Notes on the Goddesses
Source: The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker

Aphrodite
The Greeks called her Goddess of Love and considered her older than time. She was also the Dea Syria, known as Asherah or Astarte. The oldest continuously occupied temple in the world is dedicated to her. The Romans called her Venus and regarded her their ancestral mother. She was the mother of Venetii, whose capital city became Venice. Cyrian Aphrodite ruled birth, life, love, death, time and fate. She was Mari, Moira, Marina, Pelagia and Stella Maris, titles that related to her ruling the sea. One of her greatest shrines is Aphrodisias, a city in Asia Minor where she was worshipped as the patron of arts and letters, crafts and culture. The month of April is dedicated to Aphrodite.

Artemis
The Amazonian Moon-Goddess was worshipped under the Roman name of Diana, protectress of childbirth, nursing and healing. She ruled the wild forests of Europe through the medieval period and remained the Goddess of wild woodlands and hunting up to the 18th century.
She was known as the Lunar Virgin, the Mother of Creatures and the Huntress.
As an animal incarnation, Artemis was the Great She Bear, Ursa Major, ruler of the stars and protectress of the Pole of the World. The heavenly She Bear annually made her trek around the Pole Star, determining the months and seasons of the year.

Athena
Widely recognized as the Mother Goddess of Athens and worshipped as a holy virgin, Athena was actually older than dynastic Egypt, who identified her as the Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the Gods. She came from North Africa. She was the Libyan Triple Goddess.
She was worshipped by Canaanites, Amorites, Syrians, Egyptians and Hebrews as Anath. Phoenicians called her Anat. Athena was, "all that has been, that is and that will be."

Demeter
In Asia, she was called "the Doorway of the Mysterious Feminine - the root from which Heaven and Earth sprang". Her symbols were the dolphin and the dove. Mistress of Earth and Sea, she was worshipped as the Goddess even up to the 19th century at Eleusis. Followers of Demeter at Mycenae were established from the 13th century well into the Christian era. Demeter's spirit was manifested in the final sheaf of the harvest.

Hera
Great Goddess of the early Aegean civilization, she predated the appearance of any male deity and was called Mother of the Gods. The continual quarrels of Zeus and Hera were recognized as the conflicts between the early patriarchal and the much older matriarchal Olympians. Europe was named for one of her many incarnations, Europa. Saxons worshipped her at Heresburg (Hera's Mount). She controlled the apple garden of immortality.

Persephone
The tale of Persephone's abduction by Hades, authorized by her father Zeus, is an invention of the early patriarchal god era. She was Queen of the Underworld long before other deity stories were altered to masculinize some of the key players.
Orphic mystics worshipped her as Goddess of the Blessed Dead. She held the keys to heaven and hell.