A very cool thing about the scene of Dione/Aphrodite is the parallels with a scene from the Epic of Gilgamesh! I think it helps explain the choice by the poet to have Dione as Aphrodites mother, because grammatically Dione is to Zeus as the Sumerian Goddess Anu is to Atnu. It goes even further if you examine the links that Aphrodite has to the near eastern Goddess Ishtar who is a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
A very cool thing about the scene of Dione/Aphrodite is the parallels with a scene from the Epic of Gilgamesh! I think it helps explain the choice by the poet to have Dione as Aphrodites mother, because grammatically Dione is to Zeus as the Sumerian Goddess Anu is to Atnu. It goes even further if you examine the links that Aphrodite has to the near eastern Goddess Ishtar who is a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh.