Aphrodite

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worshipped by Greek warriors before going into battle. According to Getty, the beautiful young woman was seen as being a symbol for all that the men were fighting for. Thus, the goddess was "called upon to drive the men into battle-frenzy in order to satisfy their honour and the need to protect their 'property'" (Getty 23). Just as there are similarities in theme between the Greek and Near Eastern versions of , there are also certain similarities to be found in comparing her poses and gestures in the art of those two regions.
Basically, the Near Eastern depictions of the goddess were less naturalistic than those of the Greeks. The Greeks sought to "humanize" , as well as the other deities, in their art. In this way, an effort was made to show a relationship between human beings and the gods. By contrast, Near Eastern representations sought to maintain a distance between worshipper and deity. The goddess statues of that region often avoided realism by using simple geometric ...

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of her. Another rare Near Eastern female nude can be seen in a stone statue from approximately 1000 B.C. In sharp contrast to the norm of the period, this figure of the goddess depicts the nude human body "with loving care" (Parrot 161). Apparently, the Phoenicians went against the Near Eastern tradition in this respect. Interestingly, although the Greeks became famous for showing in the nude, they did not start out by posing her in this way. Thus, as noted by Honour and Fleming, the Phoenician goddess Astarte, "usually nude in her homeland, was clothed by the Greeks when they transformed her into " (98).
Prior to about the 4th century B.C., the Greek depictions of were ...

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