Prospective brides offered Venus a gift "before the wedding" the nature of the gift, and its timing, are unknown. In one context, she is a goddess of prostitutes in another, she turns the hearts of men and women from sexual vice to virtue. She can give military victory, sexual success, good fortune and prosperity. She is essentially assimilative and benign, and embraces several otherwise quite disparate functions. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection. Her male counterparts in the Roman pantheon, Vulcan and Mars, are active and fiery. Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life.
In myth, Venus-Aphrodite was born, already in adult form, from the sea foam (Greek αφρός, aphros) produced by the severed genitals of Caelus- Uranus. : 13–64 The ambivalence of her persuasive functions has been perceived in the relationship of the root *wenos- with its Latin derivative venenum ('poison' from *wenes-no 'love drink' or 'addicting'), in the sense of "a charm, magic philtre". Her cults may represent the religiously legitimate charm and seduction of the divine by mortals, in contrast to the formal, contractual relations between most members of Rome's official pantheon and the state, and the unofficial, illicit manipulation of divine forces through magic. Venus has been described as perhaps "the most original creation of the Roman pantheon", : 146 and "an ill-defined and assimilative" native goddess, combined "with a strange and exotic Aphrodite". She is usually depicted nude in paintings.Ī 2nd- or 3rd-century bronze figurine of Venus, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon Origins In the later classical tradition of the West, Venus became one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality. The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art and Latin literature. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy.
Venus ( / ˈ v iː n ə s/) is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory.
Venus rising from the sea, from the Casa della Venere in conchiglia, Pompeii.
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