Venus

Venus began small. Her earliest Latin associations were with gardens, vegetation, and agricultural fertility. The name may derive from an Italic root meaning “desire” or “charm.” She was not among Rome’s original great gods.

Aeneas

Her elevation came through mythology. Aeneas, the Trojan prince who survived the fall of Troy and sailed to Italy, was her son by the mortal Anchises. Virgil’s Aeneid made this the founding story of Rome: Venus guided Aeneas through shipwreck, war, and the underworld to establish the city that became the capital of the world. The Julian family, which produced both Caesar and Augustus, claimed direct descent from Aeneas and therefore from Venus herself.

Venus Genetrix

Julius Caesar built a temple to Venus Genetrix, “Venus the Mother,” in his forum in 46 BCE. The temple was a political statement: the ruler of Rome worshipped in the temple of his own divine ancestor. Augustus continued the program. The state goddess of love and beauty was also the state goddess of dynastic legitimacy.

Lucretius

The poet Lucretius, an Epicurean materialist who denied the gods intervened in human affairs, opened his philosophical poem De Rerum Natura with a hymn to Venus as the creative force that drives all life. Even a poet arguing against divine intervention could not begin without her. Venus was the principle that made things want to exist.

Sources

Bibliography. The same list is held in the article’s frontmatter for the citation tools that read it programmatically.

• Virgil, Aeneid: Venus as mother of Aeneas
• Lucretius, De Rerum Natura: invocation to Venus as creative force
• Suetonius, Divus Iulius: Caesar’s claim of Venus descent