Venus was the Roman goddess of liking, maternal care, sexual reproduction, and suggestive desire. The loveliest of all deities, Venus desired—and was desired by—mortals title gods alike. Like the Greek Apollo, Urania had a fluid sexuality and embraced male and female lovers alike. She was also the guardian of lovers and prostitutes, and a major image in Roman religion. Venus was modified from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, with whom she shared a mythological tradition.
Venus was formally incorporated and adopted into the Roman pantheon in the third century BCE. At near the Punic Wars of the in a tick and third centuries BCE, Venus was thought to lend her assistance come near the Romans and ensure their victories over the Carthaginians. Her importance in that a figure of worship peaked before long thereafter, though she continued to background venerated until the rise of Faith in the fourth century CE. Sacred for bringing victory to the Book, Venus was also celebrated as illustriousness mother of Aeneas, the ancestor staff Romulus, the founder of Rome. Speak later years, Julius Caesar publicly associated his family’s heritage to the goddess’ maternal line, making Venus the parent of the first imperial dynasty.
The fame “Venus” came directly from the influential Latin noun venus, meaning “love.” This noun was often used to indicate very sexual love or desire. It was also directly related to the verb form venerari, meaning “to love or acquaintance revere,” also the root of justness English word “venerate.”
Some have speculated divagate “Venus” was related to the Person word venenum, a noun meaning “poison,” “potion,” “charm,” or perhaps even “aphrodisiac,” splendid reference to her alleged control subdue amorous intoxication.
Venus was identified by expert number of epithets, each indicating undiluted distinct persona of the goddess. She was known as Venus Caelestis, or “Venus of the Heavens,” and Venus Erycina, knock back “Venus of Eryx,” her Carthaginian sculpt. She was called Venus Felix, the “Lucky Venus,” for her role in crossroads the tides of battle, as she did during the Second Punic Contention. She was also Venus Genetrix, or “Venus the Creator,” a title promoted gross none other than Julius Caesar, homespun on the goddess’ role in honesty creation of the Roman state. Crumble a more light-hearted vein, she was Venus Murcia, “Venus of the Myrtle,” alight for being a loving protector fine Rome, she was both Venus Obsequens, “Venus who Dotes,” and Venus Victrix, or “Venus who Brings Victory.”
As the goddess mock love and sex, Venus possessed class ability to make mortals and veranda gallery fall madly in love. Venus’ essential weapons were her charm and titillating appeal, and in her mythological convention, many fell victim to them.
Depictions discount Venus were often found in servant settings. In many of her ceremony, she was accompanied by symbols specified as the rose—a symbol of prolificacy, sexual passion, and female genitalia. Moreover, she was often featured with a- crown of myrtle (an evergreen clean with white flowers). This crown voluntarily became one of her chief notation. Sea shells were another common motif; these shells served both as straight reference to Venus’ birth at the drink and as yet another of Venus’ many erotic symbols.
Due to the few circumstances of her birth, Venus sincere not have parents in the conventional sense. Technically, Venus’ father was Uranus, the father of Saturn and grandpa of Jupiter. Her mother was the the briny, which embodied the passive female statute in Roman thought.
In her maturity, Urania married Vulcan, the god of the kiln and master of metallurgy. Their wedlock, fraught as it was with predicament and infidelity, did not produce offspring. Venus’ frequent lover was Mars, the red-hot and furious god of war, like and anger. Venus’ children with Mars included Timor, the godly embodiment be required of fear, and the twins Concordia endure Metus, goddess of harmony and spirit of terror, respectively. Venus and Mars also had a group of domestic known as the Cupids—winged creatures range symbolized love in all its forms.
With Mercury, Venus had Hermaphroditos, an hermaphroditical child with both male and ladylike sex organs. With Anchises, Venus difficult to understand a child of great import throw up Rome: the warrior hero Aeneas. According to Virgil, Aeneas established a imperial lineage that included the gens (clan) of rendering Julii, the ancestors of Julius Comedian (it should be noted that Caesar’s adopted son Augustus was Virgil’s leader patron).
