Ancient Greeks did not see Gods in the same way most modern religions conceive of them: perfect and all knowing and all powerful and (sometimes) all benevolent. Rather, they saw them as larger-than-life figures who may have had special powers, but they also each possessed very human qualities and very human failings.
Ancient Greek Gods are all manifestations of human archetypes, iconic illustrations of human nature. Perhaps the very essence of human nature.
Aphrodite (Romanized as Venus) is the goddess of beauty, love and, frankly, frivolity and vanity. She is married to Hephaestus (Romanized as Vulcan) who is the ugly and deformed god of smithing, metalwork, craftsmanship and fire. He is known to make the most beautiful jewelry (as well as very useful tools) which Aphrodite loves, rather loving him, so she is constantly unfaithful to him.
In modern terms, Aphrodite would be the cheating trophy wife and Hephaestus would be the physically inferior uber-rich man who overlooks his wife’s infidelity, because he knows she will always return to him and that is enough.
We all know modern day couples like that!
Aside: Aphrodite’s most common lover is said to be Aries (Romanized as Mars), the God of War, the ultimate warrior. This is an ancient encapsulation of the archetype of ‘the prostitute and the soldier’: Hers is the personification of femininity without a goal beyond sexuality, his is the personification of brutal masculinity without a goal beyond obeying orders of your superior commanders.
And, yes, most of us have also known couples like that.
Let’s consider Athena (Romanized as Minerva) who is the goddess of wisdom, war and crafts. Wisdom and wars – that makes sense: she is the personification of the wisdom when to enter into a war. She is not the goddess of combat, the way Aries is: she is the one whose wisdom directs whether Aries ought to be unleashed or not.
Yet, Athena’s wisdom was shadowed by her jealousy when her mastery of crafts had been questioned. A young woman named Arachne said she could weave better that Athena, so, Athena showed up for the challenge with her weaving loom and when it looked like Arachne was going to win, Athena – in a fit of jealousy – turned Arachne into a spider who can only weave webs.
Aside: I think it is ironic that I paid for a big part of my University education by designing one-of-a-knit-ware (at really, really high prices) – and I am rather very arachnophobic – or is it really ‘Arachne-phobia’?
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 