Hands-on with the Goddess of
My very own Aphrodite was standing next to me in the glistening sea. We had just a few more minutes until sunrise. I was hands-on with a naked Goddess of Love, getting more Max Factor Panstik onto her white bits with a sponge and then spreading it evenly to match the surrounding suntanned body. She was carefully adjusting her wig to replicate Renaissance paintings of the Goddess Aphrodite being born from the foamy sea.
By Terry Walker | from My Life, In Words
| By Terry Walker | AS21072024 | 5 minute read |
The Paphos Beach Hotel was in the last stages of construction on land above a sandy beach that curved around the bay to the small harbour of Paphos, guarded by a 13th-century Ottoman fort. A string of local bars and restaurants lined the harbourside. It was unspoilt; it was idyllic because, in the 1970s, Paphos was the least developed town in Cyprus. A quality 4-star hotel on the beach had great potential. I had gained the marketing contract six months earlier through London contacts, so I flew out and got to work quickly in producing a marketing plan and copywriting a sales brochure.
I quickly embraced the Aphrodite myth as a good gambit for attracting tourists, as it had been for 3,000 years or more. Paphos had been a favourite holiday destination for the elite of ancient Rome. The area was dotted with palaces and luxury holiday villas that contained some of the finest mosaic floors. Aphrodite was their Venus, worshipped for love and fertility.
The temples in which the ancients worshipped this goddess might be in ruin, but hey, a local myth suggests that anyone who swims around Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite’s Rock) will be blessed with eternal beauty. Good for looks and good for the soul. Good place for a holiday. Good for business for the new hotel.
Aphrodite had a key role to play. I could write siren words to tempt tourists to Paphos, but it needed strong images to support the Aphrodite messaging. The photoshoot was vital. We had deadlines to meet and I wanted print runs of up to 500,000 copies in three languages to help spread the word through travel companies.
According to Homer’s Iliad, Aphrodite was born of the foam that covered the Pathos shoreline and she ascended to Mount Olympus, home of the gods. That bit about the foam might just be true. At certain times of the year, along this stretch of the coast, a natural phenomenon of foaming sudsy sea occurs – but not this month. So, we brought a truckload of our own soapy suds for the photoshoot.
The photographer yelled that we needed more foam around Aphrodite’s naked body. I left off on the bum work, hauled drums of detergent from our truck to the water’s edge, and tipped the contents into the sea. Then, I spread the suds around the reclining goddess with a large yard brush.
Temples dedicated to Aphrodite
I quickly discovered saltwater and detergents are not the best mixers, so getting up a head of foam was hard work as the waves swept in.
Eventually, the photographer was happy with the foam and worked around the posed Aphrodite, using fill-in flash for some shots. He got the main picture as the goddess emerged from the foam. The rising sun nudged over Petra tou Romiou, illuminating her long hair, reaching just short of her now dulled-down derriere. This replicated the scenario that every Greek and Greek Cypriot had learned about at school. And, for the most part, believed in.
Ruins of ancient temples dedicated to Aphrodite were close by, and figurines of the goddess, dating back to 700 BC, were unearthed.
The legend of Aphrodite was still big in Cyprus. As the photo session concluded, the first truck of the day, grinding its way along the bumpy coast road from Limassol to Paphos, screeched to a halt alongside the beach. Its driver leapt from his cab and raced towards the foaming sea, yelling, “Afroditi, esy” (“Aphrodite, Aphrodite – it is you.”)
He couldn’t see the photographer and me packing away the kit in the lee of the low cliffs. However, he got an eyeful of the nude Aphrodite, all right. She was standing in the shallows, recovering from the sea’s buffeting. This scene had been imprinted in the trucker’s mind since his early school days and was now happening before his very eyes.
She spoke in a God-like tone
The truck driver kept running towards the mythical figure but stopped short as the goddess raised her right arm majestically, with two fingers extended and formed into the internationally recognised symbol of virility, the V-sign. She spoke unto him in a God-like tone: “Fuck off, will you”… Even as Aphrodite gave her fond farewells, the driver turned tail and ran back to his truck. We could hear the frantic grinding of his gear changes disappearing into the distance.
Retelling that close encounter with his mates in the taverna later might suggest to them that too much of last night’s ouzo remained in his bloodstream… Conversely, some of them might remind him of my appeal on Cyprus TV the previous week for local girls to apply for the role of Aphrodite in our upcoming photoshoot.
None had applied, leaving it to a German model holidaying on the island to play the goddess. And to bid a fond farewell to a local she rose to her legendary place with other Gods atop nearby Mount Olympus.