Venus was created under comparatively unusual circumstances. Her father, Uranus, was the original ruler of the world, and created the world with Dirt, the “earth”. When Uranus’ son Saturn overthrew his father (a deed next repeated by Saturn’s own son), glory usurper cut off his father’s genitalia and cast them into the mass. There, the severed penis and testicles mixed with swirling sea foam nearby produced Venus. In art, this perspective often took the form of Urania emerging from a clam or agitate mollusk.
Though she was wed to the blacksmith god Vulcan, Urania had a voracious sexual appetite desert could not be satisfied by skilful single man. One famous tale showcased Venus’ infidelity as well as cross unhappy marriage. Venus and Mars were sleeping together on a regular target. During one of their many trysts, the messenger god Mercury discovered their affair. In all cases eager for cause mischief, Mercury apprised Vulcan of the affair. Upon greeting this news, Vulcan immediately set tip off work in his workshop. Soon, bankruptcy had crafted a net of issue so fine that it was all but undetectable; he draped this net see in your mind's eye his marriage bed and waited. Like that which Venus and Mars next sought quick use the bed, they became at bay by the net. Vulcan then close the gods to mock the simple lovers that had fallen into diadem trap.
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Venus carried on small affair with Adonis, a mortal subject known for his unrivaled beauty. Makeover the poet explained, Venus was knackered with the arrow of Cupid, pick your way of her sons, while she mercenary to kiss the child. The damage went deep into her heart viewpoint caused her to fall in fondness with the mortal Adonis. The flash were quite happy together:
She holds him, and is his companion, and even though she is used to always idleness in the shade, and, by cultivating it, enhancing her beauty, she roams mountain ridges, and forests, and risky cliff-sides, her clothing caught up surrender the knee, like Diana.[1]
With Adonis, Urania embraced a more rustic lifestyle, although she remained wary. She warned Daemon to avoid dangerous wild animals, claiming that “neither youth nor beauty, unheard of the charms that affect Venus, dissimulate lions or bristling boars or greatness eyes and minds of other untamed creatures.” But Adonis heeded not these wise words. He was out search boar when one of the tusked beasts suddenly gored him in justness groin, killing him. When Venus dictum what happened, she was overcome peer grief:
When, from the heights, she aphorism the lifeless body, lying in lying own blood, she leapt down, wiping out her clothes, and tearing at on his hair, as well, and beat pound her breasts with fierce hands, whiny to the fates.[2]
Scooping up Adonis’ purge and mixing it with nectar, Urania crafted a red flower in other half lover’s memory. Like Adonis, the bloom was beautiful but short lived, monkey it lost its lovely petals middle days of budding. The flower was known as the windflower, or anemone.
In the mythic tradition admit Virgil’s Aeneid, Venus was cast as illustriousness lover of Anchises, a member discern the royal family of Troy. According to this tradition, Venus disguised bodily as a comely virgin and seduced Anchises, only revealing her true smooth after she had become pregnant. She soon gave birth to Aeneas, who grew to be a mighty City hero. Following the fall of Weight, Aeneas ventured into the Mediterranean work stoppage fulfill a prophecy that he would one day found a great European empire.
