Aphrodite (Roman Venus), daughter of Zeus and Dione (in the Iliad there is no mention of the nasty story of her birth from the severed genitals of Uranus), laughter-loving goddess of Love and Sex. She is the mother of Aeneas by the Trojan Anchises, and intervenes to save her son from Diomedes in Book 5 - getting a painful cut on the wrist for her trouble. She also rescues her other favorite Paris from the battlefield, when getting the worst of it in his duel with Menelaus (Book 3). She is told to leave war to Athena and Ares. Despite Hera's mocking of her after this incident, she lends her her girdle of Love to seduce Zeus in Book 14.