 Atalanta raced all her suitors and outran all but Hippomenes, who defeated her by cunning, not speed.Hippomenes knew that he could not win a fair race with Atalanta, so he prayed to Aphrodite for help (the goddess, in the meantime, disliked Atalanta's neglect of love).Aphrodite gave him three golden apples – which came from her sacred apple-tree in Tamasus, Cyprus, according to Ovid, or from the garden of the Hesperides according to Servius – and told him to drop them one at a time to distract Atalanta.