Editing Venus (mythology) (section)

== Epithets ==
[[File:Pompeii - Casa di Marte e Venere - MAN.jpg|thumb|right|Venus and Mars, with Cupid attending, in a wall painting from [[Pompeii]]]]

Like other major Roman deities, Venus was given a number of [[epithet]]s that referred to her different cult aspects, roles, and her functional similarities to other deities. Her "original powers seem to have been extended largely by the fondness of the Romans for folk-etymology, and by the prevalence of the religious idea ''nomen-omen'' which sanctioned any identifications made in this way."<ref name=Eden-1963 />{{rp|page=457}}{{efn|For further exposition of ''nomen-omen'' (or ''nomen est omen'') see<ref>{{cite book |last=del Bello |first=Davide |title=Forgotten Paths: Etymology and the allegorical mindset |publisher=The Catholic University of America Press |year=2007 |pages=52&nbsp;ff |isbn=978-0-8132-1484-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AQh7PdkctiYC&dq=Venus&pg=PT52}}</ref>}}

'''Venus Acidalia''', in [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' (1.715–22, as ''mater acidalia''). [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] speculates this "rare" and "strangely recondite epithet" as reference to a mooted "Fountain of Acidalia" (''fons acidalia'') where the [[Graces]] (Venus' daughters) were said to bathe; but he also connects it to the Greek word for "dart", "needle", "arrow", whence "love's arrows" and love's bitter "cares and pangs". [[Ovid]] uses ''acidalia'' only in the latter sense. ''Venus Acidalia'' is likely a literary conceit, formed by Virgil from earlier usages in which ''acidalia'' had no evident connection to Venus. It was almost certainly not a cultic epithet.<ref>{{cite journal |last=O'Hara |first=James J. |year=1990 |title=The significance of Vergil's Acidalia Mater, and Venus Erycina in Catullus and Ovid |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |volume=93 |pages=335–42|doi=10.2307/311293 |jstor=311293 }}</ref>

'''[[Venus Anadyomene]]''' (Venus "rising from the sea"), based on a once-famous painting by the Greek artist [[Apelles]] showing the birth of Aphrodite from sea-foam, fully adult and supported by a more-than-lifesized scallop shell. The Italian Renaissance painter [[Sandro Botticelli]] used the type in his [[The Birth of Venus]]. Other versions of Venus' birth show her standing on land or shoreline, wringing the sea-water from her hair.<ref name=Marcovich1996>{{cite journal |last1=Marcovich |first1=Miroslav |title=From Ishtar to Aphrodite |journal=Journal of Aesthetic Education |date=1996 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=43–59 |doi=10.2307/3333191 |jstor=3333191 }}</ref> 

'''Venus Barbata''' ("Bearded Venus"), mentioned in [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]]' commentary on Virgil's ''Aeneid''.<ref>Servius, ''ad Aeneiadem'', ii. 632.</ref> [[Macrobius]]'s [[Macrobius#Saturnalia|Saturnalia]] describes a statue of Venus in [[Cyprus]], bearded, with male genitalia but in female attire and figure (see also [[Aphroditus]]). Her worshippers cross-dressed - men wore women's clothes, and women wore men's. Macrobius says that Aristophanes called this figure ''[[Aphroditos]]''. The Latin poet [[Laevius]] wrote of worshipping "nurturing Venus" whether female or male ''([[Si deus si dea|sive femina sive mas]])''.<ref>''Venerem igitur almum adorans, sive femina sive mas est,'' as quoted by Macrobius, ''Saturnalia'' 3.8.3.</ref> Several examples of Greek and Roman sculpture show her in the [[attitude (art)|attitude]] ''anasyrmene'', from the Greek verb ''anasyromai'', "to pull up one's clothes"<ref>Penner, Todd C., Stichele, Caroline Van der, editors, ''Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses'', p. 22, 2007, Brill, isbn 90-04-15447-7</ref> to reveal her male genitalia. The gesture traditionally held [[apotropaic]] or magical power.<ref>Dominic Montserrat, "Reading Gender in the Roman World," in ''Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire'' (Routledge, 2000), pp. 172–173.</ref>

