transformations of this goddess through time and changes in civilization. We still celebrate her today in art museums where sculptures and paintings through the ages show her many traits. She is also used more indulgently in commercials and media used to sell products. Her fame has lasted longer than any of the other gods and goddesses, undoubtedly because Aphrodite-Venus symbolizes so much more than we expect. She shows the dichotomy of love and life. It is an entertaining and informative read with amazing insights into humanity.

Robin Lee

It’s the perfect book for any enthusiast of Ancient Greek mythology, especially if they happen to be reading it on a trip to Cyprus. (Although, with the current situation, it’s also a great way to mentally escape into more warmer climes)

Hughes charmingly weaves the histories of 3 goddesses who predate Aphrodite into a fast-paced, time-bending travelogue – flitting from Cyprus to Syria, 3000 BCE to 115 CE. It’s very accessible for the average reader and a lovely little primer into the various myths and material cultures of love goddesses in the ancient world. Aphrodite-Venus (As Hughes conflates the two) is the lynchpin upon which Hughes branches across different civilisations and countries, to talk about the goddesses Isanna, Ishtar, and Astarte. Hughes has a wonderful, elegant way of writing that conjures up magical images of beautiful ancient landscapes and mysterious goddesses, which gives her the kind of mainstream appeal that many Classicists lack.

I take issue with some of the language used by Hughes, such as when she talks about being in Syria: witnessing the conflict and destruction “helped me appreciate the dreaded power of Aphrodite’s ancestors”. Whatever her intentions were, this reads in very bad taste, and it happens more than once in the book.

As a personal desire, I would have liked much more analysis in some of her claims, however, as someone with a 2 degrees in Classics I don’t think I’m the target audience, so the analyses I want is probably not what is necessary for the book. However, it is strange that she mentions philosophical terms such as Apollonian and Dionysian as though she expects the average reader to know what they mean. I also would have preferred footnotes instead of leaving everything at the end of the book – again, totally personal preference.

Another issue I take is the dearth of citations. Hughes makes a number of claims with vague references to sources, studies and analyses, yet she fails to cite any of them. Not only does this devalue the legitimacy of the points she makes, but it also takes away a potential learning opportunity from readers, as I note some reviewers wanted to know more about the Sea People and other things she made passing reference to. I also am concerned with the number of reviewers that take Hughes’ word as gospel, calling it “thoroughly researched”.

Despite my gripes with it, it’s still a really enjoyable, enlightening read so long as you take the claims with a pinch of salt. Definitely one that I’ll be rereading if I find myself holidaying in Greece or Cyprus.

I received this e-book copy from Basic Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Perhaps it's my yearning for the Mediterranean summer speaking, but this was by far the most entertaining, eloquent non-fiction I have ever had the pleasure to read. Ugh, and it's so short! Hughes explores the socio-cultural aspects of Greco-Roman antiquity's love goddesses, looking as far back as the Bronze Age and beyond the shores of Cyprus to examine the predecessor-deities of Venus and Aphrodite and the meaning their symbols hold, to this day. Rarely have I gone through a work of non-fiction as fast as this - one reason certainly being Hughes' colourful and varied narrative voice (thot historians, take notes). And it gave me the worst case of Fernweh! I never thought I'd say this about a history book one day - but I might reread?

This was a light and breezy book about one of Greek/ Roman mythology’s most popular, and often misunderstood goddesses. Hughes shows in her very lovely writing that Aphrodite is a lot more complex than history would have us believe. Her origins, her powers and love life and the way she was worshiped are all touched about here and never once did I feel the writing was bogged down by unnecessary language and details. It’s so easy to read it’s almost like you’re reading a novel rather than a mythology text. I recommend this book especially if you love mythology it’s an absolute must read.

As a pagan who loves history and comparative religion, I'm always on the lookout for well-researched titles on the ancient gods and goddesses. This book is a great delight as it traces the origins of the goddess Aphrodite through the seas of time and shows the many ways she was adopted and adapted by various cultures. From her beginnings as the Lady of Lemba in Cyprus, to her emergence as Greek Aphrodite and morphing into Roman Venus, to her denigration from respected goddess to icon of prostitutes and back again to her melding with the Virgin Mary, this goddess has gone through a number of transformations throughout the span of history in which she has been worshipped.

Well-written and informative, this book will suit those who are interested in the ways that the tides of social change affect how we honor our deities.

