As the custom of religious prostitution at Paphos is said to
have been founded by king Cinyras and observed by his daughters, we
may surmise that the kings of Paphos played the part of the divine
bridegroom in a less innocent rite than the form of marriage with a
statue; in fact, that at certain festivals each of them had to mate
with one or more of the sacred harlots of the temple, who played
Astarte to his Adonis. If that was so, there is more truth than has
commonly been supposed in the reproach cast by the Christian fathers
that the Aphrodite worshipped by Cinyras was a common whore. The
fruit of their union would rank as sons and daughters of the deity,
and would in time become the parents of gods and goddesses, like
their fathers and mothers before them. In this manner Paphos, and
perhaps all sanctuaries of the great Asiatic goddess where sacred
prostitution was practised, might be well stocked with human
deities, the offspring of the divine king by his wives, concubines,
and temple harlots. Any one of these might probably succeed his
father on the throne or be sacrificed in his stead whenever stress
of war or other grave junctures called, as they sometimes did, for
the death of a royal victim.
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