'''Venus [[List of Roman deities#Caelestis|Caelestis]]''' (Celestial or Heavenly Venus), used from the 2nd&nbsp;century AD for Venus as an aspect of a syncretised supreme goddess. ''Venus Caelestis'' is the earliest known Roman recipient of a [[taurobolium]] (a form of bull sacrifice), performed at her shrine in [[Pozzuoli]] on 5&nbsp;October 134. This form of the goddess, and the taurobolium, are associated with the "Syrian Goddess", understood as a late equivalent to [[Astarte]], or the Roman [[Cybele|Magna Mater]], the latter being another supposedly Trojan "Mother of the Romans", as well as "Mother of the Gods".<ref>Turcan, pp. 141–43.</ref>

'''Venus Calva''' ("Venus the bald one"), a legendary form of Venus, attested only by post-Classical Roman writings which offer several traditions to explain this appearance and epithet. In one, it commemorates the virtuous offer by Roman matrons of their own hair to make bowstrings during a siege of Rome. In another, king [[Ancus Marcius]]' wife and other Roman women lost their hair during an epidemic; in hope of its restoration, unafflicted women sacrificed their own hair to Venus.<ref name=Schilling-1954 />{{rp|pages=83–89}}{{efn|Ashby (1929) finds the existence of a temple to Venus Calva "very doubtful"; see<ref>{{cite book |first1=Samuel Ball |last1=Platner |first2=Thomas |last2=Ashby |year=1929 |title=A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome |page=551 |place=London |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Venus_Calva.html |via=Penelope, [[University of Chicago|U.Chicago]] }}</ref>}}

[[File:Roman - Venus - Walters 54966.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Imperial image of Venus suggesting influence from [[Roman Syria|Syria]] or [[Roman Palestine|Palestine]], or from the [[Isis#Ancient Rome|cult of Isis]]<ref>[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_-_Venus_-_Walters_54966.jpg Description] from [[Walters Art Museum]]</ref>]]
{{anchor|Epithets of Venus}} <!-- still used by some hatnotes/links -->

'''Venus Cloacina''' ("Venus the Purifier"); a fusion of Venus with the Etruscan water goddess [[Cloacina]], who had an ancient shrine above the outfall of the [[Cloaca Maxima]], originally a stream, later covered over to function as Rome's main sewer. The rites conducted at the shrine were probably meant to purify the culvert's polluted waters and [[Miasma theory|noxious airs]].{{refn|Eden (1963),<ref name=Eden-1963 />{{rp|page=457}} citing [[Pliny the Elder]], ''Natural History'', 15.119–21.}}<ref>Pliny the Elder, remarking Venus as a goddess of union and reconciliation, identifies the shrine with a legendary episode in Rome's earliest history, in which the Romans, led by [[Romulus]], and the [[Sabine]]s, led by [[Titus Tatius]] and carrying branches of myrtle, met there to make peace following the [[rape of the Sabine women]]. Also cited in Wagenvoort, p. 180.</ref> In some traditions, Titus Tatius was responsible for the introduction of lawful marriage to Rome, and Venus-Cloacina promoted, protected and purified sexual intercourse between married couples.<ref>{{cite book |first=William |last=Smith |year= |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology |article=Venus |place=London|publisher=John Murray |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=venus-bio-1 |via=Perseus, [[Tufts University]]}}</ref>

{{anchor|Venus Erycina}}'''Venus Erycina''' ("[[Eryx (Sicily)|Erycine]] Venus"), a [[Canaanite religion|Punic statue]] of [[Astarte]] [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#evocatio|captured]] from [[Eryx (Sicily)|Eryx]], in [[Sicily]], and worshiped [[interpretatio graeca#Interpretatio romana|in Romanised form]] by the elite and respectable matrons at a temple on the [[Capitoline Hill]]. A later temple, outside the [[Porta Collina]] and Rome's [[pomerium|sacred boundary]], may have preserved some Erycine features of her cult. It was considered suitable for "common girls" and [[prostitute]]s.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Livy]] |title=Ab Urbe Condita |at=23.31}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Thomas A.J. |last=McGinn |year=1998 |title=Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=25}}</ref><ref name=Beard-etal-1998>{{cite book
 |last1=Beard |first1=M. |author1-link=Mary Beard (classicist)
 |last2=Price |first2=S. |author2-link=Simon Price (classicist)
 |last3=North |first3=J.
 |year=1998
 |title=Religions of Rome: A history, illustrated
 |volume=1
 |publisher=Cambridge University Press
}}</ref>{{rp|pages=80, 83}}

