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[330] The name Κύπρις is used only in this episode (422, 458, 760, 883), and the Cyprian worship of Aphrodite is not elsewhere alluded to in the Iliad. Her connexion with Paphos appears, however, in the certainly late passage Od. 8.362, which in several respects may be compared with the adventures of the gods recorded in the present book. In the sequel Kypris is made the daughter of Dione (371), an ancient goddess, probably pre-Hellenic, the wife of the Pelasgian Zeus at Dodona. It is certain, therefore, that the name cannot be meant to imply the Cyprian origin of the goddess. Enmann (Kypros p. 21) suggests that the name is really European, and compares the Italian Dea Cupra (of whom we know nothing but the title); and that the Greeks named the island from the goddess, not vice versa, when they colonized it, and, in their usual fashion, identified their Aphrodite with the Phoenician Astarte whom they found in possession. Cyprus is alluded to in H. only in “δ, θ, ρ”, and the clearly late passage 11.21, but Aphrodite is fully established as an Olympian, and shews no sign of Phoenician parentage.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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