Heavenly and Terrestrial Aphrodite: From Pre-Socratic to Victorian times

Achilleas A. Stamatiadis: Heavenly and Terrestrial Aphrodite: From Pre-Socratic to Victorian times

Plato’s Symposium, composed around 385 BCE, is about the nature of love. Pausanias of Athens, the second speaker in the dialogue, distinguishes between two aspects of the goddess Aphrodite: Aphrodite Urania and Aphrodite Pandemos. In later works of western literature this distinction led to the conceptions of Heavenly and Terrestrial love. My lecture will concern itself with a diachronic analysis of Heavenly and Terrestrial manifestations of Aphrodite from Pre-socratic to Victorian times. Although an apperception of Aphrodite Urania, as a cosmic force, is a quite ancient concept, it is in later works of western literature -after Plato’s time- that the distinction laid out by Pausanias of Athens, leads to the concepts of Heavenly anteros and Terrestrial eros and intellectually nourishes Renaissance Leaders via the teachings of Renaissance Humanist Marsilio Ficino. Ficino’s aim after all, is to teach Leaders and Potentates how to love properly, virtuously, and, even honourably. It is no wonder, after all, that our soul, as Plato says, emanates from the Good and forever turns back to the Good by means of the Good.

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