Venus

VENUS is perhaps the most singular example from among the divinized abstractions that make up the Roman pantheon. The word venus, in its origin, is a neuter noun of the same kind as genus or opus. It is discernible in the derived verb venerari (*venes-ari), which is confined to religious usage by all the authors of the republican period, especially Plautus. The Plautinian construction (not maintained by classic use) is of particular interest: veneror … ut, which can be translated, "I work a charm [upon such-and-such a divinity] in order to [obtain a result]." This notion of charm or seduction that defines the word venus is represented in Hittite (wenzi) and in the language of the Veneti (wontar). Yet the root ven- did not produce a divinity anywhere except in Latin. It is significant that, in the Oscan region (where is recorded a form that is probably borrowed from Latin), the homologue of the Latin Venus is Herentas, formed from another root: her-, "to will."

The neuter venus is part of a remarkable semantic series of the same kind as genus/Genius/generare, except that here the first term and not the second was divinized, passing from the neuter to the feminine: Venus/venia/venerari (sometimes venerare in Plautus). To the persuasive charm that the goddess embodies and that the venerans ("he who venerates") practices upon the gods, there corresponds the symmetric notion of venia in the sense of "grace" or "favor"—a notion that belongs to the technical vocabulary of the pontiffs (Servius, Ad Aeneidem 1.519).

This metamorphosis of a neuter noun into a goddess (in contrast, it is the shift from feminine to masculine that marks the divinization of Cupido) was very likely furthered by the encounter of this divinity with the Trojan legend. This legend must have facilitated the relation drawn between a Venus embodying charm in its religious meaning and an Aphrodite personifying seduction in the profane sense. The notion of Aphrodite as mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas, the legendary founder of the Roman race, allowed for the application of a Greek legend to Roman benefit. The myth illustrated the rite. It made explicit in plain language the ritual employed by a Roman venerans when soliciting the venia deum, the favor of the gods. Set forth as their ancestor, the "pious" Aeneas conferred upon the Romans a privileged status in the eyes of the gods. Was it not therefore their lot as his descendants, the Aeneads, to be assured of obtaining the pax veniaque deum (the peace and grace of God), as frequently expressed by Livy, thanks to the mediation of Venus, the preferred daughter of Jupiter? This, to be sure, was on the condition that they fulfill the duties of pietas ("piety"). This explains the famous declarations whereby the Romans claimed the title of "the most religious people in the world" (Cicero, De natura deorum 2.3.8, De haruspicum responsis 9.19).

The divinization of the notion of venus had to take place in a syncretic environment, Lavinium, which lent to Venus the smile of Aphrodite. According to tradition, Aeneas established at Lavinium, in Latium, a cult of Venus Frutis (the appellation Frutis is very likely connected etymologically to Aphrodite), and in the same place a federal temple of Venus, common to all Latins, was set up. Archaeology has uncovered at that site a hērōiov, the shrine of a hero, which the discoverer identifies as the mausoleum of Aeneas mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.64.1–5).

The Trojan interpretation of Venus explains the development of her cult. Thanks to the enlightenment afforded by the association with the Trojan legend, the Romans were able to recognize their national Venus in the Aphrodite of Mount Eryx in Sicily at the time of the First Punic War and so erected a temple to her later on the Capitoline. On the basis of this same enlightenment, the goddess was associated with Jupiter in the cult of the Vinalia, the wine festival thought to have been instituted by Aeneas. The first temple erected in the goddess's honor had been dedicated to Venus Obsequens ("propitious Venus"). It had been vowed in 295 BCE by Q. Fabius Gurges while battle raged against the Samnites. Its dedication day, August 19, coincided with the Vinalia Rustica. The Trojan interpretation was imposed in definitive and official fashion in the first century BCE: Julius Caesar offered a temple in the middle of the forum to Venus Genetrix as the grandmother of the Julian gens and the mother of the Aeneades. Lucretius's literary expression Aeneadum genetrix thus was awarded liturgical consecration.

Dumézil, Georges. Idées romaines. Paris, 1969. See pages 245–252.

Dumézil, Georges. La religion romaine archaïque. 2d ed. Paris, 1974. Translated from the first edition by Philip Krapp as Archaic Roman Religion, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1970).

Schilling, Robert. "Le Culte de l'Indiges' à Lavinium." Revue des études latines 57 (1979): 49–68.

Schilling, Robert. Rites, cultes, dieux de Rome. Paris, 1979. See pages 290–333.

Schilling, Robert. La religion romaine de Venus depuis les origines jusqu'au temps d'Auguste. 2d ed. Paris, 1982.

Freyburger, Gérard. "Vénus et Fides." In Hommages à Robert Schilling, pp. 101–108. Paris, 1983.

Johnson, Patricia J. "Construction of Venus in Ovid's Metamorphoses V." Arethusa 29 (1996): 125–149.

Lloyd-Morgan, Glenys. "Roman Venus: Public Worship and Private Rites." In Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, edited by Martin Henig and Anthony King, pp. 179–188. Oxford, 1986.

Magini, Leonardo. Le feste di Venere. Fertilità femminile e configurazioni astrali nel calendario di Roma antica. Rome, 1996.

Speidel, Michael. "Venus Victrix. Roman and Oriental." In Auf-stieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.17.4, pp. 2225–2238. Berlin and New York, 1984.

Wlosok, Antonie. Die Göttin Venus in Vergils Aeneis. Heidelberg, 1967.

This is the complete article, containing 929 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).