'''Venus Euploia''' (Venus of the "fair voyage"), also known as '''Venus Pontia''' (Venus of the Sea"), because she smooths the waves for mariners. She is probably based on the influential image of Aphrodite by [[Praxiteles]], once housed in a [[Aphrodite of Knidos|temple by the sea]] but now lost. Most copies of its Venus image would have been supported by dolphins, and worn diadems and carved veils, inferring her birth from sea-foam, and a consequent identity as Queen of the Sea, and patron of sailors and navigation. Roman copies would have embellished baths and gymnasiums.<ref>Christie's online catalogue [https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6239348 essay], citing Vermuele and Brauer, ''Stone Sculptures, The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums'', pp. 50-51</ref><ref name=Marcovich1996/> 

'''Venus Frutis''' honoured by all the Latins with a federal cult at the temple named ''Frutinal'' in Lavinium.<ref>Paulus-Festus s. v. p. 80 L: ''Frutinal templum Veneris Fruti''</ref>{{efn|"At the midway between Ostia and Antium lies Lavinium that has a sanctuary of Aphrodite common to all Latin nations, but which is under the care of the Ardeans, who have entrusted the task to intendants".<ref>Strabo V 3, 5</ref>}} Inscriptions found at Lavinium attest the presence of federal cults, without giving precise details.{{efn|"''Sp. Turrianus Proculus Gellianus ... pater patratus ... Lavinium sacrorum principiorum p(opuli) R(omani) Quirt(ium) nominisque Latini qui apud Laurentis coluntur''".<ref>CIL X 797;  cited in {{cite journal |first=B. |last=Liou-Gilles |year=1996 |title=Naissance de la ligue latine. Mythe et culte de fondation |journal=Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire |volume=74 |issue=1 |page=85}}</ref>}}

'''Venus Felix''' ("Lucky Venus"), probably a traditional epithet, combining aspects of Venus and [[Fortuna]], goddess of both good and bad fortune and personification of luck, whose iconography includes the rudder of a ship, found in some Pompeian examples of the regal ''Venus Physica''. A form of Venus usually identified as Venus Felix was adopted by the dictator [[Sulla]] to legitimise his victories over his domestic and foreign opponents during Rome's late Republican civil and foreign wars; Rives finds it very unlikely that Sulla would have imposed this humiliating connection on unwilling or conquered domestic territories once allied to Samnium, such as Pompei.<ref name=Rives1994>{{cite journal |last1=Rives |first1=James |title=Venus Genetrix outside Rome |journal=Phoenix |date=1994 |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=294–306 |doi=10.2307/1192570 |jstor=1192570 }}</ref>
The emperor [[Hadrian]] built a temple to ''[[Temple of Venus and Roma|Venus Felix et Roma Aeterna]]'' on the [[Via Sacra]]. The same epithet is used for [[Venus Felix (sculpture)|a specific sculpture at the Vatican Museums]].

{{anchor|Genetrix}}
'''[[Venus Genetrix (sculpture)|Venus Genetrix]]''' ("Venus the Mother"), as a goddess of motherhood and domesticity, with a festival on September 26, a personal ancestress of the [[Julia (gens)|Julian lineage]] and, more broadly, the divine ancestress of the Roman people. [[Julius Caesar]] dedicated a [[Temple of Venus Genetrix]] in 46 BC.<ref name=Rives1994/> This name has attached to [[Venus Genetrix (sculpture)|an iconological type of statue of Aphrodite/Venus]].

