Aphrodite holding roses

The rose was sacred to Aphrodite in Greek myth, born from her steps according to one tradition, stained red by her blood as she rushed to the dying Adonis according to another. By the time of the Hellenistic period, the goddess of love was almost never depicted without her flower, and Roman poets from Anacreon to Ovid attached the bloom to her ever more firmly. The whole statue of Aphrodite holding roses extends this lineage of attribute and emblem — a figure unmistakable from her gesture alone.