Venus ( / ˈ v iː n ə s / ) is a Roman goddess whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex , fertility , prosperity , and victory. 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. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals , and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
147-472: The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art and Latin literature . 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. As such, she is usually depicted nude . The Latin theonym Venus and the common noun venus ('love, charm') stem from
294-407: A Proto-Italic form reconstructed as *wenos- ('desire'), itself from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *wenh₁-os ('desire'; cf. Messapic Venas , Old Indic vánas 'desire'). Derivatives include venustus ('attractive, charming'), venustās ('charm, grace'), venerius ('of Venus, erotic'), venerāre ('to adore, revere, honor, venerate, worship'), and venerātiō ('adoration'). Venus
441-667: A Punic statue of Astarte captured from Eryx , in Sicily , and worshiped 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 sacred boundary , may have preserved some Erycine features of her cult. It was considered suitable for "common girls" and prostitutes . Venus Euploia (Venus of the "fair voyage"), also known as Venus Pontia (Venus of
588-568: A fishing rod , and sits amidst landscape scenery, accompanied by at least one cupid . Venus' signs are for the most part the same as Aphrodite's. They include roses , which were offered in Venus' Porta Collina rites, and above all, myrtle (Latin myrtus ), which was cultivated for its white, sweetly scented flowers, aromatic, evergreen leaves and its various medical-magical properties. Venus' statues, and her worshipers, wore myrtle crowns at her festivals. Before its adoption into Venus' cults, myrtle
735-421: 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
882-529: A city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid 's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to whom he alludes. Although
1029-649: A colonia named Colonia Veneria 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). Pompeii's Temple of Venus was built sometime in the 1st century BC, before Sulla's colonisation. This local form of Venus had Roman, Oscan and local Pompeiian influences. Like Venus Physica , Venus Physica Pompeiana
1176-464: A commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus . Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil
1323-722: A common Indo-European archetype ( Dyeus as the supreme sky god), and thus exhibit shared functions by nature. Others required more expansive theological and poetic efforts: though both Ares and Mars are war gods, Ares was a relatively minor figure in Greek religious practice and deprecated by the poets, while Mars was a father of the Roman people and a central figure of archaic Roman religion. Some deities dating to Rome's oldest religious stratum, such as Janus and Terminus , had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably Apollo , were adopted directly into Roman culture, but underwent
1470-458: A common Indo-European origin. Lugus was identified with Mercury , Nodens with Mars as healer and protector, and Sulis with Minerva . In some cases, however, a Gallic deity is given an interpretatio romana by means of more than one god, varying among literary texts or inscriptions. Since the religions of the Greco-Roman world were not dogmatic, and polytheism lent itself to multiplicity,
1617-465: A deity is his or her specific character as it unfolded in myths, hymns, rites, and so on. This character makes a deity comparable to other deities with similar traits. The similarity of gods makes their names mutually translatable. ... The practice of translating the names of the gods created a concept of similarity and produced the idea or conviction that the gods are international. Pliny the Elder expressed
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#17330853887081764-501: A distinctive Gallo-Roman religion . Both the Romans and the Gauls reinterpreted Gallic religious traditions in relation to Roman models, particularly Imperial cult . Jan Assmann considers the polytheistic approach to internationalizing gods as a form of "intercultural translation": The great achievement of polytheism is the articulation of a common semantic universe. ... The meaning of
1911-483: A distinctly Roman development, as when Augustus made Apollo one of his patron deities . In the early period, Etruscan culture played an intermediary role in transmitting Greek myth and religion to the Romans, as evidenced in the linguistic transformation of Greek Heracles to Etruscan Her[e]cle to Roman Hercules . The phrase interpretatio romana was first used by the Imperial-era historian Tacitus in
2058-520: A district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples , near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli . While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. Through
2205-475: A fertility deity, was established in 181 BC, in a traditionally plebeian district just outside Rome's sacred boundary , near the Colline Gate . The temple, cult and goddess probably retained much of the original's character and rites. Likewise, a shrine to Venus Verticordia ("Venus the changer of hearts"), established in 114 BC but with links to an ancient cult of Venus-Fortuna, was "bound to the peculiar milieu of
2352-415: A few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature . Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all
2499-456: A fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love ( Ecl . 2) and attraction toward people of any gender ( Ecl . 3). Eclogue 4 , addressed to Asinius Pollio , the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who
2646-593: A god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names". However, Julian specifies no "other names" under which the Jewish god was worshiped. In late-antiquity mysticism, the sun god Helios is sometimes equated to the Judeo-Christian God. The following table is a list of Greek , Roman , Etruscan , Egyptian , Sumerian , Phoenician , Zoroastrian , and Celtic equivalencies via
2793-656: A goddess of sloth and laziness. Venus Obsequens ("Indulgent Venus"), 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 . 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 . Venus Physica , Venus as
