7. In Corinth, however, and Sicyon, the worship of APHRODITE as well as of Dionysus was established. It seems probable that the worship of that deity had indeed a native origin in Greece, but that it had been extended and modified by Phœnician settlers in some of the maritime towns. The institution of the “hospitable damsels,”(1695) whom the goddess their mistress herself ordered to be at the disposal of strangers,(1696) was undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and unknown to the ancient Greeks.(1697) Sicyon, however, appears to have derived the worship of these two deities from Corinth, the coins of which city generally have a dove,(1698) and frequently also a head of Aphrodite of ancient workmanship; and the native poetess Praxilla (452 B.C.) addressed Aphrodite as the mother of Dionysus,(1699) and sang of the joys and woes of the Phœnician Adonis.(1700) While again the Dorians of these maritime cities had a certain susceptibility, flexibleness, and softness of character, the very contrary of all these qualities distinguished the Spartans. For although that state came into connexion with a Phœnician establishment of the worship of Aphrodite in the island of Cythera, they transformed it while they adopted it, and had their own armed Aphrodite, and the chained and veiled goddess of marriage.(1701) From the same island also they received the god Adonis under the name of Ciris.(1702) Aphrodite, however, enjoyed greater honours in the Spartan colony of Cnidos, whence she went to Halicarnassus under the title of Acræa, and from thence to the mother city Trœzen.(1703) The worship of Aphrodite at Selinus in the west of Sicily(1704) was doubtless derived from the neighbouring town of Eryx, and was consequently also Phœnician; and the temple was probably one of the wealthiest of that once flourishing city.(1705)
The worship of HERMES does not appear to have prevailed in any Doric state; in one respect he was superseded by Apollo Agyieus. The same may nearly be said of HEPHÆSTUS and ARES, the latter of whom was worshipped by the Spartans under the names of Theritas and Enyalius. Of the worship of ÆSCULAPIUS it has been already(1706) mentioned that it was derived to Cos, Cnidos, and Rhodes, from Epidaurus, which state again had in ancient times received it through the Phlegyans from Tricca.(1707) From Epidaurus, according to Pausanias,(1708) also came the worship of Sicyon, and the Cyrenæan at Balagræ,(1709) with which, as at Cos, an ancient school of physicians was connected.(1710)