In Greek mythology, Iphis is the humble Cypriot youth who loves the princess Anaxarete and hangs himself on her doorstep when she scorns him; Aphrodite then turns the unmoved Anaxarete to stone. Ovid tells the tale in Metamorphoses as Vertumnus' warning to Pomona. Distinct from Iphis of Crete (the girl raised as a boy) and from Argive kings named Iphis.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Anaxarete" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.The scorned lover
Anaxarete of Cyprus, of Teucer's Salaminian line, attracts Iphis, a youth of lower birth. He confesses his love to her nurse, bribes servants, and lays tear-soaked flowers at her door; Ovid calls her harder than Noric steel and more savage than winter seas.
Driven to despair, Iphis delivers a final speech on her threshold and hangs himself there. Anaxarete remains unmoved even at his funeral; Aphrodite petrifies her. Ovid says the statue was kept at Salamis in the temple of Venus Prospiciens ("Venus Looking Out").
II.Variants and homonyms
Antoninus Liberalis tells a parallel Cypriot story with Arceophon and Arsinoe; Plutarch knows a Cretan Gorgo and Asander. The atlas id iphis-anaxarete is this Ovidian youth — not iphis-crete (the gender-metamorphosis heroine) nor Argive Iphis.
The inset is didactic: Vertumnus uses it to warn Pomona against hard-heartedness toward love.