What do the legends say?
Aphrodite fell in love with Adonis, son of Myrrha and Theia, and who was passionate about hunting. One day, Adonis went into the forest in search of animals, and did so forgetting a piece of advice that the Greek goddess had given him. The advice Aphrodite had given him was that he should be very careful with animals that seemed not to be afraid. However, Adonis ignored this recommendation of the goddess when he came upon a wild boar and this was the end of his life.
The legend tells that Aphrodite was running after the body of her lover when suddenly she cut herself and her blood turned a white rose into a red rose.
It’s said that the wild boar was Ares, Olympic god of war, and the ex-lover of Aphrodite, who was jealous of the goddess of love’s adoration of Adonis.
“The jealousy of Cybele”
This second legend that we will tell you about also relates red roses with the goddess Aphrodite. On this occasion, Cybele, a Phrygian goddess by origin, and goddess of Mother Earth, was so jealous of the beautiful Aphrodite that she decided to create something that would compete with the beauty of the Greek goddess. So, the red rose was born, a beautiful flower created by Cybele as revenge against Aphrodite.
“Aphrodite, who emerged from the sea, and Dionysus”
The third legend about red roses says that Aphrodite, after being born in the sea, put her power to the test by creating a white rose that she always had on her chest.
The goddess, who used this white rose as an adornment, met Dionysus, the god of the grape harvest, who spilled a bit of wine on the white flower thus converting it into a red rose.