{{anchor|Venus Heliopolitana}}<!--linked-->
'''Venus Heliopolitana''' ("Venus of [[Heliopolis Syriaca]]"), a Romano-Syrian form of Venus at [[Baalbek]], variously identified with [[Ashtart]], [[Dea Syria]] and [[Atargatis]], though inconsistently and often on very slender grounds. She has been historically identified as one third of a so-called [[Heliopolitan Triad]], and thus a wife to presumed sun-god "Syrian Jupiter" ([[Baal]]) and mother of "Syrian Mercury" ([[Adon]]). The "Syrian Mercury" is sometimes thought as another sun-god, or a syncretised form of [[Bacchus]] as a [[Dying-and-rising deity|"dying and rising" god]], and thus a god of Springtime. No such Triad seems to have existed prior to Baalbek's 15 BC colonisation by Augustus' veterans. It may be a modern scholarly artifice.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kropp |first1=Andreas J. M. |title=Jupiter, Venus and Mercury of Heliopolis (Baalbek). The images of the 'triad' and its alleged syncretisms |journal=Syria |date=2010 |volume=87 |pages=229–264 |doi=10.4000/syria.681 |jstor=41681338 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

'''[[Venus Kallipygos]]''' ("Venus with the beautiful buttocks"), a statue, and possibly a statue type, after a lost Greek original. From [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]], Sicily.<ref>Havelock, Christine Mitchell,''The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art'', University of Michigan Press, 2007, pp 100–102, ISBN 978-0-472-03277-8</ref>

'''Venus Libertina''' ("Venus the [[freedman|Freedwoman]]"), probably arising through the semantic similarity and cultural links between ''libertina'' (as "a free woman") and ''lubentina'' (possibly meaning "pleasurable" or "passionate"). Further titles or variants acquired by Venus through the same process, or through orthographic variance, include Libentia, Lubentina, and Lubentini. '''Venus Libitina''' links Venus to a patron-goddess of [[Roman funerary practices#Undertakers|funerals and undertakers]], [[Libitina]], who also became synonymous with death; a temple was dedicated to Venus Libitina in Libitina's grove on the [[Esquiline Hill]], "hardly later than 300 BC".{{efn|Eden (1963)<ref name=Eden-1963 />{{rp|page=457}} states that Varro rationalises the connections as ''"lubendo libido, libidinosus ac Venus Libentina et Libitina"''<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Varro]] |title=[[Lingua Latina]] |at=6, 47}}</ref>}}
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 | caption1 = Julius Caesar, with Venus holding [[Victoria (mythology)|Victoria]] on reverse, from February or March 44 BC
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 | caption2 = [[Bruttia Crispina|Crispina]], wife of [[Commodus]], with enthroned Venus Felix holding Victory on reverse
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'''Venus Murcia''' ("Venus of the Myrtle"), merging Venus with the little-known deity [[Murcia (mythology)|Murcia]] (or Murcus, or Murtia). Murcia was associated with Rome's Mons Murcia (the [[Aventine Hill|Aventine's lesser height]]), and had a shrine in the [[Circus Maximus]]. Some sources associate her with the myrtle-tree. Christian writers described her as a goddess of sloth and laziness.<ref>Augustine, ''De civitate Dei'', IV. 16; Arnobius, ''Adversus Nationes'', IV. 9. 16; ''Murcus'' in Livy, ''Ab Urbe Condita'', 1, 33, 5 – cf ''murcidus'' = "slothful".</ref>

'''[[Venus Obsequens]]''' ("Indulgent Venus"<ref name="ReferenceA">"The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome", v. 1, p. 167</ref>), Venus' first attested Roman epithet. It was used in the dedication of her first Roman temple, on August 19 in 295 BC during the [[Third Samnite War]] by [[Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges (consul 292 BC)|Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges]]. It was sited somewhere near the Aventine Hill and Circus Maximus, and played a central role in the [[Vinalia Rustica]]. It was supposedly funded by fines imposed on women found guilty of [[adultery]].<ref name=Staples-1998>{{cite book |last=Staples |first=Ariadne |year=1998 |title=From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and category in Roman religion |publisher=Routledge}}</ref>{{rp|page=89}}

