0:00:09 > 0:00:13At ten o'clock on March the 10th 1914,
0:00:13 > 0:00:17a suffragette called Mary Richardson walked through the front door
0:00:17 > 0:00:19of the National Gallery in London.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25A meat cleaver was hidden in her clothing.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33For 90 minutes she wandered the museum,
0:00:33 > 0:00:37waiting for a lapse in security before making her way
0:00:37 > 0:00:39to the gallery's latest acquisition.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44The celebrated Rokeby Venus by Velazquez.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51The galley had recently raised the princely sum of £45,000
0:00:51 > 0:00:53to save the painting for the nation.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56And people had come from all across the country to see it.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02But Mary Richardson took the weapon that she'd been hiding in her sleeve
0:01:02 > 0:01:06and started to slash furiously at the canvas.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12If you look carefully you can just about make out the marks
0:01:12 > 0:01:14where it's been repaired.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22"I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in
0:01:22 > 0:01:24"mythological history," she said.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29"I couldn't stand the way men stood and gawped at it all day long."
0:01:31 > 0:01:33And you can understand why.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36This painting's previous owner, a Yorkshire MP,
0:01:36 > 0:01:41described it as his "fine picture of Venus' backside".
0:01:41 > 0:01:45This is the deity who led Greek heroes to their deaths,
0:01:45 > 0:01:49whom Roman generals honoured with sacrifice before battle,
0:01:49 > 0:01:56who was the incarnation of the ecstasy and agony of lust and love,
0:01:56 > 0:02:01reduced to a showgirl, bearing herself for a viewing public.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05Venus, Aphrodite.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09While other gods of the past fade into obscurity,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12she's a goddess we think we all know.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16We remember her now for her beauty, for Cupid's bow,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19words like aphrodisiac and venereal.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25But in this film I want to shatter that illusion,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29travelling to her haunts both ancient and modern...
0:02:29 > 0:02:32Every turn there's a Venus or an Aphrodite.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37..to her deep origins as a shape-shifting spirit of creation
0:02:37 > 0:02:38and destruction...
0:02:38 > 0:02:43They needed her because in most times life was hard.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47..the force ancient people saw behind all lusts and urges.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51If you violently desire somebody physically, sexually,
0:02:51 > 0:02:55that's likely to cause the bad kind of strife.
0:02:56 > 0:03:02Her story has far more to offer us today than just the beautiful curve
0:03:02 > 0:03:04of her bottom.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08Now, I've got no intention whatsoever of being carted off
0:03:08 > 0:03:11to prison for vandalising a priceless artwork,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14but I do want to take a knife to the idea
0:03:14 > 0:03:17of Venus as a bit of divine totty.
0:03:17 > 0:03:22It's time to get back to the goddess as the ancients understood her,
0:03:22 > 0:03:27an elemental creature whose domain was the complex power
0:03:27 > 0:03:29of human desire.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43Venus has been called many names through history.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46The ancient Greeks knew her as Aphrodite.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52It was they who first told the iconic story of her birth,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55arising fully formed from the sea.
0:04:02 > 0:04:07It happened, they thought, not in some mythical land,
0:04:07 > 0:04:12but in a real place, the sea off the island of Cyprus.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17These balmy surroundings are at odds
0:04:17 > 0:04:21with what's actually a pretty lurid story.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Into the sea, the myth says,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29the severed genitals of the sky god,
0:04:29 > 0:04:32Uranus, were flung by his son, Chronos.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38The god's genitalia landed with a surging splash,
0:04:38 > 0:04:43and out of the foam rose an awful and lovely maiden,
0:04:44 > 0:04:46the goddess Aphrodite.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55What's striking is how violent this imagery is.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01The ancient myths are often pretty vivid, but this one
0:05:01 > 0:05:03really is extraordinary.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08Aphrodite's gruesome origins give her one of her epithets.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13She was Philomedes' lover of male genitals.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18And, indeed, her name, the Greek word aphros, means foam.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23So, Aphrodite was foam born.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31When she stepped ashore they believed this elemental creature
0:05:31 > 0:05:33brought fertility to the barren earth.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41For centuries, those who worshipped her would commemorate
0:05:41 > 0:05:43this vivid seaside scene.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Her intimate connection to the sea meant that she was often honoured
0:05:52 > 0:05:56with sea shells, scallop shells in particular.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58We find them in her temples,
0:05:58 > 0:06:01and in graves right across the eastern Mediterranean.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02And they're often pierced,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06so we think that worshippers would have worn them around their necks,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09a representation of female sexuality.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18The ancients really believed this Cypriot birth story.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22They often called Aphrodite Kypris, the lady of Cyprus.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27But what evidence is there that this is where her cult began?
0:06:31 > 0:06:35In the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia are stored thousands
0:06:35 > 0:06:38of finds unearthed from the island's prehistory.
0:06:41 > 0:06:47There are strong hints that sexual potency was in fact venerated here,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50long before even the Greeks reached the island,
0:06:50 > 0:06:54as far back as 4000 BC.
0:06:56 > 0:07:01Right across the south of the island archaeologists and local farmers
0:07:01 > 0:07:04kept on turning up these strange figurines,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07so far, over 200 of them.
0:07:07 > 0:07:12What you can't fail to notice is how sexual they are.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15There's focus on the vulva and the neck, and the head is distinctly
0:07:15 > 0:07:20phallic. We don't know exactly what these were used for.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23Some have suggested they were educational tools.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27But I think they were probably a kind of incarnation of the spirit of
0:07:27 > 0:07:30fertility that those prehistoric populations
0:07:30 > 0:07:33were desperate to keep on side.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Spiritual beliefs must in some sense be the explanation
0:07:39 > 0:07:40for these figures,
0:07:40 > 0:07:44clearly something to do with the mysteries of sex and procreation.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49But one figure above all has attracted particular attention.
