Venus

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

• Cupido

Domains

• love
• ancestral motherhood

Epithets

• Genetrix
• Erycina

Relations

• mother of: Cupido
• counterpart of: Aphrodite

Sources

• Reference treatment of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Forum of Caesar, dedicated 26 September 46 BCE.
• Reference treatment of Venus, her Italic name-etymology and her assimilation to Aphrodite.