Pausanias tells us that the Spartans worshipped *Aphrodite Hoplismeni* (~armed) and *Aphrodite Areia* (~of Ares, warlike): > [[Paus. 3.15.10][1]] Not far from the theatre is a sanctuary of Poseidon God of Kin, and there are hero-shrines of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, and of Oebalus. The most famous of their sanctuaries of Asclepius has been built near Booneta, and on the left is the hero-shrine of Teleclus. I shall mention him again later in my history of Messenia. A little farther on is a small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of Aphrodite armed. This is the only temple I know that has an upper storey built upon it. > [[Paus. 3.17.5][2]] On the left of the Lady of the Bronze House they have set up a sanctuary of the Muses, because the Lacedaemonians used to go out to fight, not to the sound of the trumpet, but to the music of the flute and the accompaniment of lyre and harp. Behind the Lady of the Bronze House is a temple of Aphrodite Areia (Warlike). The wooden images are as old as any in Greece. > [[Paus. 3.23.1][3]] Cythera lies opposite Boeae; to the promontory of Platanistus, the point where the island lies nearest to the mainland, it is a voyage of forty stades from a promontory on the mainland called Onugnathus. In Cythera is a port Scandeia on the coast, but the town Cythera is about ten stades inland from Scandeia. The sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania (the Heavenly) is most holy, and it is the most ancient of all the sanctuaries of Aphrodite among the Greeks. The goddess herself is represented by an armed image of wood. > <sub>Source: Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918</sub> Why would the goddess of love, beauty, and procreation be armed? She wasn't exactly known for her military attributes. In fact, in [Book 5 of the Iliad][4] Zeus very bluntly dismisses her abilities as a warrior: > Of a surety now Cypris has been urging some one of the women of Achaea to follow after the Trojans, whom now she so wondrously loveth; and while stroking such a one of the fair-robed women of Achaea, she hath scratched upon her golden brooch her delicate hand.” So spake she, but the father of men and gods smiled, and calling to him golden Aphrodite, said: “Not unto thee, my child, are given works of war; nay, follow thou after the lovely works of marriage, and all these things shall be the business of swift Ares and Athene.” > <sub>Source: Homer. The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.</sub> Was this militaristic version of Aphrodite a Lacedaemonian peculiarity? Could, perhaps, these images that are "are as old as any in Greece" be an allusion to Ishtar, an echo of Aphrodite's Mesopotamian origins? [1]: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.15.10 [2]: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.17.5 [3]: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.23.1 [4]: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:5.416-5.459