0:07:51 > 0:07:56Found lying on its back surrounded by other smaller sculptures,
0:07:56 > 0:08:02some scholars speculate that this could be the deity him, or herself.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07She's 5,000 years old, made of limestone
0:08:07 > 0:08:12and is affectionately known as the Lady of Lemba.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16And she might just be an early glimpse of the spirit
0:08:16 > 0:08:20that eventually becomes the great goddess Aphrodite.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27It's a tempting thought that this sexually charged Stone Age figure
0:08:27 > 0:08:31was where the whole story of Venus Aphrodite began.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35But the goddess was a more mixed-up creature than that.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41Her origins lie not only in Cyprus,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43but in other places far further afield.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50Cyprus sits less than 100 miles from, arguably,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54the most creative cultural nexus of prehistory,
0:08:54 > 0:08:56the Fertile Crescent...
0:08:57 > 0:08:59..the area that stretches from modern-day Iraq
0:08:59 > 0:09:02to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean,
0:09:02 > 0:09:07a source of much of what would later constitute Greek and Roman culture.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15It's for that reason I keep coming back to countries like Jordan.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21This region has a special allure for an historian,
0:09:21 > 0:09:25the birthplace of so many of the ideas that have shaped civilisation,
0:09:25 > 0:09:30agriculture, the city and of course all kinds of religion.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38It's a story that goes back further than you'd think.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45We're used to the idea that the Middle East gave birth
0:09:45 > 0:09:51to the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54But they're relative newcomers.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57Right back at the very birth of civilisation,
0:09:57 > 0:10:03around 5,000 years ago, these lands also generated this feisty creature.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09She is known as Ishtar, Astarte or Inanna.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13Ishtar was the goddess of sexual love,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15worshipped in various names and guises
0:10:15 > 0:10:18across the ancient Near and Middle East.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22Unlike the Stone Age figurines of Cyprus,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26her story was written down by the scribes of Sumeria,
0:10:26 > 0:10:27Babylon and Akkadia.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31It's a story that seems to prefigure Aphrodite's.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36We hear from the eastern epics that this regal divinity had a mortal
0:10:36 > 0:10:39lover, a shepherd boy called Dumuzid.
0:10:40 > 0:10:46Now, Dumuzid died tragically and the goddess was so distraught she was
0:10:46 > 0:10:48given permission to bring him back to life
0:10:48 > 0:10:49for three months of the year.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56It's a fairly clear allegory for the cycle of life,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00but it's also fascinating as this is exactly the tale
0:11:00 > 0:11:03told later by Greeks about Aphrodite.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08Her shepherd boy lover, though, was called Adonis, not Dumuzid.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13It's strong evidence for the fact that Ishtar,
0:11:13 > 0:11:17Inanna was early source material for Aphrodite.
0:11:19 > 0:11:24If that's true, the original Aphrodite wasn't to be messed with.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29Just listen to what one of her priestesses wrote about her.
0:11:30 > 0:11:37"Lady of blazing dominion, clad in dread. Riding on fire-red power.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41"Flood, storm, hurricane adorned.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44"Battle planner, foe smasher."
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Ishtar and Inanna were warrior goddesses,
0:11:52 > 0:11:55often pictured in military attire,
0:11:55 > 0:11:57formidable queens of heaven and earth.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05Archaeologists now know that the story of Ishtar reached the island
0:12:05 > 0:12:08of Cyprus in the boats of travellers and traders.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15And there, she merged with the sexually charged ancient deity
0:12:15 > 0:12:17they already worshipped.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27When Eastern and Cypriot influences are combined,
0:12:27 > 0:12:29this is how the ancestor of Aphrodite ends up
0:12:29 > 0:12:33being represented on the island.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37She is a strange mixture of bird, beast and woman,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40a creature of both day and night.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45And just amazing to think of the world that those clay eyes
0:12:45 > 0:12:46would have looked out on.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54It's hard to pin down exactly who the sublime creature was
0:12:54 > 0:12:59so early in her history, but it's easy to read into these features
0:12:59 > 0:13:04a figure who combined exaggerated feminine sexuality
0:13:04 > 0:13:09with potential to inflict fear and terror on human beings.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16How was it that this ferocious figure became the heavenly beauty
0:13:16 > 0:13:18we picture as the classical Aphrodite?
0:13:25 > 0:13:27From the 12th century BC,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Greeks from the mainland began arriving in Cyprus.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37The island became the linchpin in an intercontinental exchange
0:13:37 > 0:13:38of goods and ideas.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45The Greeks, wowed by the great Cypriot goddess, adopted her
0:13:45 > 0:13:47into their own divine system...
0:13:48 > 0:13:52..eventually giving her the name Aphrodite.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58"Aphrodite, who loves laughter and smiles,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01"went to Paphos on Cyprus and her precinct there.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05"The Graces bathed her and rubbed her with ambrosial oil
0:14:05 > 0:14:09"that glistens on the skin of the immortal gods,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12"and then they dressed her in beautiful clothes.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14"A wonder to see."
0:14:14 > 0:14:19Epic poems by Homer, the very first works of European literature,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21describe her vividly.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24And where there were inscrutable figurines,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27there is now a character with a story.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37Aphrodite is part of a family of gods, with Zeus at the head.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42She is married to Hephaestus, the lame blacksmith god,
0:14:42 > 0:14:47but in an adulterous affair with the God of War, Aries.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52She has mortal lovers, too,
0:14:52 > 0:14:55most notably the doomed shepherd boy Adonis.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Her son is called Eros, which literally means desire.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03His Latin name is Cupid.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08While other goddesses are virgins or mother figures,
0:15:08 > 0:15:13Aphrodite is seductive, unpredictable, disruptive.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20The bird heads and the phalluses are gone.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26Aphrodite, the beautiful goddess, has arrived.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33One site, more than any other, is associated with that moment
0:15:33 > 0:15:37of rebirth, The Sanctuary of Paphos.
0:15:38 > 0:15:39Hello. Is that Jacqueline?
0:15:39 > 0:15:41- Hello.- Hello!
0:15:41 > 0:15:43So pleased to meet you.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45So pleased to see you.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47Thank you so much.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50French archaeologist Jacqueline Karageorghis
0:15:50 > 0:15:52has spent a lifetime working here.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55It is wonderful to have you decode it for me.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Why is this sanctuary so important in understanding the story
0:15:59 > 0:16:01of Aphrodite?