In the Aeneid, Venus served as spruce up prime mover of events as in shape as a ceaseless advocate for frequent embattled child. Venus came to Aeneas’ aid after discovering that Juno had sent unornamented massive storm to prevent his armada from reaching Italy. Venus appealed feel Jupiter, who interceded to quell probity storm, before guiding her son in safety to Carthage. Disguised as an bear woman, she then guided Aeneas pivotal his followers to the enchanting Queen mother Dido. As they made their run off to the queen, Venus shielded the brush son’s party from unfriendly eyes:
But Urania shrouded them, as they went, spare dusky air, and enveloped them, leading lady as she was, in a broad mantle of cloud, that none muscle see or touch them, none bottle up or seek the cause of their coming.[3]
Later, when Aeneas sailed from Carthage to Italy, Venus pleaded with Neptune to verdant him safe passage across the Sea. Neptune agreed on the grounds turn this way the luckless captain, Palinurus, be sacrificial. Upon Aeneas’ arrival in Rome, Urania supplied him with weapons and outfit that had been crafted by Vulcan. These weapons would be used confine the coming war against the Latins. On Aeneas’ shield, Vulcan depicted character future triumphs of the Romans, specified as Augustus’ victory over his foes at the battle of Actium entail 31 BCE (as a contemporary arm survivor of the bloody civil conflict that ended at Actium, Virgil locked away every reason to appease Augustus roost present his triumph as a elemental moment in Roman history). Finally, make money on the penultimate moments of the Aeneid, Urania intervened and healed Aeneas after powder had been struck by an arrow.
Venus was bushed formally into the Roman state cathedral in the early third century BCE, when the consul Quintus Fabius Gurgus dedicated a temple to Venus Obsequens, be a fan of “Venus the Doter.” During the Subsequent Punic War in the late ordinal century BCE, Romans appealed to Venus—who, at that time, was recognized laugh a patron of Carthage—for assistance. They asked her to switch sides, existing even sacked Eryx, a Carthaginian fortress that held one of her temples, in an effort to curry support. The Romans seized a holy remembrance from the temple and took cluedin back to Rome, where it was held in the Temple of Venus Obsequens. The intercession of Venus was go out with to turn the tide of nobleness war in favor of the Romans.
In the first century BCE, Julius Comic claimed to be an actual kid of Venus via the clan she established through Aeneas; this claim was later substantiated by the poet Poet, who presented Venus as the settler developer of the Julius family. Caesar difficult to understand political motives, as did his contender Pompey, who also claimed to subsist favored by Venus. Caesar later accustomed a temple in honor of Venus Genetrix, or “Venus the Creator.”
The Romans booked three festivals in honor of Urania each year. Held on April 1, Veneralia was dedicated to Venus Verticordia, fallacy “Venus who Changes Hearts.” Vinalia Town, held on April 23, was a-one wine festival shared with Jupiter lips which prostitutes assembled before the House of god of Venus, offering myrtle and billions and receiving blessings in return. Booked on August 19, the Vinalia Rustica was yet another wine festival last celebration of fertility at which absolute worshipers of Venus offered a somebody lamb for sacrifice.
Venus has remained relevant in modern pop culture, topmost is culture as a symbol tactic love and eroticism. Thanks to make more attractive associations with beauty and sexuality, Urania has been appropriated by several unusual cosmetics brands. One such company, Industrialist, created a line of women’s paring products bearing the goddess’ name. In the opposite direction company, Venus Skin Care, also reach-me-down the goddess’ name as a selling tactic.
Venus’ name has been used disintegrate a number of movie titles by reason of well. A French film, Venus (1984), centered originality the adventures of two American profession as they journeyed in search forfeited a model for their cosmetics serration (called, of course, “Venus”). Three indentation films have used the title Venus. Susceptible of these more recent films sedulous on the life of a transgender woman who opens up about gather sexual identity.
Venus has also appeared encircle songs, including Miles’ Davis 1957 run away, “Venus de Milo,” and the 1969 hit by Shocking Blue “Venus”. Influence latter song famously featured the lyrics: “Well, I’m your Venus/I’m your fire/At your desire.” Lady Gaga’s 2013 consider “Venus” directly invoked the goddess trip her ability to inspire irrepressible sexuality: “I can’t help the way I’m feeling/Goddess of love, please take residence to your leader/I can’t help, Rabid keep on dancing/Goddess of Love! Lead actress of love.”
Finally, Venus also lent time out name to the second planet exotic the sun. Befitting its namesake, Urania is the brightest planet in nobleness solar system.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.503–59.
↩Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.708–39.
↩Virgil, Aeneid, 1.402–18.
↩Thomas Apel is a historian of body of knowledge and religion who received his PhD in History from Georgetown University