I struggled to fit Hughes's Venus And Aphrodite in a box that I could fully understand. It's not a lengthy biography/history, but it's not a brief and approachable read either. It's extremely detailed, which is great, but as I reader I could have used a bit more hand-holding, especially in the opening chapters. It feels too scholarly to be trade, and too trade to be academic.

Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire is a lovely overview of the history of the goddess Venus-Aphrodite in ancient mythology, dating through the Greek era up through the Renaissance, as well as modern depictions. While this is not all-encompassing, I enjoyed this relatively short read and even learned some new information surrounding the oceanic maiden.

Some of what you find in this book are a few origins of the birth of Venus-Aphrodite, varied cultural interpretations, feminist representations of empowerment, the goddess' evolution through the ages, historical misogyny and oppression against the sexual feminine, the demonization and erasure / silencing brought on by Christianity, and ultimately how she has persevered as a source of inspiration that has impacted the world on such a large and not-often observed scale in both literature and culturally. Photographs of beautiful artworks depicting the goddess is also included throughout.

The writing is approachable, making this an easy introductory into Greek mythology, and the hymns and poetry were such a nice touch that I appreciated. Venus-Aphrodite is much more complex than would first appear, and I loved learning more about her. An enjoyable book to have on your bookshelf.

This is almost a Jungian exploration of Aphrodite-Venus as a many-faced diety passed down throughout the ages. Hughes' connections cover a large swath of the globe, and seem to interpret many goddess deities of fertility and war as variations of either Venus or Aphrodite, who in turn are either two sides of the same coin, or sister deities, or variations of one another.

While it is a slim volume, there are many years and cultures explored, many deities such as Ina na and Astarte are referenced and slightly explored. A lot of pagan goddesses of war, fertility, harvest, sex, or motherhood - practically anything - are explored as possible variations of the same deity: Venus/Aphrodite.

Well worth the read for the archaeological pictures of deities, statues, and classical artwork alone - let alone the analyses, however at times it felt overwhelmingly like a history of artifacts rather than a goddess. Would recommend for anyone interested in classical deities, Jungian theory of the Sacred Prostitute, Greco-Roman mythologies, pagan deities.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me an e-ARC via Netgalley.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve had a special affinity for Aphrodite after spending a Fulbright year on Cyprus, the legendary birthplace of the goddess of love and beauty. It’s hard to overstate the cultural importance of Aphrodite on the island. The Cyprus Tourism Board even has an Aphrodite Cultural Route, and I’m happy to report I’ve been to every stop. I highly suggest it when planning your next trip to Cyprus!

It’s clear that Hughes has also journeyed this route around the island of Cyprus and traveled the wider Mediterranean in search of the cultural and material legacy of Aphrodite. A standout feature of Venus and Aphrodite is Hughes’s incorporation of her own travels and experiences of her research. Not only does this add narrative interest, but it also underscores one of the main arguments of the book, namely that the material record of Aphrodite can provide an “alternative to the myth” by complicating and challenging our assumptions about the goddess. Hughes extracts the goddess from the realm of the synchronic imaginary and portrays her in an array of spatial and temporal contexts.

By focusing on the materiality of Aphrodite’s legacy, Hughes is able to draw out the second of her major themes, namely that Aphrodite “acts as a barometer for the way the world has viewed desire and lust and the pleasures, purpose, and preoccupations of flesh-and-blood women and men–and indeed of those who inhabited diverse points across the spectrum of sex and sexuality.”

Hughes follows the trail of Aphrodite in time and space through twelve short chapters starting with Aphrodite’s birth and ending with her place in contemporary society. The chapters are filled with brief anecdotes and bold, thought-provoking claims, though not all are, in my opinion, sufficiently argued. This is in part because the book is for a popular audience, not for professional classicists, and also because the book is, in my opinion, too short. There are, however, occasional lapses in her argumentation, which are unexpected given the quality of the author’s previous books.

Bettany Hughes is an English historian, writer, and broadcaster with a specialty in classical history. Her previous books on classical topics, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore and The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life, were well-received, with the latter, a New York Times’ bestseller, shortlisted for the Writer’s Guild Award. She has won numerous awards for her writing, broadcasting, and work as an historian, including an OBE for services to history. Hughes is currently a Professor of History at the New College of the Humanities and a research fellow at King’s College, London.