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Because it is here that the Goddess became Aphrodite.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10When the Greeks came in the 12th century BC from mainland Greece
0:16:10 > 0:16:15and settled in Paphos, they may have already found a previous goddess
0:16:15 > 0:16:18who was the goddess of fertility.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23They transformed her by giving her different qualities.
0:16:23 > 0:16:29The Greeks added to the primitive goddess of sex and fertility,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32who had violence in her,
0:16:32 > 0:16:37they added more refined qualities of tenderness, of love,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40of desire and especially the added beauty.
0:16:42 > 0:16:47This sanctuary became little by little very important
0:16:47 > 0:16:51and it was considered as important as Delphi.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53It is amazing when you come here just to think
0:16:53 > 0:16:56of what this place meant to the men and women
0:16:56 > 0:16:57who worshipped Aphrodite.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01Yes, she was called Theia, the goddess.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05Or Aphaea, the goddess from Paphos.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09There was no other in the place and she was helpful
0:17:09 > 0:17:17in every field of life, in the fertility, for men, for nature.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22Some people came here to worship her, bringing incense.
0:17:22 > 0:17:28But bloody sacrifices were forbidden here because she was essentially
0:17:28 > 0:17:30a goddess protecting life.
0:17:32 > 0:17:33For the men and women of those days,
0:17:33 > 0:17:37this was also important because she was absolutely real,
0:17:37 > 0:17:42they had to worship her and adore her to get her protection.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47Yes. Without her, I think they felt helpless.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52And they needed her, because in those times, life was hard,
0:17:52 > 0:17:55full of dangers, full of diseases,
0:17:55 > 0:18:01with agriculture giving not so abundant crops,
0:18:01 > 0:18:05so they really needed help from somewhere.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09And this goddess was providing hope.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14And she added to the primitive act of generation,
0:18:14 > 0:18:18feeling and beauty and care.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22And this is the basis of our European civilisation
0:18:22 > 0:18:27and I think this is why Aphrodite is very important.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30She teaches us the possibility of love.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34All this was made in Cyprus.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44In this site, we start to get a sense of the scale and significance
0:18:44 > 0:18:47of Aphrodite's cult here on Cyprus.
0:18:50 > 0:18:55The sanctuary at Paphos allows us to jigsaw-puzzle together the evidence.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59Ancient sources tell us that it was protected by wonderful golden gates
0:18:59 > 0:19:02and shaded by fruit trees,
0:19:02 > 0:19:05that you could hear the sound of ritual purification
0:19:05 > 0:19:10and that the air was heavy with the smell of perfume and incense.
0:19:11 > 0:19:17Being here, you really do feel close to those thousands of worshippers
0:19:17 > 0:19:20who came to the sanctuary to seek the power,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24the protection and the pity of the goddess.
0:19:32 > 0:19:37And nearby, we can lay eyes on further evidence of how Aphrodite
0:19:37 > 0:19:42was worshipped by the man, and critically the woman, on the street.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Beautiful. What's the date of this vase?
0:19:46 > 0:19:48It's eighth century BC.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51So it's a very animated scene here.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55Yes. It's one of the rarest pictorial representations,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58compositions, of a ritual dance.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02There are some women dancing, and they are holding flowers.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06In the middle, there is a lyre player, he is playing music.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10And there is a tree, a kind of tree of life.
0:20:11 > 0:20:16So you can see the symbolism as well as the ritual dance.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18It is just fabulous to see this,
0:20:18 > 0:20:22because then you think of this site at Paphos and just imagine it filled
0:20:22 > 0:20:24with this kind of activity.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27And you can imagine that this was happening in every sanctuary.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30And if you come round to this side, there's more to see.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34Oh, yes.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38- What is this curious creature at the end?- It's a sphinx.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41It's a mythical animal.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43Which, in this case, she is smelling a flower.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47And so this, together with the bull mask,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50shows that we are perhaps in a cultic environment.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54And you can see this lady holding several jugs
0:20:54 > 0:20:59and attending to another lady who is sitting high up on this,
0:20:59 > 0:21:04maybe throne or high chair, her feet on a stool,
0:21:04 > 0:21:09and she is getting ready to drink some kind of liquid from a straw,
0:21:09 > 0:21:11from this jar here.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14Maybe wine, maybe an alcoholic drink, we don't know.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16Because they made beer, as well.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19They made wine, yes, they made alcoholic drinks.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21And who do we think this lady is?
0:21:21 > 0:21:25Well, she might be representing a priestess or even the deity herself,
0:21:25 > 0:21:27we don't know exactly.
0:21:27 > 0:21:32But the fact that we have some symbolic elements in this scene
0:21:32 > 0:21:36allows us to hypothesise, to infer, that perhaps
0:21:36 > 0:21:38it wasn't an ordinary person.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41It must have been either a priestess or the deity.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46Fascinatingly, she is being worshipped,
0:21:46 > 0:21:51not just by bearded priests but by priestesses
0:21:51 > 0:21:53and crowds of devoted women.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58It is a tantalising glimpse of who it was back then
0:21:58 > 0:22:01who helped Aphrodite's cult flourish.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13The early Aphrodite was worshipped by everyone in the community
0:22:13 > 0:22:16but she seems to have had a particular following amongst women.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20We know this not just from pictures on pots,
0:22:20 > 0:22:27but from the first named woman writer in European history, Sappho.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32This enigmatic figure lived on the island of Lesbos
0:22:32 > 0:22:33in the seventh century BC.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37It's from her that we get our terms lesbian and Sapphic,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41because her sensual love poetry was addressed
0:22:41 > 0:22:44not to men but to other women.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49And she attributed that passion to her patron goddess, Aphrodite.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56I just love Sappho because she deals with Aphrodite
0:22:56 > 0:22:59in such an intimate, personal way.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03She describes one of the goddess's temples with real joy,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06talking about it being surrounded by fruit trees and roses
0:23:06 > 0:23:08and spring flowers.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12And she turns the deity into someone you can pray to directly
0:23:12 > 0:23:17for help. This is one of Sappho's hymns to Aphrodite.
