Ursa Minor, Triones The constellation of the Little Bear or Little Dipper, said to have been introduced by Thales in about 600BC. Close to Polaris the Pole Star it is a smaller version of the Great Bear, Ursa Major, and represents the far north. Bk II:150-177. Bk II:496-507. Jupiter turns Arcas into the Little Bear and his mother Callisto into the Great Bear, Ursa Major. § Venilia The wife of Janus, and mother of Canens. Bk XIV:320-396. Venulus A messenger from Turnus to Diomede. Bk XIV:445-482. Bk XIV:512-526. He returns having failed to win Diomede’s help. Venus The Goddess of Love. The daughter of Jupiter and Dione. She is Aphrodite, born from the waves, an incarnation of Astarte, Goddess of the Phoenicians. The mother of Cupid by Mars. Bk I:438-472. (See Botticelli’s painting – Venus and Mars – National Gallery, London) Bk IV:167-189. Bk XIV:1-74. She commits adultery with Mars and is caught in a net by her husband Vulcan after Sol has betrayed their affair. Bk IV:190-213. She is called Cytherea, from the island of Cythera, and takes her revenge on Sol. Bk IV:346-388. She is the mother of Hermaphroditus, by Mercury, and grants, with him, their son’s prayer that the pool of Salmacis weaken anyone who bathes there. Bk IV:512-542. She asks Neptune her uncle to change Ino and her son into sea-deities. Bk V:294-331. The Emathides pretend that she fled to Egypt in the war between the giants and the gods, and there she hid in the form of a fish. Bk VII:796-865. Cephalus would prefer Procris to her. Bk IX:394-417. She gave Harmonia the fatal necklace made by Vulcan (Hephaestus), that was Jupiter’s love gift to Europa, and that conferred irresistible beauty. Bk IX:418-438. She wishes to ward off old age from her mortal lover Anchises. Bk IX:439-516. Bk IX:517-594. Byblis names her. Bk IX:764-797. She attends weddings with Juno and Hymen. Bk X:220-242. She turned the Cerastae into wild bullocks, and forced the Propoetides to perform acts of public prostitution. This latter was a feature of the worship of the great goddess as Astarte and Diana(at Ephesus etc). Cyprus was one of her sacred islands. Bk X:243-297. She brings the ivory girl Pygmalion created to life. Bk X:503-559. She falls in love with Adonis. (He is a vegetation god, and as her consort, mirrors Attis with Cybele, Tammuz with Astarte etc See Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough.’) Bk X:560-637 . Bk X:638-680. She tells the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes. Bk X:681-707. She initiates her revenge on Hippomenes, and warns Adonis to avoid the wild beasts of the forest. Bk X:708-739. Adonis ignores her warning and is killed by a wild boar (sacred to her as the moon goddess) that gores his thigh. She initiates the annual re-enactment of his death (a vegetation ritual, of the death and resurrection of the Goddess’s consort), and turns his blood into the fragile anemone, the windflower. (See Frazer: The Golden Bough XXIX). Bk XIII:623-639. Aeneas is her son by Anchises. Bk XIII:640-674. She is Aeneas’s guardian goddess in his wanderings, and the white doves, into which the daughters of Anius are turned, are sacred to her. Bk XIII:738-788. Her influence is gentle but powerful, making Polyphemus change his nature after falling in love with Galatea. Bk XIV:1-74. She perhaps made Circe, Sol’s daughter, susceptible to passion, in revenge for her father’s tale-bearing, see above. Bk XIV:445-482. Bk XV:745-842. She punished Diomede for wounding her during the Trojan War. Bk XIV:483-511. She changes Diomede’s friends into birds. Bk XIV:566-580. She obtains deification for her son Aeneas. Bk XIV:623-697. She hates hard hearts. Bk XIV:698-771. Cyprian Salamis has a temple of Venus Prospiciens –‘she who looks out.’ Bk XIV:772-804. She asks the naiades to help the Romans. (Pursuing her support for the descendants of her son Aeneas.) Bk XV:745-842. She asks the gods to prevent the assassination of her descendant Julius Caesar. Jupiter, however, declares his deification, prophesies the glory of his ‘son’ Augustus, and allows Venus to snatch him up into heaven, as a comet. Bk XV:843-870. She sets Julius Caesar among the stars. |
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