Herodotus and the Temple of Love

According to the Greek historian Herodotus, women in ancient Babylon were once required to visit the Temple of Aphrodite and have sex with a stranger as an act of sacred devotion. The ritual was said to occur only once in a woman's lifetime, symbolizing fertility and service to the goddess. Modern scholars, however, argue that Herodotus likely misunderstood or exaggerated Babylonian customs, turning myth and bias into one of history's most persistent cultural misconceptions.

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