0:23:19 > 0:23:20"O golden one.
0:23:20 > 0:23:22"You come down from the heavens,
0:23:22 > 0:23:26"my blessed goddess with a smile on your deathless face.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29"And you ask me what the matter was this time,
0:23:29 > 0:23:30"why I had called for you."
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Sappho's poetry brings vividly to life a world
0:23:35 > 0:23:38where women and young girls are joined in the worship
0:23:38 > 0:23:42of Aphrodite, and enjoying the pleasures of desire,
0:23:42 > 0:23:48but also confronting the pain and suffering that desire can generate.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54If I had my way, I think I'd have Sappho's hymns to Aphrodite
0:23:54 > 0:23:59taught in all schools, because she gets the experience of first love
0:23:59 > 0:24:00so perfectly.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04She describes fire creeping under your skin and the fact that you feel
0:24:04 > 0:24:08as if you are possessed, and she is actually the first person ever
0:24:08 > 0:24:11to describe love as being bittersweet.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15Although she's a bit more honest and she says that it's sweet,
0:24:15 > 0:24:16and then bitter.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Through Sappho, we can hear the intimate agonies
0:24:23 > 0:24:28and the yearning of a woman who lived 2,500 years ago.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33A rare and poignant portrait of Aphrodite in action.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40She reveals a deity with whom women felt a special connection
0:24:40 > 0:24:44and a driver of their intense homoerotic relationships.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51Because the ancients knew that desire wasn't confined
0:24:51 > 0:24:52to one gender.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56This figurine was found here at Amathus.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59The original dates from the sixth century BC
0:24:59 > 0:25:02and it seems to show a bearded Aphrodite.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08The goddess has got a woman's body and a man's face and facial hair.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13Now this is really interesting because there is a historian
0:25:13 > 0:25:16from Amathus called Paeon of Amathus who tells us
0:25:16 > 0:25:21that the Cypriot goddess sometimes took on the form of a man.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26Evidence like this has led some archaeologists and historians
0:25:26 > 0:25:30to suggest that the worshippers of Aphrodite were androgynous
0:25:30 > 0:25:31or sexually ambivalent.
0:25:33 > 0:25:34Well, maybe.
0:25:34 > 0:25:40But what this says to me is that by being both male and female,
0:25:40 > 0:25:45Aphrodite was nourishing sexuality in whatever form
0:25:45 > 0:25:48as a surging life force.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57And the bearded lady was by no means the oddest Aphrodite on Cyprus.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00There is another from the same time that reminds us
0:26:00 > 0:26:04that the ancients still saw Aphrodite as something dark
0:26:04 > 0:26:05and ineffable.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13This volcanic rock is the form that the goddess was worshipped in
0:26:13 > 0:26:18here at Paphos. Access to the stone was highly restricted,
0:26:18 > 0:26:20it was originally painted in white,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23and it would be oiled and decorated with flowers.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29It does feel very primordial and otherworldly, almost sci-fi
0:26:29 > 0:26:31and, frankly, a bit weird.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34But it's not just us who feel that way.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37The Roman author Tacitus, when he visited the site,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41said that the origins of the worship of Aphrodite
0:26:41 > 0:26:43in this form are obscure.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52The Greek poets might have made Aphrodite sensual and beautiful,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56but they had not extinguished the sometimes sinister ways
0:26:56 > 0:26:57that people imagined her.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07She is adored in a myriad of different forms...
0:27:08 > 0:27:13..as Aphrodite Homonoia, Aphrodite of union,
0:27:13 > 0:27:17Aphrodite Harmonia, Aphrodite of harmony,
0:27:17 > 0:27:23but also as Aphrodite Epistrophia, Aphrodite the deceiver,
0:27:23 > 0:27:27and Aphrodite Melainis, Aphrodite of the dark night.
0:27:31 > 0:27:37She was a creature of summer and winter, of life and of death.
0:27:40 > 0:27:41In the minds of the ancients,
0:27:41 > 0:27:46her power pulsed through the natural and supernatural world,
0:27:46 > 0:27:48creating and destroying at will.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55They saw her in the miracle of human and animal reproduction,
0:27:55 > 0:27:59the glue of mutual love and respect that holds societies together,
0:27:59 > 0:28:04but also the malignant desires that can destroy lives
0:28:04 > 0:28:06and pull communities apart.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19One example was the disturbing story of the Cypriot hero Cinyras.
0:28:19 > 0:28:24Cinyras was a priest and a king, and somehow his daughter
0:28:24 > 0:28:28offended Aphrodite, and in retribution, she punished her
0:28:28 > 0:28:33in the most awful way, by making her fall in love with her own father.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38Cinyras was tricked into sleeping with his daughter
0:28:38 > 0:28:41and, learning the horrific truth,
0:28:41 > 0:28:45he then advanced on her in a murderous rage.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47Just as he was about to kill her,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50Aphrodite took pity on the young girl and intervened
0:28:50 > 0:28:53and turned her into a tree.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57Now, this does something very typical of the classical myths,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00it makes men and women face up to the more troubling aspects
0:29:00 > 0:29:05of human society, to deal head-on with the darker
0:29:05 > 0:29:09and disturbing issues of being human.
0:29:12 > 0:29:15The myth of Cinyras is no exception.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19Aphrodite was more often than not a menacing figure
0:29:19 > 0:29:23who destroyed lives by inflicting perverse infatuations.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35I've come to meet Professor Paul Cartledge to try to thrash out
0:29:35 > 0:29:40what the Greeks meant by these disquieting stories.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43Well, she embodies a kind of love which isn't necessarily bad,
0:29:43 > 0:29:47but it has a risk of becoming divisive.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50And the Greeks were very conscious that Aphrodite and aphrodisia,
0:29:50 > 0:29:55sexual activity, was potentially dangerous, as well as profitable.
0:29:55 > 0:30:00Because they talk about Aphrodite's love as being maddening,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02creating this limb-loosening desire. And as you say,
0:30:02 > 0:30:04that is not a good thing because you are losing control.
