VENUS (bat., love, desire: connected with 01(0. wini. friend. IPUIDut, Ger. Wonne, joy, Goth. 1(0n00. to enjoy. Skt. 1.011, to hold dear, wish, win), or APHRODITE. In classical mythology, the goddess of love, in the widest sense. The Greek Aphrodite very probably represents a borrowed cult. The name is still unexplained, but the goddess is clearly the eastern goddess of fertility and reproduction, the Phoenician Ashtoreth (or Astarte). Babylonian Ishtar, and Arabian Alilat. whose cult was prominent throughout the Semitic world. Her worship was orgiastic and sacred prostitutiim was prac ticed at many of her temples. This goddess was es pecially honored at Cyprus by Greeks and Pine nicians. and thence Aphrodite seems to have come to the Greek world. Cyprus. especially Paphos. and Cytheralikewise an early Plecnician trading post, gave the goddess two of her common surnames, Cypria and Cytherea. in Greek legend, how ever, Aphrodite preserved little trace of her for eign origin. In Homer she is daughter of Zeus and Dione. and completely at home in the Olym pian circle. In Hesiod is found the legend, which later became more popular, that she was sprung from the sea-foam which gathered about the mutilated member of Uranus. The new divinity landed on Cyprus, attended by nymphs and tri tons. Under her feet flowers sprang to birth, and all nature rejoiced. Other legends told of her love for the mortal Anchises, to whom she bore jEneas, and of her amour with Ares, which was detected and punished by llepinestus, her hus band. It should be said that there are many indications of a union of Ares and Aphrodite in cult, and in some places we hear of an Aphrodite Areia, Aphrodite .Nicephoros (Bringer of Vic tory), and armed statues of Aphrodite, though anything warlike is utterly removed from the ordinary conception. In general Aphrodite ap pears as the goddess of sexual love, the inspirer of passion, and the enemy of chastity, although the cult had a better side in which she was hon ored as a goddess of married life and chaste love, as at Sparta and near Athens. Plato and later writers sought to distinguish these two sides as the worship of the Aphrodite Urania (heavenly love) and Aphrodite Pandemus, but the distinc tion will not hold. Aphrodite also appears as a goddess of vegetation, especially of flowers. And
this side appears in the festival connected with Adonis (q.v.). who, according to an eastern legend. was it youthful favorite of the goddess. From the east, too, seems to have come her wor ship in many towns, especially on the coast, as a goddess of sailors, who gives them fair weather and prosperous voyages. This seems merely a borrowing from the honor paid their great god dess by Pluenician sailors. In art we find at a very early date primitive images of the eastern goddess, sometimes draped, but frequently nude. In the classical art the goddess was regularly clothed until the time of Praxiteles, whose fa mous Cnidian statue first represented her as nude. This type became very popular later and developed into such works as the Capitoline and Medicean statues. A clothed type is seen in the so-called Venus Genetrix of the Louvre, which probably is derived from the famous Aphrodite in the Garden of Alcamenes. Another famous statue was the Aphrodite Epitragia (riding on a he goat) of Scopas in Elis, known to us only from its appearance on coins.
In Rome Venus seems to have been originally a goddess of vegetation, especially of fruit and flowers, brought to Rome at an early date from Ardea, where she was a prominent divinity of the Latin league. ITer name does not appear in the early calendars, but she was early identified with a very different goddess, Libitina, whose name was now connected with lubido (lust). Later, the identification with wa completely carried out by the introduetion into Rome of the worship of Venus Eryeina, from the great sanetuary on Mount Eryx in Sicily. Sully especially honored Venus Felix as a god dess of good fortune, and her worship became prominent in his colony at Pompeii. Pompey built a temple to Venus Vietrix, and a great in crease in the honor of this goddess developed with the Empire. since the Julian family traced their descent to ,\seanius, son of .Enoas. and grandson of Aphrodite. In n.r. 16 .Julius Caesar dedicated a temple to Venus Genet rix in his new Fortin], and her worship was eonneeted with that of Mars, father of Romulus, in Augustus's tent plc of Mars Ultor, and with that of Roma in Hadrian's temple of Venus and Rome.