2940-401: A large temple to Venus Victrix as part of his lavishly appointed new theatre , and celebrating his triumph of 54 BC with coins that showed her crowned with triumphal laurels. Pompey's erstwhile friend, ally, and later opponent Julius Caesar went still further. He claimed the favours of Venus Victrix in his military success and Venus Genetrix as a personal, divine ancestress – apparently
3087-454: A libation of the previous year's vintage, sacred to Jupiter, was poured into a nearby ditch. 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". Vinalia Rustica (August 19), originally
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#17330853887083234-488: A long-standing family tradition among the Julii . When Caesar was assassinated, his heir, Augustus , adopted both claims as evidence of his inherent fitness for office, and divine approval of his rule. Augustus' new temple to Mars Ultor , divine father of Rome's legendary founder Romulus , would have underlined the point, with the image of avenging Mars "almost certainly" accompanied by that of his divine consort Venus, and possibly
3381-521: A magnificent temple as reward for her defection. They captured her image, brought it to Rome and installed it in a temple on the Capitoline Hill , as one of Rome's twelve dii consentes . Shorn of her more overtly Carthaginian characteristics, this "foreign Venus" became Rome's Venus Genetrix ("Venus the Mother"), Roman tradition made Venus the mother and protector of the Trojan prince Aeneas , ancestor of
3528-460: A member of the gens Magia , to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio , just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua, which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo , not Pietole,
3675-549: 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. Venus Barbata ("Bearded Venus"), mentioned in Servius ' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid . Macrobius 's Saturnalia describes
3822-488: A particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan 's epic, the Bellum Civile , has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival
3969-464: A refugee of the Trojan War , named Aeneas , as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. His intentions are to reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus are to found the city of Rome. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas , a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of
4116-405: A rustic 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. Roman opinions differed on whose festival it was. Varro insists that the day was sacred to Jupiter, whose control of the weather governed
4263-473: 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 , a half-nude reclining portrait of Pauline Bonaparte ). The first known temple to Venus
4410-485: 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 ( sive femina sive mas ) . Several examples of Greek and Roman sculpture show her in
4557-592: A statue of the deceased and deified Caesar . Vitruvius recommends that any new temple to Venus be sited according to rules laid down by the Etruscan haruspices , and built "near to the gate" of the city, where it would be less likely to contaminate "the matrons and youth with the influence of lust". He finds the Corinthian style, slender, elegant, enriched with ornamental leaves and surmounted by volutes , appropriate to Venus' character and disposition. Vitruvius recommends
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4704-410: A syncretised form of Bacchus as a "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. Venus Kallipygos ("Venus with the beautiful buttocks"), a statue, and possibly a statue type, after a lost Greek original. From Syracuse , Sicily. Venus Libertina ("Venus
4851-680: A temple to Venus and Roma Aeterna (Eternal Rome) on Rome's Velian Hill , underlining the Imperial unity of Rome and its provinces, and making Venus the protective genetrix of the entire Roman state, its people and fortunes. It was the largest temple in Ancient Rome. Venus was offered official (state-sponsored) cult in certain 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
4998-729: A temple to Venus Felix et Roma Aeterna on the Via Sacra . The same epithet is used for a specific sculpture at the Vatican Museums . Venus Genetrix ("Venus the Mother"), as a goddess of motherhood and domesticity, with a festival on September 26, a personal ancestress of the Julian lineage and, more broadly, the divine ancestress of the Roman people. Julius Caesar dedicated a Temple of Venus Genetrix in 46 BC. This name has attached to an iconological type of statue of Aphrodite/Venus . Venus Heliopolitana ("Venus of Heliopolis Syriaca "),
5145-698: A temple was dedicated to Venus Libitina in Libitina's grove on the Esquiline Hill , "hardly later than 300 BC". Venus Murcia ("Venus of the Myrtle"), merging Venus with the little-known deity Murcia (or Murcus, or Murtia). Murcia was associated with Rome's Mons Murcia (the 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
5292-518: A twin, named Anteros. Xenophon 's Socratic Symposion 8. 1, features a dinner-guest with eros (love) for his wife; in return, she has anteros (reciprocal love) for him. Some sources suggest Anteros as avenger of "slighted love". In Servius ' 4th century commentary on Virgil's Aeneas , Cupid is a deceptive agent of Venus, impersonating Aeneas' son and making Dido , queen of Carthage , forget her husband. When Aeneas rejects her love, and covertly leaves Carthage to fulfill his destiny as ancestor of
5439-413: 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, Memmius . Venus Physica Pompeiana was Pompeii's protective goddess, antedating Sulla's imposition of
5586-438: Is also cognate with Latin venia ('favour, permission') and vēnor ('to hunt') through to common PIE root *wenh₁- ('to strive for, wish for, desire, love'). Venus has been described as perhaps "the most original creation of the Roman pantheon", and "an ill-defined and assimilative" native goddess, combined "with a strange and exotic Aphrodite". Her cults may represent the religiously legitimate charm and seduction of
5733-629: Is also a regal form of "Nature Mother" and a guarantor of success in love. 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