0:30:04 > 0:30:09That's right. I mean, the basic Greek word for lust or desire
0:30:09 > 0:30:12we sometimes mistranslate as love,
0:30:12 > 0:30:14it is eros, and it is where we get erotic from.
0:30:14 > 0:30:20But for them, eros was potentially quite damaging. If you lose control,
0:30:20 > 0:30:23if you direct your lust at the wrong object,
0:30:23 > 0:30:27if you violently desire somebody physically, sexually,
0:30:27 > 0:30:31that's likely to cause the bad kind of strife.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34So Greeks tended to have a slightly, you could say,
0:30:34 > 0:30:37realistic or you could say a rather pessimistic notion
0:30:37 > 0:30:40of the relationship between love and hate.
0:30:40 > 0:30:41Really fascinating,
0:30:41 > 0:30:44because neuroscientists tell us now the boundary between love and hate
0:30:44 > 0:30:49is very, very slim, but the Greeks got there 2,500 years ago.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52Yeah. Aphrodite is a wonderful teacher,
0:30:52 > 0:30:56that is to say in her myths, all the various versions of her,
0:30:56 > 0:31:00you can learn that love is not any one simple thing.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03She herself, in Homer, is actually married.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05And not many gods and goddesses,
0:31:05 > 0:31:08apart from Hera and Zeus, are actually married to anybody.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11So it is quite interesting. There is almost a contradiction,
0:31:11 > 0:31:15that on the one hand, she is a free spirit, she commits adultery,
0:31:15 > 0:31:16she's a very bad girl.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21But on the other hand, she also is, if a couple are happy,
0:31:21 > 0:31:22sexually as well as others,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25then she also can be there, part of the household.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28And that seems to me why Aphrodite's story is so helpful,
0:31:28 > 0:31:33because it can help us all decode our lives and our world
0:31:33 > 0:31:35- in the 21st century. - I agree with that.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39I would like to think that we would privilege the gentle,
0:31:39 > 0:31:43the harmonious, the unanimity aspects of Aphrodite,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47rather than the eristic, that's to say the strife-torn version.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51But, yes, it certainly should be a shaping force.
0:31:51 > 0:31:55I sometimes wonder whether Aphrodite is the wound and bandage.
0:31:55 > 0:31:57Well, actually, that's a very ancient Greek thought,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00that the same god who causes damage is also the one that cures it.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10In our own society we're used to thinking in terms of good and evil,
0:32:12 > 0:32:15but the Greeks saw the world in a different way
0:32:15 > 0:32:19as the push and pull of multiple different forces,
0:32:19 > 0:32:24which could be good and bad, each represented by a god.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28In Aphrodite's case, that was the double-edged sword of humans' desire
0:32:28 > 0:32:29for one another.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33The ancients understood something about desire and lust
0:32:33 > 0:32:35that we can pussyfoot around a bit today.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41We celebrate desire when it gives us our first kiss,
0:32:41 > 0:32:45or a passionate relationship, or hot sex.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47But if you think about it,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51these are the same forces that can result in unrequited love,
0:32:51 > 0:32:58or abusive obsessive relationships, or sex crimes like rape and incest.
0:32:59 > 0:33:05Desire lures us into doing crazy things that can really wreck lives,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09and the Greeks didn't pretend that this bad stuff didn't happen.
0:33:13 > 0:33:17Instead, they gave these urges, both malign and benign,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21a name and a face, Aphrodite.
0:33:24 > 0:33:26Human relationships are hard.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28The Greeks got that.
0:33:28 > 0:33:30They didn't romanticise desire.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36Arguably, they challenge us to think more honestly about the problems
0:33:36 > 0:33:39that come with trying to live together.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47But the Greeks also set in train a kind of prejudice
0:33:47 > 0:33:50that proved worryingly tenacious.
0:33:59 > 0:34:04Increasingly in Greek myth Aphrodite was turned into a
0:34:04 > 0:34:09kind of home-breaker, inciting women in particular, and men,
0:34:09 > 0:34:10to do dark deeds.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13As the divine ally of Helen of Troy,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16she was blamed for the dread suffering of the Trojan War.
0:34:17 > 0:34:22It was said that Aphrodite was desperate to be declared the fairest
0:34:22 > 0:34:23of all the goddesses
0:34:23 > 0:34:26and so she offered the most beautiful woman in the world,
0:34:26 > 0:34:30Helen, to the Prince of Troy, Paris.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34Suffusing Helen with himeros, desire, she persuaded her
0:34:34 > 0:34:37to leave her home, her husband and her daughter and to run off
0:34:37 > 0:34:40with Paris with his glistening love locks.
0:34:42 > 0:34:47A hero race of godlike men were destroyed by rich-tressed Helen,
0:34:48 > 0:34:49Aphrodite's plaything.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58There is an implication that sexual union with women
0:34:58 > 0:35:02is an inescapable curse that weakens men.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10Aphrodite and her son, Eros, drive men mad with their entrapping nets
0:35:10 > 0:35:12and poisoned arrows...
0:35:14 > 0:35:19..and mortal women are credited with dangerous sexual appetites.
0:35:22 > 0:35:26Sex, or Ta Aphrodisia,
0:35:26 > 0:35:29the things of Aphrodite, as it was called in the ancient world,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32was increasingly thought to be an inconvenient distraction
0:35:32 > 0:35:37from the manly business of fighting and empire building,
0:35:37 > 0:35:38and a woman's fault.
0:35:42 > 0:35:47The root of much of the denigration of Aphrodite, and then Venus,
0:35:47 > 0:35:49lies in the ancient world itself.
0:35:50 > 0:35:55It was in ancient Greece that the goddess first became an object
0:35:55 > 0:35:58to ogle at, as well as idolise.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05The development of naturalistic sculpture offered human forms
0:36:05 > 0:36:07that you could lust after.
0:36:12 > 0:36:13In the fourth century BC,
0:36:13 > 0:36:19Praxiteles of Athens carved the legendary Aphrodite of Knidos.
