She was the wife of Hephaestus. The goddess of love and beauty. According to a legend, she had sprung from the foam of the sea. She was shown, with her body adorned with fronds of myrtle, on a chariot pulled by sparrows and doves. Swans, dolphins, hares and turtles were animals sacred to her, as well as the myrtle, the rose, the apple-tree and the poppy. Aphrodite had a capricious disposition. Her power to make gods and human beings to fall in love often caused a lot of troubles. She was identified with the planet Venus and with the fifth day of the week in the countries with Latin based languages.
