Venus is known as the Roman goddess of love and good fortune.
Nowadays she’s known exclusively as the goddess of love, sex and sensual femininity, but in the ancient world the Romans thought of her as the Mother of Rome, the bestower of good fortune and abundance, and as the bringer of Victory.
We know what she was to the ancient Romans by the many epithets they used to describe her, for example Venus Felix (Lucky Venus!) Venus Obsequens (Indulgent Venus!) and Venus Verticordia (Venus the Changer of Hearts.)
She was also known as Venus Physica, the natural creative force that runs through and forms the physical world – perhaps they meant it in the same way that we would use the Hindu term Shakti today.
Her name is thought to come from either the latin venire, meaning to come, as in she-who-comes-to-all (she was everybody’s goddess) or the latin venerare, which means to worship.
The modern world tends to look upon goddesses of love as very frivolous, silly, girly things – we should care about big manly gods with rational manly interests, not pointless sexy love goddesses! – but this is a reflection the kind of lingering misogyny at large in our culture today that still belittles things that are considered girly or feminine.
(That’s not to say that ancient Rome didn’t have it’s own misogyny to deal with, cos it sure did.)
Venus presided over festivals of wine as a goddess of gardens (The Vinalia Urbana in April and the Vinalia Rustica in August) her own festival of romantic fidelity (Veneralia in April) and the festival of Venus as the Ancestor of Rome (Venus Genetrix) in September, where all the politicians would court her favour.
Venus was a BIG FREAKIN’ DEAL to the Romans. Like her predecessor/sister goddess Aphrodite, she was a goddess of the people and was worshipped by normal folk throughout the land. Her sphere of influence was every life and civilisation, and we can think of Venus very much as a goddess of towns, cities, and gardens where the work of human hands has been busy.
Put it this way, if she was around today, she’d have a penthouse in Rome and spend the days chatting with friends, eating good food, buying haute couture and going to the opera.
She’s the People’s Goddess!
Want to learn more about Venus as a divine astrological energy? Click here.
Want to learn more about Aphrodite, Venus’ sister goddess and ancestor? Click here.
