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Aphroditus


Aphroditus (Greek: Ἀφρόδιτος Aphroditos) was a male Aphrodite originating from Amathus on the island of Cyprus and celebrated in Athens in a transvestite rite.

Aphroditus was portrayed as having a female shape and clothing like Aphrodite's but also a phallus, and hence, a male name. This deity would have arrived in Athens from Cyprus in the 4th century BC. In the 5th century BC, however, there existed hermae of Aphroditus, or phallic statues with a female head.

According to Macrobius, who mentions the goddess in his Saturnalia, Philochorus, in his Atthis (referred to by Macrobius), identifies this male-female god with the Moon and says that at its sacrifices men and women exchanged clothing. Philostratus, in describing the rituals involved in the festivals, said that the image or the impersonator of the god was accompanied by a large train of followers in which girls mingled with men because the festivals allowed "women to act the part of men, and men put on woman's clothing and play the woman."

Aphroditus is the same as the later god Hermaphroditus, whose name means "Aphroditus in the form of a herm" - a statue shaped as a quadrangular pillar surmounted by a head or bust, and first occurs in the Characters of Theophrastus.Photius also explained that Aphroditus was Hermaphroditus, and cited fragments from Attic comedies mentioning the divinity. In later mythology Hermaphroditus came to be regarded as the son of Hermes and Aphrodite.


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