5880-672: Is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas. The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown. Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic. According to
6027-534: Is easily seen in the names of the days of the week, which were frequently translated according to the interpretatio. Examples of deities depicted in syncretic compositions by means of interpretatio graeca or romana : Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro ( Classical Latin : [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː] ; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( / ˈ v ɜːr dʒ ɪ l / VUR -jil ) in English,
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6174-582: Is evidence of his cult, shared with Venus at her Temple just outside the Colline Gate and elsewhere. He would also have featured in many private household cults. In private and public areas alike, statues of Venus and Mars attended by Cupid, or Venus, Cupid and minor erotes were sometimes donated by wealthy sponsors, to serve both religious and artistic purposes. Cupid's roles in literary myth are usually limited to actions on behalf of Venus; in Cupid and Psyche , one of
6321-403: Is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers. A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante, identifies Andes with modern Pietole , two or three miles southeast of Mantua. The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua. There are eight or nine references to
6468-616: Is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus , who later helped finish the Aeneid . At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius , by Augustus . According to
6615-410: Is said to have received the toga virilis on the very day that Lucretius died. From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome. After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of
6762-433: Is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet. A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius. Henry Nettleship believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius, but it
6909-473: Is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus. The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused
7056-456: Is the site of Andes. E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio 's 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading. Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that
7203-545: Is transmitted chiefly in vitae ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus , Donatus , and Servius . The life given by Donatus is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence , where Suetonius is explicitly credited. The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements. Varius
7350-508: Is unclear where the offering is made, and others say this gift is to the Lares. In dice-games played with knucklebones , a popular pastime among Romans of all classes, the luckiest, best possible roll was known as " Venus ". Like other major Roman deities, Venus was given a number of epithets 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
7497-701: The Divine Comedy . Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia , as one of the four regulati poetae along with Ovid , Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7). The Renaissance saw a number of authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; Paradise Lost was influenced by the example of the Aeneid ; and later artists influenced by Virgil include Berlioz and Hermann Broch . The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in
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#17330853887087644-551: The Germania . Tacitus reports that in a sacred grove of the Nahanarvali , "a priest adorned as a woman presides, but they commemorate gods who in Roman terms (interpretatione romana) are Castor and Pollux " when identifying the divine Alcis . Elsewhere, he identifies the principal god of the Germans as Mercury , perhaps referring to Wotan . Some information about the deities of
7791-534: The Vinalia rustica festival. In 217 BC, in the early stages of the Second Punic War with Carthage , Rome suffered a disastrous defeat at the battle of Lake Trasimene . The Sibylline oracle suggested that Carthage might be defeated if the Venus of Eryx ( Venus Erycina ), patron goddess of Carthage's Sicilian allies, could be persuaded to change her allegiance. Rome laid siege to Eryx and promised its goddess
7938-473: The gens to which Vergil belonged, gens Vergilia , in inscriptions from Northern Italy . Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona , and one in an inscription from Calvisano , a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia. A tomb erected by
8085-496: The gens Julia , embellished an existing connection between Venus, whom Julius Caesar had adopted as his protectress, and the Trojan prince Aeneas , refugee from Troy's destruction and eventual ancestor of the Roman people. Virgil's Aeneas is guided to Latium by Venus in her heavenly form, the morning star, shining brightly before him in the daylight sky; much later, she lifts Caesar's soul to heaven. In Ovid 's Fasti Venus came to Rome because she "preferred to be worshipped in
8232-613: The Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses , the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as
8379-516: The Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad . Book 1 (at
8526-610: The Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox ) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" ( Epistulae 3.7.8). The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ( grotta vecchia ) in Piedigrotta ,
8673-576: The Catalepton , consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus , which were written in dactylic hexameter . While some readers have identified
8820-525: The 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 funerals and undertakers , Libitina , who also became synonymous with death;
8967-499: The Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and is regarded as one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature ( T. S. Eliot referred to it as 'the classic of all Europe'). The work (modelled after Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey ) chronicles