0:36:21 > 0:36:26The original is lost, but it was the first full-sized
0:36:26 > 0:36:30naked female stone sculpture in Greek history.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34It was so intensely sensuous that it became emblematic
0:36:34 > 0:36:37and was copied in its own time and for centuries after.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43The original statue is said to have attracted countless pilgrims,
0:36:43 > 0:36:47but also those with less high-minded intentions.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53The story goes that a young man broke into the sanctuary
0:36:53 > 0:36:57where the statue was standing and copulated with it,
0:36:57 > 0:37:01permanently staining the marble thigh with his passion.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05I actually think this is a horrible story,
0:37:05 > 0:37:09because it disrespects and downgrades the goddess
0:37:09 > 0:37:12at a time when pretty much the same thing was happening
0:37:12 > 0:37:15to the flesh-and-blood women of the ancient world,
0:37:15 > 0:37:20because there is no doubt that by now real Greek women
0:37:20 > 0:37:23were second-class citizens.
0:37:23 > 0:37:25They were fed half-rations,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28they were restricted indoors during daylight hours
0:37:28 > 0:37:32and they were encouraged to be silent and restrained.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39The Aphrodite of Knidos started a craze for seductive nudity
0:37:39 > 0:37:42that became the basis for all depictions of the goddess.
0:37:44 > 0:37:47It was as if Aphrodite's multifaceted personality
0:37:47 > 0:37:52had been stripped to focus on physical beauty alone.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01But Aphrodite's warrior past was set to rise again.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06The Romans, the new masters of the ancient world,
0:38:06 > 0:38:09would take the goddess and transform her
0:38:09 > 0:38:13into one of the most powerful deities in their pantheon.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26In ancient Rome, they had once worshipped a goddess of their own,
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Venus, who also governed desire and fertility.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39But the Greeks had such a cultural influence on Rome
0:38:39 > 0:38:42that by the end of the third century BC,
0:38:42 > 0:38:47Venus and Aphrodite were officially declared to be one and the same.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51To the Romans, Venus was a key figure.
0:38:53 > 0:38:55She was the mother of Aeneas,
0:38:55 > 0:38:59Trojan hero and the founding father of Rome.
0:38:59 > 0:39:04So, highborn Romans traced their lineage right back to the goddess.
0:39:05 > 0:39:07One highborn Roman in particular.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12Julius Caesar made a point of publicising and amplifying the fact
0:39:12 > 0:39:15that Venus had birthed Aeneas,
0:39:15 > 0:39:18and that his own family were descended from Aeneas
0:39:18 > 0:39:21and therefore from the goddess.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25He actually had this coin minted with Venus on one side
0:39:25 > 0:39:27and his name Caesar there,
0:39:27 > 0:39:31and the picture is of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34who was Venus's lover, as they escaped from Troy.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41Here in Rome, he pushed the point even further.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45The year that Caesar was made dictator,
0:39:45 > 0:39:49he built this massive temple for Venus Genetrix,
0:39:49 > 0:39:52Venus the mother or ancestor.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56Venus Aphrodite was becoming a political tool.
0:40:00 > 0:40:02Caesar was also the first Roman
0:40:02 > 0:40:05to give the goddess martial iconography.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10Because Aphrodite was the mother of Rome, she couldn't be a meek,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13gentle goddess, and so she was armed.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18She appears dressed in armour on coins and on an engraved ring
0:40:18 > 0:40:20that Caesar always wore.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25It feels as though Caesar's Aphrodite is a bit more
0:40:25 > 0:40:29like those ferocious Middle Eastern goddesses Inanna and Ishtar,
0:40:29 > 0:40:33who are there right at the beginning of Aphrodite's story.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39And there was another connection with the East.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43In the first century BC, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,
0:40:43 > 0:40:45lived in Rome as Caesar's lover.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49Already associated with the Egyptian goddess of fertility, Isis,
0:40:49 > 0:40:53she was immediately identified with Aphrodite Venus,
0:40:53 > 0:40:58and a statue of her erected in the Temple of Venus Genetrix.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01After the assassination of Julius Caesar,
0:41:01 > 0:41:06Mark Antony gave Cyprus as a love token to Cleopatra.
0:41:06 > 0:41:11The living embodiment of Aphrodite was given Aphrodite's isle.
0:41:13 > 0:41:17Cleopatra blatantly exploited her connection to the goddess of sex
0:41:17 > 0:41:19and fertility.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24She dressed as Venus Aphrodite right down to the golden sandals
0:41:24 > 0:41:26and perfumed oils,
0:41:26 > 0:41:31and she even had coils of golden hair tendrilling down her neck.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35Actually that became so popular that Roman ladies would replicate it,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38although, rather gruesomely,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41they used the hair of captive Germanic slaves.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45Now, I'm sure that Cleopatra,
0:41:45 > 0:41:48who genuinely believed that she was the embodiment of Isis and of the
0:41:48 > 0:41:53fertility of Egypt, wasn't doing any of this cynically.
0:41:53 > 0:41:54But there's a problem,
0:41:54 > 0:42:00because once looking like Aphrodite becomes a high-end fashion choice,
0:42:00 > 0:42:04inevitably the goddess acquires the characteristics of a pin-up.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14By the time of Caesar's successor, Augustus,
0:42:14 > 0:42:19Aphrodite Venus had once again come to symbolise sex,
0:42:19 > 0:42:22passion and excess, but this began to sit uncomfortably
0:42:22 > 0:42:24with Roman society.
0:42:29 > 0:42:31Emperor Augustus publicly venerated Venus
0:42:31 > 0:42:33because of her links to Caesar,
0:42:33 > 0:42:38but privately she symbolised all he claimed to despise.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41He introduced a new moral code,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44encouraging Romans to be modest and to live within their means.
0:42:45 > 0:42:49Venus Aphrodite was being pushed into the shadows.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06This is just a small thing,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10but it's a brilliant bit of evidence for what was going on.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14It's a fragment of a wall painting that would originally have been
0:43:14 > 0:43:16in a fancy Roman villa.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19It's obviously Aphrodite.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21She's there gorgeously naked,
0:43:21 > 0:43:27with her goddess halo and her arm in that typically flirtatious gesture,
0:43:27 > 0:43:29plucking at her drapery.
