Venus (mythology) - Epithets of Venus

Epithets of Venus

Like other major Roman deities, Venus was ascribed a number of epithets that referred to her different cult aspects and roles. 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."

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 the goddess, and the taurobolium, are associated with the "Syrian Goddess", understood as a late equivalent to Astarte, or the Roman Magna Mater.

Venus Calva ("Venus the bald one"), a possibly legendary form of Venus, attested 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, women unaffected by the affliction 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 the outfall of the Cloaca Maxima, originally a stream, later covered over to function as Rome's main sewer. The shrine contained a statue of Venus, whose rites were probably meant to purify the culvert's polluted waters and noxious airs. Pliny the Elder, remarking Venus as a goddess of union and reconciliation, identifies the shrine with a legendary episode in Rome's earliest history, when the warring Romans and Sabines, carrying branches of myrtle, met there to make peace.

Venus Erycina ("Venus of Eryx"), from Sicily. She was brought to Rome and given temples on the Capitoline Hill and outside the Porta Collina. She embodied "impure" love, and was the patron goddess of prostitutes.

Venus Frutis honoured by all the Latins with a federal cult at the temple named Frutinal in Lavinium. Inscrptions found at Lavinium attest the presence of federal cults without giving precise details.

Venus Felix ("Lucky Venus"), her cult tile at her temple on the Esquiline Hill and at Hadrian's Venus Felix et Roma Aeterna on the Via Sacra. This epithet is also used for a specific sculpture at the Vatican Museums.

Venus Genetrix ("Mother Venus"), as a goddess of motherhood and domesticity, with a festival on September 26, and as ancestress of the Roman people. She was claimed as direct ancestress of the Julian gens in particular; Julius Caesar dedicated a Temple of Venus Genetrix to her in 46 BC. This name has attached to an iconological type of statue of Aphrodite/Venus.

Venus Kallipygos ("Venus with the pretty bottom"), worshiped at Syracuse.

Venus Libertina ("Venus the Freedwoman"), probably arising through the semantic similarity and cultural inks 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; 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") was an epithet that merged the goddess with the little-known deity Murcia or Murtia. Murcia was associated with Rome's Mons Murcia, 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.

Venus Obsequens ("Graceful Venus" or "Indulgent Venus"), Venus' first attested Roman epithet, and used in the dedication of her first Roman temple, sited somewhere at the foot of the Aventine Hill near the Circus Maximus. The temple was dedicated on August 19 in the late 3rd century BC during the Third Samnite War by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, and played a central role in the Vinalia Rustica. It was supposedly funded by fines imposed on women found guilty of adultery.

Venus Urania ("Heavenly Venus") was an epithet 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"). See Veneralia in this article and main article, Veneralia.

Venus Victrix ("Venus the Victorious") was an 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, Sulla's protégé, vied with his patron 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 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).