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#17330853887089114-658: The Hellenistic era , including Amon / Zeus , Osiris / Dionysus , and Ptah / Hephaestus . In his observations regarding the Scythians , he equates their queen of the gods, Tabiti , to Hestia , Papaios and Api to Zeus and Gaia respectively, and Argimpasa to Aphrodite Urania , while also claiming that the Scythians worshipped equivalents to Herakles and Ares , but which he does not name. Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and Jupiter , are thought to derive from
9261-501: The Middle Ages , and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos , demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he
9408-467: The Renaissance of the 12th century , Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum, and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age. Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil", but they could not deny the power of his appeal. Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in
9555-552: The attitude anasyrmene , from the Greek verb anasyromai , "to pull up one's clothes" to reveal her male genitalia. The gesture traditionally held apotropaic or magical power. Venus Caelestis (Celestial or Heavenly Venus), used from the 2nd 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 October 134. This form of
9702-466: The golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life. Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination . In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In
9849-493: The interpretationes . These are not necessarily gods who share similar traits (as viewed by modern scholarship or readers, at least), and rarely do they share a common origin (for that, see comparative Indo-European pantheons ); they are simply gods of various cultures whom the Greeks or Romans identified (either explicitly in surviving works, or as supported by the analyses of modern scholars) with their own gods and heroes. This system
9996-588: The neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna , it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus 's neoteric circle. According to the Catalepton , he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana , but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One,
10143-488: The toga virilis, suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy equestrian landowner. He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began
10290-470: The "translatability" of deities as "different names to different peoples" (nomina alia aliis gentibus). This capacity made possible the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era and the pre-Christian Roman Empire . Herodotus was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation. In his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into
10437-478: The 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician . Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt , became
10584-479: The Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus , and who committed suicide in 26 BC. The tone of the Georgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading
10731-743: The Aventine and the Circus Maximus" – a strongly plebeian context for Venus's cult, in contrast to her aristocratic cultivation as a Stoic and Epicurian "all-goddess". Towards the end of the Roman Republic , some leading Romans laid personal claims to Venus' favour. The general and dictator Sulla adopted Felix ("Lucky") as a surname, acknowledging his debt to heaven-sent good fortune and his particular debt to Venus Felix , for his extraordinarily fortunate political and military career. His protégé Pompey competed for Venus' support, dedicating (in 55 BC)
10878-409: The Elder , having a Stoic's outlook, sees Cupid as a deity of greed and blind passion, morally inferior to Amor. The Roman playwright Plautus , however, has Venus, Cupid and Amor working together. In Roman cult inscriptions and theology, "Amor" is rare, and "Cupido" relatively common. No Roman temples seem dedicated to Cupid alone but the joint dedication formula Venus Cupidoque ("Venus and Cupid")
11025-516: The Fisher-woman") are almost exclusive to Pompeii. Both forms of Venus are represented within Pompeian homes of the well-off, with Venus Pompeiana more commonly found in formal reception spaces, typically depicted in full regalia , draped with a mantle, standing rigidly upright with her right arm across her chest. Images of Venus Pescatrice tend to be more playful, usually found in less formal and less public "non-reception" areas: here, she usually holds
11172-403: 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. Venus Anadyomene (Venus "rising from the sea"), based on
11319-541: The Jews worshiped Dionysus , and that the day of Sabbath was a festival of Sabazius. Lacunae prevent modern scholars from knowing the other speakers' thoughts. Tacitus , on the topic of the Sabbath , claims that "others say that it is an observance in honour of Saturn , either from the primitive elements of their faith having been transmitted from the Idæi , who are said to have shared
11466-458: The Latin word for 'wand' ( uirga ), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages . There is also a possibility that virg- is meant to evoke the Latin virgo ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the fourth Eclogue , which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic , interpretations . Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he
11613-532: The Latins with a federal cult at the temple named Frutinal in Lavinium. Inscriptions found at Lavinium attest the presence of federal cults, without giving precise details. 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
11760-417: The Roman pantheon, Vulcan and Mars , are active and fiery. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection. She is essentially assimilative and benign, and embraces several otherwise quite disparate functions. She can give military victory, sexual success, good fortune and prosperity. In one context, she is a goddess of prostitutes; in another, she turns
