Aphrodite and the queens: a look at the women’s power in Hellenistic Greece

Abstract

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, and was especially popular for women, in a patriarchal society was women were defined in relation –particularly sexual– to men. But she was as well expression of a essentially feminine power: the power of seduction. The queens of the Hellenistic world (3th-1st centuries BC) were frequently associated to Aphrodite, as part of a propaganda that emphasized their role as dynastic mothers and wives, and benefactresses for the community. In this way, the conjugal love between king and queen was presented as a guarantee of both rightful succession and people’s prosperity. But this association also symbolized and emphasized the queen’s power in a public (political) level, at they same time it pointed to their limitations as women.

Keywords

• reinas
• poder
• divinidad
• amor
• mundo helenístico