Adonis.
    The offspring of an incestuous relationship between King Cinyras of Cyprus and his daughter, Myrrha, Adonis was a young hunter of great beauty. His comeliness attracted the attention of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus) and they became lovers; Aphrodite bore him two children.
    One day, despite Aphrodite’s constant fears for his safety, Adonis went out hunting and was killed by a wild boar. (In some versions of the myth, the boar was either a jealous Hephaestus or Ares in disguise.)
     Aphrodite sprinkled nectar on Adonis’s blood, causing a flower to spring up: the anemone, which matures and dies quickly. It is also said that as Aphrodite hastened to the side of dying Adonis, her foot was pierced by the thorn of a rose; her blood, staining the white flower’s petals, turned them henceforth red.
    A variant of the myth cites Adonis as the son of Theias and Smyrna. In this tale. Aphrodite hid the infant in a box and left him for safekeeping with Persephone, who then refused to return the child to Aphrodite. Finally Zeus interceded, ruling that Adonis would spend half of each year on earth with Aphrodite and the other half in the underworld with Persephone.
    Adonis is thought of as a vegetation and fertility god, similar to the Babylonian Tammuz, from whom his cult of death and resurrection may have developed. His name probably stemmed from the Semitic “Adon” (“Lord”). Adonis was probably brought to Greece in the fifth century BCE through Cyprus, where he was worshiped at the site of Amathus. The cult functioned only in association with Aphrodite, although Adonis was also linked with Eros (Cupid).
    Artistic representations commonly depict Aphrodite and Adonis as lovers, the goddess trying to restrain the youth from the hunt, Adonis’s death, and Aphrodite mourning.


See also
    Astarte; Myrrha.