11907-539: The Roman people, Dido is said to invoke Anteros as "contrary to Cupid". She falls into hatred and despair, curses Rome, and when Aeneas leaves, commits suicide. Ovid 's Fasti, Book 4, invokes Venus not by name but as "Mother of the Twin Loves", the gemini amores . "Amor" is the Latin name preferred by Roman poets and literati for the personification of "kindly" love. Where Cupid (lust) can be imperious, cruel, prone to mischief or even war-like, Amor softly persuades. Cato
12054-405: The Romans, so as far as the Romans were concerned, this was the homecoming of an ancestral goddess to her people. Soon after, Rome's defeat of Carthage confirmed Venus's goodwill to Rome, her links to its mythical Trojan past, and her support of its political and military hegemony. The Capitoline cult to Venus seems to have been reserved to higher status Romans. A separate cult to Venus Erycina as
12201-542: The Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas ; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to
12348-545: 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 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. Venus Frutis honoured by all
12495-558: 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 Sulla or a Caesar". 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 theater in the Campus Martius . She had
12642-566: The ancient vitae , Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy , added to Italy proper during his lifetime). The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married. According to Phocas and Probus,
12789-430: The ancient Gauls (the continental Celts ), who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek and Latin equivalents. A large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars . As with some Greek and Roman divine counterparts, the perceived similarities between a Gallic and a Roman or Greek deity may reflect
12936-468: The attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the Eclogues . This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues . In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of
13083-403: The beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus ' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that
13230-505: The celebrities of human history in The House of Fame (1486–7), describing him as standing on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the Divine Comedy , in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory , Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore ( Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone
13377-475: The child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus ; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus . Virgil in his Eclogues is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and with setting
13524-430: The city of her own offspring". In Virgil's poetic account of Octavian 's victory at the sea- battle of Actium , the future emperor is allied with Venus, Neptune and Minerva . Octavian's opponents, Antony , Cleopatra and the Egyptians, assisted by bizarre and unhelpful Egyptian deities such as "barking" Anubis , lose the battle. Cupid (lust or desire) and Amor (affectionate love) are taken to be different names for
13671-560: The concept of "deity" was often expansive, permitting multiple and even contradictory functions within a single divinity, and overlapping powers and functions among the diverse figures of each pantheon. These tendencies extended to cross-cultural identifications. In the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus , a favorite cult figure among soldiers. Roman scholars such as Varro interpreted
13818-489: The divine Aeneid , but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus . With almost every line of his epic Punica , Silius references Virgil. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue – widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have
13965-412: 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. 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
14112-497: The emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar 's Virgil Reading the Aeneid . Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However,
14259-437: The epithet and its attendant responsibilities represented a change of heart in the goddess herself. Vinalia urbana (April 23), a wine festival shared by Venus and 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 " profane " wine, for everyday human use. Jupiter
14406-570: The factors contributing to the frequent friction between the Jews and the Roman Empire; for example, the Emperor Hadrian 's decision to rebuild Jerusalem under the name of Aelia Capitolina , a city dedicated to Jupiter, precipitated the bloodbath of the Bar Kokhba revolt . Emperor Julian , the 4th century pagan emperor, remarked that "these Jews are in part god-fearing, seeing that they revere
14553-606: The fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises , who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae , in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl , who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son. Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to
14700-456: The flight of that God, and to have founded the race", implying Saturn was the god of the Jews. From the Roman point of view, it was natural to apply the above principle to the Jewish God. However, the Jews, unlike other peoples living under Roman rule, rejected any such attempt out of hand, regarding such an identification as the worst of sacrilege . This complete divergence of views was one of
14847-551: 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." Venus Acidalia , in Virgil 's Aeneid (1.715–22, as mater acidalia ). 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
14994-565: The goddess, and the taurobolium, are associated with the "Syrian Goddess", understood as a late equivalent to Astarte , or the Roman Magna Mater , the latter being another supposedly Trojan "Mother of the Romans", as well as "Mother of the Gods". 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
15141-453: The head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno , Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage , which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido , welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of
15288-406: The hearts of men and women from sexual vice to virtue. Varro 's theology identifies Venus with water as an aspect of the female principle. To generate life, the watery matrix of the womb requires the virile warmth of fire. To sustain life, water and fire must be balanced; excess of either one, or their mutual antagonism, is unproductive or destructive. Prospective brides offered Venus a gift "before
