Venus
Roman · deity · regal · Recorded classification
Venus was missing from this registry entirely — the only record answering to the name was an unrelated Pawnee evening star. She is not simply Aphrodite in Latin: her name belongs to an inherited Indo-European word for desire, the same family that gives Messapic Venas, and her Roman cult has its own shape, from Venus Verticordia who turns women's hearts to chastity to Venus Erycina brought over from the Elymian mountain in Sicily. What made her politically enormous was Aeneas: through him the Julii claimed her as ancestress, and Caesar dedicated her temple as Genetrix, the Begetter, in his own Forum in 46 BCE.
Children
Variant accounts
- parentageHyginus makes Venus the daughter of Jupiter and Dione; this is an alternative to sea-born accounts.Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface: Venus (primary)
Domains
- love
- ancestral motherhood
Epithets
- GenetrixTemple of Venus Genetrix, Forum of Caesar, dedicated 46 BCE. (secondary)
- ErycinaReference treatment of the cult of Venus Erycina, brought to Rome from the Elymian sanctuary on Mount Eryx in Sicily. (secondary)
Relations
- mother of: CupidoMother of Cupid, who attends her in cult image and in poetry alike.Reference treatment of Cupid as the son and companion of Venus. (secondary)
- counterpart of: AphroditeAssimilated to Greek Aphrodite, whose mythology she takes over. The registry keeps the two as separate records: Venus is a native Italic goddess with her own name-etymology and her own Roman cult, not a translation.Reference treatment of the assimilation of Venus to Greek Aphrodite. (secondary)
- interpretatio: AphroditeVerg. Aen. 1.314-417 (Aeneas's mother); Lucr. 1.1-49 (primary)
Sources
- Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty and generation, native Italic in name and cult, assimilated to Greek Aphrodite, and claimed as ancestress of the Julian gens in the Temple of Venus Genetrix dedicated by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE.: Reference treatment of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Forum of Caesar, dedicated 26 September 46 BCE. (secondary); Reference treatment of Venus, her Italic name-etymology and her assimilation to Aphrodite. (secondary)