Editing Venus (mythology) (section)

=== Festivals ===
{{See also|Roman festivals}}
[[File:Dea Barberini Massimo.jpg|thumb|Fresco with a seated Venus, restored as a personification of Rome in the so-called "Dea Barberini" ("Barberini goddess"); Roman artwork, dated first half of the 4th century AD, from a room near the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano]]
Venus was offered [[Religion in ancient Rome#Religio and the state|official (state-sponsored) cult]] in certain [[Roman festivals|festivals of the Roman calendar]]. Her sacred month was April (Latin ''Mensis Aprilis'') which Roman etymologists understood to derive from ''aperire'', "to open", with reference to the springtime blossoming of trees and flowers.{{efn|The origin is unknown, but it might derive from ''Apru'', an Etruscan form of Greek Aphrodite's name.<ref>{{cite dictionary |title=April |dictionary=Etymology Online |url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=April}}</ref> <!-- Big OED or Etymological Dict., anyone? --> }} In the {{lang|la|[[interpretatio romana]]}} of the [[Germanic pantheon]] during the early centuries AD, Venus became identified with the Germanic goddess ''[[Frijjo]]'', giving rise to the loan translation "[[Friday]]" for ''dies Veneris''.

'''[[Veneralia]]''' (April 1) was held in honour of [[Venus Verticordia]] ("Venus the Changer of Hearts"), and [[Fortuna Virilis]] (Virile or strong Good Fortune{{cn|date=August 2024}})), whose cult was probably by far the older of the two. Venus Verticordia was invented in 220 BC, in response to advice from a Sibylline oracle during Rome's [[Punic Wars]],{{efn| Either the [[Sibylline Books]], per {{cite book |author=[[Valerius Maximus]] |title=Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX |trans-title=Nine books of memborable deeds and sayings |at=8.15.12 |postscript=;}} or the [[Cumaean Sibyl]], per {{cite book |author=[[Ovid]] |title=[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]] |at=4.155–62}} }} when a series of [[Prodigium|prodigies]] was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans of every category and class, including several men and three [[Vestal Virgins]].<ref name=Staples-1998 />{{rp|pages=105–09}} The statue of Venus Verticordia was dedicated by a young woman, chosen as the most ''[[Pudicitia|pudica]]'' (sexually pure) in Rome by a committee of Roman matrons. At first, this statue was probably housed in the temple of ''[[Fortuna]] Virilis'', perhaps as divine reinforcement against the perceived moral and religious failings of its cult. In 114 BC ''Venus Verticordia'' was given her own temple.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Carter |first=Jesse Benedict |year=1900 |title=The cognomina of the goddess 'Fortuna' |journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association |volume=31 |page=66 |doi=10.2307/282639 |jstor=282639 }}</ref> She was meant to persuade Romans of both sexes and every class, whether married or unmarried, to cherish the traditional sexual proprieties and [[Mos maiorum|morality]] known to please the gods and benefit the State. During her rites, her image was taken from her temple to the men's baths, where it was undressed and washed in warm water by her female attendants, then garlanded with myrtle. Women and men asked Venus Verticordia's help in affairs of the heart, sex, betrothal and marriage. For [[Ovid]], Venus's acceptance of the epithet and its attendant responsibilities represented a change of heart in the goddess herself.{{efn|Romans considered personal ethics or mentality to be functions of the heart.}}<ref>Langlands, p. 59, citing {{cite book |author=Ovid |title=[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]] |at=4. 155–62}}</ref>

'''[[Vinalia#Vinalia Urbana|Vinalia urbana]]''' (April 23), a wine festival shared by Venus and [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]], king of the gods. It offered opportunity to supplicants to ask Venus' intercession with Jupiter, who was thought to be susceptible to her charms, and amenable to the effects of her wine. Venus was patron of "[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#profanum|profane]]" wine, for everyday human use. Jupiter was patron of the strongest, purest, sacrificial grade wine, and controlled the weather on which the autumn grape-harvest would depend. At this festival, men and women alike drank the new vintage of ordinary, non-sacral wine (pressed at the previous year's ''vinalia rustica'') in honour of Venus, whose powers had provided humankind with this gift. Upper-class women gathered at Venus's Capitoline temple, where a libation of the previous year's vintage, sacred to Jupiter, was poured into a nearby ditch.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=de Cazanove |first1=Olivier |title=Jupiter, Liber et le vin latin |journal=Revue de l'histoire des religions |date=1988 |volume=205 |issue=3 |pages=245–265 |doi=10.3406/rhr.1988.1888 }}</ref> Common girls (''vulgares puellae'') and prostitutes gathered at Venus' temple just outside the Colline gate, where they offered her myrtle, mint, and rushes concealed in rose-bunches and asked her for "beauty and popular favour", and to be made "charming and witty".{{refn|Staples<ref name=Staples-1998 />{{rp|page=122}} citing {{cite book |author=[[Ovid]] |title=[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]] |at=4.863–72}} }}

'''[[Vinalia Rustica]]''' (August 19), originally a rustic [[Latium|Latin]] festival of wine, vegetable growth and fertility. This was almost certainly Venus' oldest festival and was associated with her earliest known form, ''Venus Obsequens''. Kitchen gardens and market-gardens, and presumably vineyards were dedicated to her.{{efn|Vegetable-growers may have been involved in the dedications as a corporate guild.<ref name=Eden-1963 />{{rp|page=451}} }} Roman opinions differed on whose festival it was. Varro insists that the day was sacred to Jupiter, whose control of the weather governed the ripening of the grapes; but the sacrificial victim, a female lamb (''agna''), may be evidence that it once belonged to Venus alone.{{efn|For associations of kind between Roman deities and their sacrificial victims, see [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#victima|Victima]].}}{{efn| [[Varro]] explicitly denies that the festival belongs to Venus;<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Varro]] |title=Lingua Latina |at=6.16}}</ref> that implies he was aware of opposite scholarly and / or commonplace opinion. Lipka (2009) offers this apparent contradiction as an example of two Roman cults that offer "complementary functional foci".<ref name=Lipka-2009 />{{rp|page=42}} }}

A festival of '''Venus Genetrix''' (September 26) was held under state auspices from 46 BC at [[Temple of Venus Genetrix|her Temple]] in the [[Forum of Caesar]], in fulfillment of a vow by [[Julius Caesar]], who claimed her personal favour as his divine patron, and ancestral goddess of the [[Julia (gens)|Julian clan]]. Caesar dedicated the temple during his extraordinarily lavish quadruple triumph. At the same time, he was [[pontifex maximus]] and Rome's senior magistrate; the festival is thought to mark the unprecedented promotion of a personal, family cult to one of the Roman state. Caesar's heir, Augustus, made much of these personal and family associations with Venus as an Imperial deity.<ref>Grossi, Olindo. "The Forum of Julius Caesar and the Temple of Venus Genetrix." Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 13 (1936): 215–2. https://doi.org/10.2307/4238590.</ref>{{efn|Sulla may have set some form of precedent, but there is no evidence that he built her a Temple. Caesar's associations with Venus as both a personal and state goddess may also have been propagated in the Roman provinces.<ref name=Rives1994/>}} The festival's rites are not known.