15435-470: The hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics ) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and
15582-427: The latter spelling spread to the modern European languages. This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown Vergilius to be the original spelling. Today, the anglicisations Vergil and Virgil are both considered acceptable. There is some speculation that the spelling Virgilius might have arisen due to a pun, since virg- carries an echo of
15729-464: The literary concept of Venus is mantled in whole-cloth borrowings from the literary Greek mythology of her counterpart, Aphrodite, but with significant exceptions. In some Latin mythology, Cupid was the son of Venus and Mars , the god of war. At other times, or in parallel myths and theologies, Venus was understood to be the consort of Vulcan or as mother of the "second cupid", fathered by Mercury . Virgil , in compliment to his patron Augustus and
15876-525: The magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae , the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian , and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius ,
16023-424: The monotheistic god of the Jews into Roman terms as Caelus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus . Some Greco-Roman authors seem to have understood the Jewish invocation of Yahweh Sabaoth as Sabazius . In a similar vein, Plutarch gave an example of a symposium question "Who is the god of the Jews?", by which he meant: "What is his Greek name?" as we can deduce from the first speaker at the symposium, who maintained that
16170-460: The most 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. She was meant to persuade Romans of both sexes and every class, whether married or unmarried, to cherish
16317-558: The muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus . Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus , the king of the Rutulians , who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata , Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander , who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on
16464-577: The name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla. The cognomen of Virgil's maternal family, Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name ( Magi ) in Servius' life from the genitive magi of the noun magus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself. Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation
16611-403: The names of equivalent Greek deities. Interpretatio graeca may also describe non-Greeks' interpretation of their own belief systems by comparison or assimilation with Greek models, as when Romans adapt Greek myths and iconography under the names of their own gods. Interpretatio romana is comparative discourse in reference to ancient Roman religion and myth , as in the formation of
16758-460: The nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the Grand Tour , and it still draws visitors today. According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and later went to Cremona , Milan , and finally Rome to study rhetoric , medicine , and astronomy , which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to
16905-483: The one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology , or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars ; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study
17052-414: The one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him." Biographical information about Virgil
17199-450: The only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter ). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate. The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry . The Eclogues , Georgics , and above all
17346-512: 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 noxious airs . 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. Venus Erycina (" Erycine Venus"),
17493-458: The poem be burned , instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus, or at Taranto according to some late manuscripts of Servius, Virgil's remains were transported to Naples , where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces ; " Mantua gave me life,
17640-549: The poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god ( Ecl . 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl . 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues ( Ecl . 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with
17787-578: The reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles." Other studies claim that today's consideration for ancient Andes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo . By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling Vergilius had been changed to Virgilius , and then
17934-436: 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. The emperor Hadrian built
18081-470: The ripening of the grapes; but the sacrificial victim, a female lamb ( agna ), may be evidence that it once belonged to Venus alone. A festival of Venus Genetrix (September 26) was held under state auspices from 46 BC at 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 Julian clan . Caesar dedicated
18228-470: The sack of Troy , the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of
18375-427: The same Roman love-god, the son of Venus, fathered by Mercury , Vulcan or Mars. Childlike or boyish winged figures who accompany Venus, whether singly, in pairs or more, have been variously identified as Amores, Cupids , Erotes or forms of Greek Eros . The most ancient of these is Eros, whom Hesiod categorises as a primordial deity , emerging from Chaos as a generative power with neither mother nor father. Eros
18522-420: The sense of "a charm, magic philtre ". Venus seems to have had no origin myth until her association with Greek Aphrodite. Venus-Aphrodite emerged, already in adult form, from the sea foam (Greek αφρός, aphros ) produced by the severed genitals of Caelus - Uranus . Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life. Her male counterparts in
18669-538: The springtime blossoming of trees and flowers. In the 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)), whose cult