0:43:29 > 0:43:34But what's really interesting is where this would have been
0:43:34 > 0:43:35in the villa.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39This would have been painted on the wall of a private backroom,
0:43:39 > 0:43:43a bit like a kind of dirty secret,
0:43:43 > 0:43:47an escapist, charged symbol of sensual pleasure,
0:43:47 > 0:43:52and of the now frowned upon luxury of Roman highlife.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57Things only got worse for the once powerful goddess
0:43:57 > 0:44:01when Christianity was adopted as the official religion of Rome.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06The last bastions of organised worship of Venus and Aphrodite
0:44:06 > 0:44:10were eradicated in the fourth century AD,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13when the Emperor Theodosius the Great passed a series of decrees
0:44:13 > 0:44:16prohibiting any kind of sacrifice,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19oracle or chanting in honour of the pagan gods.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27All around the Mediterranean, in Africa, Asia and Europe,
0:44:27 > 0:44:31Aphrodite's statues, still thought to contain the potent spirit
0:44:31 > 0:44:35of the pagan goddess, were watched warily,
0:44:35 > 0:44:39or when times were hard, were brought crashing down as scapegoats.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43Churches were built on her temple sites,
0:44:43 > 0:44:47even here at her once great sanctuary Paphos.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55Venus Aphrodite, in all reforms,
0:44:55 > 0:44:58had been worshipped across the Mediterranean
0:44:58 > 0:45:02for thousands of years. Now her altars were neglected and bare.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09It was the end of Venus's worship as a goddess,
0:45:09 > 0:45:12but it's by no means the end of her story.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26For a millennium and a half, Europe has been living with Christianity,
0:45:26 > 0:45:31a religion which has often taken a dim view of sex and sexuality.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38But now you can walk around the galleries of the world
0:45:38 > 0:45:40surrounded by Venuses.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46The Renaissance kindled an ongoing fascination with antiquity.
0:45:48 > 0:45:54Venus is back, but as a rather different kind of creature.
0:45:55 > 0:45:59And there's one place that I think exemplifies that rebirth.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16In one of the great houses of the English aristocracy,
0:46:16 > 0:46:19built 1,200 years after Venus worship was banned,
0:46:20 > 0:46:24almost every corner is devoted to the goddess of love
0:46:24 > 0:46:26and her familiars.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33This place is really quite extraordinary,
0:46:33 > 0:46:36because at every turn there's a Venus or Aphrodite.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41Over there on the wall, I don't know if you can see, there is Aphrodite
0:46:41 > 0:46:43nicking one of Cupid's arrows.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49And then up here she's teasing Cupid again, stealing his bow,
0:46:49 > 0:46:50holding it away from him.
0:46:54 > 0:46:55And then if you look up at the ceiling,
0:46:55 > 0:47:00it is a celebration of all the stories in Aphrodite's life.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09This is West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13home to the Dashwood family for the past 400 years.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19This collection of Venuses is the life's work of Sir Francis Dashwood,
0:47:19 > 0:47:21the house's most notorious occupant.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28In the 1740s, Sir Francis, like many gentlemen of his age,
0:47:28 > 0:47:30had gone on the Grand Tour,
0:47:30 > 0:47:34a journey through Europe and across the Ottoman Empire,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38and he fell in love with the culture of the classical world.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44But there was something else.
0:47:44 > 0:47:46Like many other young men of the time,
0:47:46 > 0:47:49he also got his first taste of life away from his parents
0:47:49 > 0:47:54and schoolteachers. Young and single, with money to burn
0:47:54 > 0:47:57in romantic, exotic locations,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00Dashwood clearly came to associate the civilisations
0:48:00 > 0:48:04that he encountered with sexual freedom and behaviour
0:48:04 > 0:48:08well beyond the bounds of polite society.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13Sir Francis and others like him found sex and the classics
0:48:13 > 0:48:16at one and the same time.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20They conceived a vision of the ancient world as a sexual playground
0:48:20 > 0:48:24they could imitate shockingly back home.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27And, my goodness, he went for it.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30He used to like to depict himself as a monk,
0:48:30 > 0:48:34although rather than kneeling before God or the Virgin Mary
0:48:34 > 0:48:39he'd be paying his respects to the goddess Venus Aphrodite.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43It's not just a fantasy.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46He formed, we're told, a monastic fraternity
0:48:46 > 0:48:48of like-minded dilettantes,
0:48:48 > 0:48:53who dressed as monks and held pagan-inspired orgies.
0:48:54 > 0:48:55They'd meet twice a week,
0:48:55 > 0:48:59on Wednesdays and Saturdays during parliamentary recess,
0:48:59 > 0:49:01most of them were MPs,
0:49:01 > 0:49:06to engage in orgiastic and hedonistic rituals.
0:49:06 > 0:49:10Their motto was "fais ce que tu voudras".
0:49:10 > 0:49:12"Do whatever you would like."
0:49:12 > 0:49:16And outsiders can only begin to imagine what went on.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Every sacred rite of religion was profaned, said one.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26There were rumours of women freely available to members.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30Contemporaries knew them as the Hellfire Club.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36For these public schoolboys,
0:49:36 > 0:49:40wide-eyed with the sensuous pleasures of the Mediterranean,
0:49:40 > 0:49:42Aphrodite was being reclaimed,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46a patron of the pleasures of the flesh,
0:49:46 > 0:49:50a gorgeous antidote to the dour repression of Christianity.
0:49:57 > 0:49:59In the grounds of the park,
0:49:59 > 0:50:03Dashwood actually erected his own Temple of Venus.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06The room underneath it was said by one of the members to be oval,
0:50:06 > 0:50:10in imitation of the female sex organs,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13which gives you an idea what was really on his mind.
0:50:16 > 0:50:20Now, you could argue that the goddess was being rehabilitated.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22She's being revered once again,
0:50:22 > 0:50:25and she is helping to spearhead a kind of sexual revolution.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30There is a big part of me that thinks that the cult of Venus here
0:50:30 > 0:50:33was really just a cover-up for something more mundane
0:50:33 > 0:50:36and probably even sordid.
