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Issue #01 · Aphrodite

Love Is a Contact Sport

The Goddess of Love launches a divine matchmaking service. What could possibly go wrong?

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The Goddess

Aphrodite

Goddess of love, beauty, desire, pleasure, the sea and spectacularly terrible romantic decisions.

Born from sea foam and immediately bored by it. Married to the one god on Olympus who has never cheated, which she considers a design flaw. She has started at least one war, ended more marriages than the plague and remains, by every available metric, adored.

Her full mythology file ↓
Divine dossier
  • DomainLove, beauty, desire, the sea, fertility and poor decisions
  • Married toHephaestus (technically)
  • SeeingAres (allegedly)
  • Known forThe Trojan War. She maintains it was a team effort.
  • Weapon of choiceA smile, a golden arrow and your worst instincts
  • Pending lawsuitsFourteen, as of lunch

Threat level: adorable.

Olympus. Monday. Already a mistake.
Tonight, the Goddess of Love launches APHRODATE™ — Divinely Matched. Legally Questionable.
Algorithms are for mortals, darling. I use vibes, arrows and spite.
I haven’t slept since the Bronze Age.
We’re both MARRIED!
Yes, darling. To the wrong people. I’m fixing it.
Match #1. Time to first scandal: four minutes.
Did you just match yourself… with Ares?
It’s called user testing, darling.
Tested. Twice.
Sparta is mobilising. Troy is sharpening things. What the fuck did you DO?
Sparta was always going to mobilise. I just gave them a reason with better cheekbones.
Fourteen divorces. Before lunch.
Fourteen LIBERATIONS, darling.
★★★★★Ruined my marriage. Never felt more alive.— Anonymous Queen, Thessaly
★★★★★Started a war. Met my soulmate on the battlefield.— Hoplite, 3rd Phalanx
★★★★★My wife left me for a swan. Honestly? Growth.— K., Sparta
★★★★★Lost a kingdom. Gained a personality.— Former King of Corinth
Five stars. Love wins, darlings.
Within the hour, APHRODATE™ had a perfect rating.
So… hypothetically… does it work for married gods?
Hera’s already on it, darling. She matched with your divorce lawyer.
APHRODATE™ — now available in Thessaly. Terms, conditions and blood feuds apply.
The mythology file

Everything she’s in charge of. Which is a worrying amount.

Love is the headline act, but Aphrodite’s divine portfolio runs much deeper. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped her under many names, for many jobs.

Love & Desire

Her day job

Romantic love, attraction and longing. Eros does the arrow work; she takes the credit.

Beauty

Officially the fairest

Won the golden apple marked “to the fairest” at the Judgement of Paris, by bribing the judge with Helen of Troy.

Pleasure & Sexuality

Philommeides · “laughter-loving”

Sensual pleasure, passion and the art of seduction. Her magic girdle made anyone who wore it irresistible.

Fertility & Gardens

Spring, growth, new life

Flowers, gardens and the return of spring. Roses and myrtle grow where she walks; anemones bloomed from her lover Adonis’s blood.

The Sea & Sailors

Euploia · “of the fair voyage”

Born from sea foam, she calmed the waves and protected sailors, who prayed to her before every voyage.

Civic Unity

Pandemos · “of all the people”

In Athens she was honoured for binding citizens together. Yes, the city’s magistrates prayed to her. No, it did not help.

Heavenly Love

Urania · “the heavenly”

Philosophers like Plato used this name for a higher, spiritual love of the soul rather than the body. She finds it a bit boring.

Armed Aphrodite

Areia · “the warlike”

In Sparta and Cythera she was shown armed, echoing older Near Eastern goddesses like Ishtar and Astarte who ruled both love and war.

Persuasion & Marriage

With Peitho at her side

The persuasion behind every proposal, with her attendant Peitho, goddess of persuasion. Hera handles the paperwork afterwards.

Courtesans

Patron of the hetairai

Patron goddess of courtesans and sex workers, especially at her famous temple on the hill above Corinth.

Victory

Venus Victrix · Rome

As the Roman Venus she brought victory to generals. Pompey and Julius Caesar both built temples to her.

Mother of Rome

Venus Genetrix

Through her son Aeneas, Romans called her the mother of their people. Julius Caesar claimed she was his ancestor.

Origins & family
  • BirthHesiod says she rose from sea foam off Cythera and came ashore on Cyprus. Homer says she’s the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She prefers the foam.
  • HusbandHephaestus, god of the forge. Arranged by Zeus.
  • LoversAres, Adonis, the Trojan prince Anchises, Hermes, and in some versions Dionysus.
  • ChildrenEros; Harmonia, Phobos and Deimos (with Ares); Aeneas (with Anchises); Hermaphroditus (with Hermes); Priapus.
  • Roman nameVenus
  • Also calledCypris and Cytherea, after the islands she calls home
Symbols & famous myths
  • Sacred animalsDoves, swans and sparrows
  • Sacred plantsRoses, myrtle and apples
  • Signature itemsThe scallop shell, the mirror and her magic girdle
  • Main templesPaphos on Cyprus, Cythera, Corinth and Athens
  • Greatest hitsThe Judgement of Paris and the Trojan War; caught in bed with Ares in Hephaestus’s golden net; wounded by Diomedes at Troy; bringing Pygmalion’s statue to life; Adonis; and being the mother-in-law from hell to Psyche.

Not her department: wisdom, knowledge and war strategy. That’s Athena. They do not get along.

End of Issue #01

Love wins. Everyone else loses.

Next on Olympus: the Underworld opens a customer service department, and Hades considers resigning from eternity.

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