Hughes is clearly thoughtful about the ancient world and has dedicated significant time, effort, and travel to pursuing Aphrodite’s legacy. I feel, however, that this book doesn’t always reflect her skills and effort.
I found the book overly short. There could be some benefits to such a short book (e.g. great for an airplane, great weekend book, could assign in full to undergraduate students), but I think the costs are too great to outweigh the benefits. While her major themes are valuable contributions to the public conversation about Aphrodite and gender more widely, Hughes spends a significant portion of the book repeating her rather bold (and undoubtedly important) claims, while not actually providing sufficient discussion or evidence for these claims.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hughes’ style and approach and honestly would have been thrilled to read hundreds of more pages on this topic from her. Given the brevity of the book, I was flummoxed by the sparse citations and lack of further reading suggestions. Not all readers will know how to find additional sources to continue their engagement with Hughes’s fascinating material. Either the book should have been more thorough or should have helped readers connect to additional resources.

Before I conclude my review, I would like to discuss three specific criticisms I have with the book. I intended to be brief, but…here we go:

1. The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter: I love how Hughes incorporates quotations from a broad range of ancient texts, especially because she focuses more on material culture in the chapters themselves. I, however, could not stand and was terribly annoyed by the fact that the identifying information about the texts (author, title, date, original language, etc.) were banished to the endnotes and not in the text itself (like pretty much every epigraph ever). Could you imagine quoting Benjamin Franklin in the epigraph of a text and then making your readers flip to the back of the book to find out lo-and-behold it’s a quote by Benjamin Franklin. No! Benjamin Franklin’s name would be right there below the quotation. So why not do this for ancient texts. It devalues the ancient texts, and it’s a disservice to the readers. Sure, put the translator and edition in the endnote but contextualize the quotes. Doing so would also further Hughes’s arguments. Just like Aphrodite, ancient texts themselves don’t live merely in the imaginary. They were written in a specific time (even if we don’t always know it), by a specific person (even if we don’t always know that person), and in a specific cultural context (even if we don’t always understand it). Divorcing the text from its identification divorces the texts from these contexts for the reader.

2. The inclusion with no contextualization nor qualification of the provenance of Sappho’s “Kypris Song,” especially its acquisition by Dirk Obbink. (For all not in the know about this controversy surrounding Dirk Obbink, the articles by Charlotte Higgins and Ariel Sabar are good starting places; and trust me, the ride is worth it.). This text is controversial, and non-specialists NEED to know why.

As Charlotte Higgins says in her 2020 article in the Guardian, “Now, in the light of the revelations of the alleged thefts of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, scholars are looking at the Sappho story with new eyes, and asking, with a fresh sense of urgency, whether the manuscript can have been legally obtained. There are even doubts as to its authenticity. The latest gossip in classical circles is that it might even be a fake. “Everything about it seems too good to be true,” one senior Cambridge classicist told me. Doubts about the Sappho papyrus have niggled away at scholars because Obbink’s account of how it was acquired – all the time reporting, he said, what he had been told by its nameless owner – has been at best sketchy, and at times contradictory.”

I believe it is unethical and misleading to mention this text without also mentioning the problems surrounding its provenance and acquisition. Hughes discusses political and controversial contexts around other materials and is remiss in not mentioning this one.

3. Not discussing Aphrodite-Isis in her Egyptian and Nubian contexts. Hughes briefly discusses the relationship between Aphrodite and the Egyptian goddess Isis in Chapter 8: Eastern Queens. She mentions that Ptolemaic queens were shown as Aphrodite-Isis, including Cleopatra VII, who Hughes states, “actively exploited the connection between herself and this deity who was sex and power incarnate.”

I think Hughes missed an important opportunity to discuss Isis-Aphrodite in her Egyptian context outside of the elite, Greco-Macedonian ruling class. Moreover, she neglects to discuss Isis-Aphrodite in her Nubian context. I know this is not a book about Isis, but Hughes herself includes Isis in her discussion as well as a vast array of other Mediterranean and Near Eastern goddesses.

