Ambologera

{{Short description|Ancient Greek mythological epithet}}

Ambologera ({{langx|grc|Ἀμβολογήρα}}) was a cultic epithet (term used to characterize) of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, from the Greek {{lang|grc|ἀναβάλλω}} and {{lang|grc|γῆρας}}, "delaying old age".{{cite encyclopedia | last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | author-link = Leonhard Schmitz | title = Ambologera | editor = William Smith | editor-link = William Smith (lexicographer) | encyclopedia = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 139 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | location = Boston | year = 1867 | url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0148.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060305002159/http://ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0148.html| url-status = usurped| archive-date = March 5, 2006}} She had a statue on the acropolis at Sparta under this name,Pausanias, Description of Greece iii. 18. § 1Plutarch, Symposiacs iii. 6 although as there is only one surviving mention of this epithet, from Pausanias' Description of Greece, the precise nature of this cult is uncertain.{{Cite book | last = Alroth | first = Brita | title = Opus Mixtum: Essays in Ancient Art and Society | publisher = P.Åströms Förlag | year = 1994 | pages = 47–51 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TXpmAAAAMAAJ | isbn = 91-7042-150-1}} Some scholars have speculated that Aphrodite Ambologera was proof of Aphrodite's identification with the mandrake plant, which was thought in ancient times to have aphrodisiac powers.{{Cite journal | last = Gildersleeve | first = Basil Lanneau | author-link = Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve | title = Brief Mention | journal = American Journal of Philology | volume = 37 | pages = 505 | publisher = Johns Hopkins University Press | year = 1916 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2orPAAAAMAAJ | access-date = 2010-02-28}}