0:50:36 > 0:50:42The men involved were politicians and academics and aristocrats.
0:50:42 > 0:50:43And the women?
0:50:43 > 0:50:47Well, they were call girls and courtesans and prostitutes.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51I mean, this was hardly a paradise of free and equal love.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56Although for some Aphrodite Venus was definitely once again
0:50:56 > 0:50:59the subject of adoration,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02I'm pretty sure also what she's doing here
0:51:02 > 0:51:04is becoming an agent of exploitation.
0:51:07 > 0:51:11With Venus as their figurehead, men like Dashwood across Europe
0:51:11 > 0:51:15were indulging in their own kind of sexual liberation.
0:51:19 > 0:51:21Venus was back on a pedestal.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26But once more she'd become something to leer at.
0:51:36 > 0:51:40In many ways, that is now Venus's diminished legacy...
0:51:41 > 0:51:46..our own world's obsession with the naked female form.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52It began with Botticelli.
0:51:53 > 0:51:55Painted in the 1480s,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58when classical subjects were coming back into vogue,
0:51:58 > 0:52:02this imagining of Venus's Cypriot birth is, in many ways,
0:52:02 > 0:52:04the birth of the modern nude.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09Other gods and goddesses could be naked,
0:52:09 > 0:52:12but Venus was the one who by her nature
0:52:12 > 0:52:15was supposed to inspire desire and love.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19That challenged artists to produce ever raunchier images.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34Take this striking 17th-century painting.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39There is Aphrodite Venus, a satyr and her son, Cupid.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43But here Aphrodite has become available.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46She's little more than a sex object,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49with Cupid resting after picking off his mortal victims
0:52:49 > 0:52:51with those poisoned arrows.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56What has survived from the ancient world is her nakedness,
0:52:56 > 0:52:59and that's a very tenacious part of her appeal.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04Aphrodite might no longer be regarded as a goddess,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07but she was still big box office.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14The models from most of these paintings were courtesans,
0:53:14 > 0:53:19and so the boundary between an image of Venus and one of a prostitute
0:53:19 > 0:53:21was becoming increasingly blurred.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25In Velazquez's painting, it's only the Cupid in the corner
0:53:25 > 0:53:27that makes the distinction clear.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34It was this salacious version of the goddess that angered and frustrated
0:53:34 > 0:53:37the suffragette who slashed her painting
0:53:37 > 0:53:39in the National Gallery in 1914.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45It's a sad fate for a goddess who was originally a protector
0:53:45 > 0:53:47and figurehead for women.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51Women, long associated with the goddess,
0:53:51 > 0:53:54it seems were turning against Aphrodite.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58She'd become an object of political frustration,
0:53:58 > 0:54:00rather than a subject of adoration.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08But the story doesn't end there.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13The Venus of sculptures and painters might have become a cipher
0:54:13 > 0:54:16for men's fascination with the female body,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21but if you know where to look you can find places where Venus,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25the sacred figure, has found a way to live on.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38In Cyprus, every Easter a festival takes place.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45On Good Friday, the women of the community get together and pick
0:54:45 > 0:54:49flowers to decorate an empty bier for the crucified Christ,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54in the hope that he'll be resurrected on the third day.
0:54:56 > 0:55:01But it's a festival that doesn't have its origins in Christianity,
0:55:01 > 0:55:05because the women of Cyprus were doing the same thing
0:55:05 > 0:55:10for another hero centuries before Christ's birth and death.
0:55:13 > 0:55:19Aphrodite, as you may recall, had fallen madly in love with Adonis,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22but her passion was unrequited.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26And then, to boot, he was gored to death by a wild boar.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33Desperate, running to him, thorns tore at her skin as she passed,
0:55:33 > 0:55:35colouring roses red.
0:55:35 > 0:55:40And then she in turn transformed his blood into anemone flowers.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45Wailing and tearing at her chest in distraction,
0:55:45 > 0:55:49the intensity of her passion brought Adonis back to life.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51And this was a story that was remembered
0:55:51 > 0:55:54across the classical world in a yearly festival called the Adonia.
0:55:55 > 0:55:59Women would make a wooden image of Adonis, put it on a wooden plank,
0:55:59 > 0:56:03and then decorate it in flowers in the hope that they would bring it
0:56:03 > 0:56:06back to life. They would wail and beat at their chests
0:56:06 > 0:56:09in sympathy with Aphrodite.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13When Christianity came to Cyprus,
0:56:13 > 0:56:16these themes of resurrection and new life were translated
0:56:16 > 0:56:19into the Easter rituals.
0:56:19 > 0:56:24So, in many ways the spirit of Aphrodite still lives on.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30If Adonis has become Jesus, then Aphrodite,
0:56:30 > 0:56:34the divine woman who mourned him, is now the Virgin Mary.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39A church to Mary, All-Holy even stands on the site
0:56:39 > 0:56:44of the ancient temple to Aphrodite, all-powerful Queen of Heaven.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51The goddess has influenced so many archetypes we have of womanhood
0:56:51 > 0:56:56today, from the seductive temptress,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59even in some places to the Madonna herself.
0:57:10 > 0:57:16Whatever we call her, Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar or Inanna,
0:57:16 > 0:57:19somehow this goddess remains alive in our minds,
0:57:19 > 0:57:23a figure that embodies for us those feelings inside
0:57:23 > 0:57:27that draw us to one another and that pull us apart.
0:57:31 > 0:57:36It seems to be a human need, to dwell on and to hold in awe
0:57:36 > 0:57:42that immortal, beguiling force that drives us as humans.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52The men and women of the ancient world understood
0:57:52 > 0:57:57that desire was complex, dangerous, hugely powerful
0:57:57 > 0:57:59and worthy of respect.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03We insult desire's divine incarnation
0:58:03 > 0:58:09if we reduce Venus Aphrodite merely to a patron of physical love.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12Instead we should remember, as the ancients did,
0:58:12 > 0:58:18that desire is transformative, and not always in a good way,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22and that it's down to us to make desire our ally,
0:58:22 > 0:58:25not our undoing.