A hieroglyphic inscription at the Temple of Isis at Philae from the Ptolemaic period provides evidence for an important aspect of Isis’ mythological and political power. In the inscription, Isis says to Ptolemy II, a Greco-Macedonian pharaoh of Egypt, “I have given you the kingship of Atum on earth; I have given you the land with what is in it; I have given you victory over the north” (Žabkar (1988) 31). Isis is the arbiter of royal power. Furthermore, in a hymn inscribed on the same temple, Isis is shown to share the same bellicose and incandescent features Hughes attributes to Aphrodite: Isis is she,

“Who attacks the powerful ones,
Mightier than the mighty, stronger than the strong;
Who smites millions (by) cutting off (their) heads,
Great of massacre against her Enemy

Mistress of flame who assaults the rebels,
Who slays Apopis in an instant”
(Hymn V on the Temple of Isis at Philae, (Žabkar (1988) 58)

Such Egyptian sources, written in hieroglyphs, would have both complicated and enhanced Hughes’ argument. I was disappointed with the choice of Greek and Latin sources about Egyptian Isis over Egyptian-language sources.

I was similarly disappointed in Hughes’s lack of engagement with ancient Nubia. Isis-Aphrodite worship was an important feature of Nubian culture and religion. Just as in Ptolemaic Egypt, Isis was equated with the Nubian queens, called Kandake (the origin of the name Candace), and had a significant role in Nubian kingship. There are inscriptions to Isis in the Meroitic language, statues found of Aphrodite in the capital of Meroë, and vast evidence for Nubian presence at the Temple of Isis at Philae (you can read more about this in Dr. Solange Ashby’s forthcoming book Calling Out to Isis: The Enduring Nubian Presence at Philae, based on her excellent dissertation from the University of Chicago in 2016), just to name a few examples.

In my opinion it’s a significant oversight not to mention the political, culture, and religious importance of Aphrodite-Isis in Nubia. Since the book is otherwise holistic in its approach, the exclusion of a black ancient society is very troubling.

This omission seems to me especially stark because the only time Hughes mentions black interactions with Venus-Aphrodite is during her discussion of the colonial “black Venuses” and Sarah Baartman, the so-called “Hottentot Venus” in Chapter 11.

Hughes rightly repudiates these colonialist sins: “Venus was a thinly veiled excuse for disturbing and degenerate sexism and racism.” However, if she had previously included a discussion of ancient Nubians, Hughes would have found a much stronger argument for her overarching theme of Aphrodite as a societal mirror and her specific claim in Chapter 11 that “the once-feisty goddess had become a functionary.” Aphrodite-Venus-Isis, who had once been a force of black political power, had, through millenia in the hands and minds of white, patriarchal, European societies, morphed into a weapon of orientalism, colonialism, and misogyny used to objectify and exploit black women and black cultures. I believe this could have been a valuable addition to her book.

Despite these (not-so-minor) gripes, I think Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire provides a valuable addition to the public discourse about Aphrodite and gender in the longe durée. As mentioned before, this topic would have been better served in a longer format with more room to flesh out the important claims made by the author. Nevertheless, I think many readers will enjoy this book and will be a valuable addition to many bookshelves.

I would recommend this book to readers interested in the ancient world, mythology, and gender, especially those readers who might be new to the topic. This book is enjoyable to read and is short, so I would recommend this book to people who want to dip their toes into the topic but might not have the time to commit to more detail. Finally, I think this book should be required reading for people preparing to travel to Cyprus. It is chock full of details about ancient Cyprus, including interesting anecdotes from the author’s own travels to Aphrodite’s island.

If you love mythology, you have to read this book. Venus and Aphrodite are probably one of the most referenced Goddesses in modern culture. After reading this book, that doesn't come as a surprise. I thought I knew them before, but now Bettany Hughes pulls back the curtain to reveal astonishing profiles of these prolific Goddesses that with both fascinate and bewilder.

Assuming that this historical-biographical genre of books is not for me, often considering them boring and difficult to learn – intended only for an elite audience I must also admit that the ease of prose and the cyclicality of history make this book always modern, always new in any historical era read from here to the future r of easy understanding for all.
The English historian Bettany Hughes tells of how the figure of Aphrodite was born both in history and mythology, focusing little on the latter and on how instead the imprint of the goddess was born powerful and remained powerful, defeating the attempts of man (not human being, but penis-possesser, succumber to a monotheistic religion and caste ) tried to transfigure it, failing miserably.
I loved the Aphrodite told in this book in all respects: historical, poetic and even a little philosophical.
I justify my suboptimal grade because, as an Aphrodite fanatic, I knew most of the things told. So only things that I personally knew and that are not in the public domain have been investigated.