'''Venus Physica''', Venus as a universal, natural creative force that informs the physical world. She is addressed as "Alma Venus" ("Mother Venus") by [[Lucretius]] in the introductory lines of his vivid, poetic exposition of [[Epicurean]] physics and philosophy, ''De Rerum Natura''. She seems to have been a favourite of Lucretius' patron, [[Gaius Memmius (praetor 58 BC)|Memmius]].<ref>Elisabeth Asmis, "Lucretius' Venus and Stoic Zeus", ''Hermes'', 110, (1982), p. 458 ff.</ref> 

'''Venus Physica Pompeiana''' was Pompeii's protective goddess, antedating Sulla's imposition of a colonia named ''[[Colonia (Roman)|Colonia]] Veneria [[Cornelia (gens)|Cornelia]]'' after his family and Venus, following his siege and capture of Pompeii from the [[Samnites]]. Venus also had a distinctive, local form as '''Venus Pescatrice''' ("Venus the Fisher-woman") a goddess of the sea, and trade. For Sulla's claims of Venus' favour, see ''Venus Felix'' above).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lill |first1=Anne |title=Myths of Pompeii: reality and legacy |journal=Baltic Journal of Art History |date=2011 |volume=3 |url=https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/bjah/article/view/814 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carroll |first=Maureen |authorlink=Maureen Carroll |date=2010 |title=Exploring the sanctuary of Venus and its sacred grove: politics, cult and identity in Roman Pompeii |journal=Papers of the British School at Rome |volume=78 |pages=63–351 |doi=10.1017/S0068246200000817 |jstor=41725289 |s2cid=154443189 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Pompeii's Temple of Venus was built sometime in the 1st century BC, before Sulla's colonisation.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The world of Pompeii |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |others=John Joseph Dobbins, Pedar William Foss |isbn=978-0-415-17324-7 |location=London |oclc=74522705 }}{{pn|date=June 2022}}</ref> This local form of Venus had Roman, [[Oscans|Oscan]] and local Pompeiian influences.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beard |first=Mary |title=The fires of Vesuvius : Pompeii lost and found |date=2008 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02976-7 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |oclc=225874239 |p=280}}</ref> Like ''Venus Physica'', ''Venus Physica Pompeiana'' is also a regal form of "Nature Mother" and a guarantor of success in love.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grant |first=Michael |title=Cities of Vesuvius : Pompeii and Herculaneum |date=2005 |publisher=Phoenix Press |isbn=1-898800-45-6 |location=London |oclc=61680895 }}{{pn|date=June 2022}}</ref>

'''Venus Urania''' ("Heavenly Venus"), used as the title of a book by [[Basilius von Ramdohr]], a relief by [[Pompeo Marchesi]], and a painting by [[Christian Griepenkerl]]. (cf. [[Aphrodite Urania]])

'''[[Venus Verticordia]]''' ("Venus the Changer of Hearts"), celebrated at the [[Veneralia]] for her ability to transform untethered desire (''libido)'' into ''[[pudicitia]]'', sexuality expressed within socially permitted bounds, hence marriage. 

'''Venus Victrix''' ("Venus the Victorious"), a Romanised aspect of the armed Aphrodite that Greeks had inherited from the East, where the goddess [[Ishtar]] "remained a goddess of war, and Venus could bring victory to a [[Lucius Cornelius Sulla|Sulla]] or a Caesar".<ref>Thus [[Walter Burkert]], in ''Homo Necans'' (1972) 1983:80, noting C. Koch on "Venus Victrix" in ''Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft'', '''8''' A860-64.</ref> [[Pompey]] vied with his patron Sulla and with Caesar for public recognition as her protégé. In 55 BC he dedicated a temple to her at the top of his [[Pompey's Theater|theater]] in the [[Campus Martius]]. She had a shrine on the [[Capitoline Hill]], and festivals on August 12 and October 9. A sacrifice was annually dedicated to her on the latter date. In neo-classical art, her epithet as Victrix is often used in the sense of 'Venus Victorious over men's hearts' or in the context of the [[Judgement of Paris]] (e.g. [[Canova]]'s ''[[Venus Victrix (Canova)|Venus Victrix]]'', a half-nude reclining portrait of [[Pauline Bonaparte]]).