18816-458: The stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus , Nemesianus and later writers. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod 's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on: Well-known passages include
18963-631: The stories within The Golden Ass , by the Roman author Apuleius , the plot and its resolution are driven by Cupid's love for Psyche ("soul"), his filial disobedience, and his mother's envy. Images of Venus have been found in domestic murals, mosaics and household shrines ( lararia ). Petronius , in his Satyricon , places an image of Venus among the Lares (household gods) of the freedman Trimalchio 's lararium . The Venus types known as Venus Pompeiana ("Venus of Pompeii") and Venus Pescatrice ("Venus
19110-436: The supposed biographic incident. Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas , Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace , in whose poetry he
19257-506: 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. The festival's rites are not known. As with most major gods and goddesses in Roman mythology ,
19404-622: The tendency of the ancient Greeks to identify foreign deities with their own gods. It is a discourse used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures; a comparative methodology using ancient Greek religious concepts and practices , deities , and myths , equivalencies, and shared characteristics . The phrase may describe Greek efforts to explain others' beliefs and myths, as when Herodotus describes Egyptian religion in terms of perceived Greek analogues, or when Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch document Roman cults , temples , and practices under
19551-616: The tradition, Virgil traveled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid . After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara . After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca , to disregard Virgil's own wish that
19698-454: The traditional sexual proprieties and 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
19845-480: The underworld. Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas,
19992-517: 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. Venus Cloacina ("Venus the Purifier"); a fusion of Venus with the Etruscan water goddess Cloacina , who had an ancient shrine above
20139-507: The wedding"; the nature of the gift, and its timing, are unknown. The wedding ceremony itself, and the state of lawful marriage, belonged to Juno – whose mythology allows her only a single marriage, and no divorce from her habitually errant spouse, Jupiter – but Venus and Juno are also likely "bookends" for the ceremony; Venus prepares the bride for "conubial bliss" and expectations of fertility within lawful marriage. Some Roman sources say that girls who come of age offer their toys to Venus; it
20286-479: The widest possible spacing between the temple columns, producing a light and airy space, and he offers Venus's temple in Caesar's forum as an example of how not to do it; the densely spaced, thickset columns darken the interior, hide the temple doors and crowd the walkways, so that matrons who wish to honour the goddess must enter her temple in single file, rather than arm-in arm. In 135 AD the Emperor Hadrian inaugurated
20433-526: Was vowed to Venus Obsequens by Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of a battle against the Samnites . It was dedicated in 295 BC, at a site near the Aventine Hill , and was supposedly funded by fines imposed on Roman women for sexual misdemeanours. Its rites and character were probably influenced by or based on Greek Aphrodite 's cults, which were already diffused in various forms throughout Italian Magna Graeca . Its dedication date connects Venus Obsequens to
20580-700: Was a master poet – Saint Augustine , for example, confessing how he had wept at reading the death of Dido. The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity such as the Vergilius Augusteus , the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus . Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death". In
20727-605: Was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period . He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature : the Eclogues (or Bucolics ), the Georgics , and the epic Aeneid . A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana , were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of
20874-410: 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
21021-411: 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 , when a series of prodigies was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans of every category and class, including several men and three Vestal Virgins . The statue of Venus Verticordia was dedicated by a young woman, chosen as
21168-553: Was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogue 4 , which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus's birth . In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity. Relatedly, The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about
21315-582: Was the patron deity of Thespiae , where he was embodied as an aniconic stone as late as the 2nd century AD. From at least the 5th century BC he also had the form of an adolescent or pre-adolescent male, at Elis (on the Peloponnese ) and elsewhere in Greece, acquiring wings, bow and arrows, and divine parents in the love-goddess Aphrodite and the war-god Ares. He had temples of his own, and shared others with Aphrodite. At Elis, and in Athens , Eros shared cult with
21462-415: Was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and then left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle . Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving . In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation
21609-589: Was used in the purification rites of Cloacina , the Etruscan-Roman goddess of Rome's main sewer ; later, Cloacina's association with Venus' sacred plant made her Venus Cloacina . Likewise, Roman folk-etymology transformed the ancient, obscure goddess Murcia into "Venus of the Myrtles, whom we now call Murcia". Interpretatio graeca Interpretatio graeca ( Latin for 'Greek translation'), or "interpretation by means of Greek [models]", refers to
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