ABSTRACT
On the east frieze of the Parthenon on the Athenian acropolis, the Olympian deities sit in two groups. In one of these groups, Eros leans against Aphrodite. Behind Aphrodite sits Artemis, and this goddess has her hand going through the crook of Aphrodite’s arm, so that her left palm rests on Aphrodite’s right arm below the elbow. 1 At first sight, this seems odd: the virgin goddess and the goddess of love and sensuality, arm in arm. But these deities are much more complex than this. Artemis is a goddess of virgins – but in the sense that she helps them pass from the state of virginity to that of motherhood, and women cried out to her to ease the labour of childbirth. She was not in that sense inimical to marriage, and in fact could be its patron. Similarly, Aphrodite can be seen simply as a goddess of sensual love, or of prostitutes. But in addition, she too had oversight of marriage, and is worshipped by the ‘respectable’ woman on the Ludovisi Throne. In many ways, these were not opposing deities – that would be a simplistic notion – rather they were in many ways complementary, both deities being worshipped by the citizen wives of classical Athens. When they were married, the dangers and difficulties of childbirth automatically ‘directed’ women towards deities such as Artemis and Asklepios.
