Long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of Aphrodite being born from the foam of the sea, she existed as an early spirit of fertility in Cyprus, and a warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an emblem of commercialized romance, Bettany Hughes traces one of antiquity's most enduring myths from Mesopotamia to modern-day London, and from Botticelli to Beyoncé.