VENUS IN AUGUSTAN ROME

by

John Carney

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Wilkes Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a

Concentration in History

Wilkes Honors College ofFloridaAtlantic University

Jupiter, Florida

May2013 VENUS IN AUGUSTAN ROME

by John Carney

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. Christopher Strain, and has been approved by the members of his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor ofArts in Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Date

ii ABSTRACT

Author: John Carney

Title: Venus In Augustan Rome

Institution: Wilkes Honors College ofFloridaAtlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Christopher Strain

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences

Concentration: History

Year: 2013

This thesis examines the development of a goddess in the ancient Mediterranean.

Popularly worshipped since at least the Paleolithic era, this goddess served as the cultural forbear of various goddesses throughout the region. The dominant religious culture of both the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras was emphatically matriarchal and contemporaneous societies mirrored this religious attitude with matrilineal customs. Over the course of many millennia, the goddess' identity and roles developed in different ways across the Mediterranean region. When Augustus came to power in Rome in the first century B.C.E., he adopted the tradition of his family and professed descent from Venus to lend divine credence to his claim to power. With the help of the poet Vergil, Augustus manipulated the character of Venus to embody and reinforce female roles desired in his burgeoning empire.

iii DEDICATION

For Jeanette and Jeffrey, who should feel obliged to read this thesis.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ...... •. 6

II. Chapter One

The Cultural History ofVenus ...... 7

Paleolithic Progenitor ...... 7

Neolithic Variegation ...... 10

Astarte ...... 14

Indo-European Invasion ...... is

Turan ...... •...... 17

Aphrodite ...... 20

Venus ...... 23

III. Chapter Two

Becoming Augustus: Octavius the Boy Learns to Marshall Power ...... 26

IV. Chapter Three

The Virtue ofVergil's Venus ...... 37

Aeneas ...... 38

The Aeneid ...... 39

Publius Vergilius Maro: Poet or Propagandist? ...... 45

V. Conclusion ...... 53

Bibliography ...... 55

v I. Introduction

In times before writing, the earliest ancestress of Venus was worshipped more widely and commonly than any other deity. However, this ancestress was far different from the Roman Venus of the first century B.C.E. Venus first appeared in Rome in.the­ third century B.C.E., but she was not revered as mater matriae until the Caesars Julius and Augustus manipulated her image in their campaigns for political dominance in the first century B.C.E. The apex of this transformation occurred when Augustus pursued conscious and concerted efforts to reform the image ofVenus, as well as the morals of

Rome, especially concerning women, marriage, and childbirth. Through his patronage of the greatest literary minds of his time, Augustus helped to create an image of Venus that was extremely important and influential to imperial Romans. Augustus commissioned

Vergil to produce a laudatory, heroic epic - the Aeneid. In the Aeneid, Vergil cast Venus as caring, compassionate, and submissive. This role starkly contrasts the role classically attributed to Venus' Greek counterpart, Aphrodite.

6 D. The Cultural Hjstoey ofVenus

The starting point for a history of the culturnl transmission of the goddess Venus

is unfortunately opaque; the farther back in history one attempts to inspect, the more

sources become ambiguous, incomplete, and unavailable. However, the cultural forbear

of Venus appeared as early as the Paleolithic period as an ultimate and archetypal f

Goddess widely worshipped across the Eurasian continent. The ch~acter of this early

goddess was quite distinct from the Venus that the Romans would come to worship as their progenitor and protectress, but this was the goddess from which Venus was

spawned.

• Paleolithic Proe;enitor

Paleolithic sources are primarily simple artifacts and archaeological sites and materials. It is from these that posterity has any remaining notions regarding the era. This

fragmentary evidence also comprises the first record of goddess worship, as well as

evidence for the worshipped Goddess herself. According to David Leeming and Jake

Page in their analysis of feminine deities:

The Goddess archetype took form in our consciousness at a point in preliterate prehistory that is too distant for us to remember or even imagine with any great certainty. From her depiction in Upper Paleolithic (30,000-7000 B.C.E.) figurines, cave paintings, and other archeological material, especially in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, however, scholars have surmised certain things about her. 1

1 David Leeming and Jake Page, Goddess: Myths ofthe Female Divine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 7.

7 Reliance upon these items as evidence is a result of necessity; no trace of written language exists and oral tniditions were largely eradicated by later militaristic societies.

Thus, there are no literary or mythical accounts of the Goddess from the time of her earliest religious domination. There are, however, many contemporaneous visual depictions of women and the Goddess, as Leeming and Page attest: "The great majority of objects found by archaeologists within the Paleolithic caves are figurines and drawings of women, some clearly pregnant, nearly all with caricatured large breasts and buttocks

(like the famous Earth Mothers or Venuses ofLaussel and Lespugue), and disks and other objects with vulva slits.'02 These 'Earth Mother' figurines have been commonly associated with fertility and sexuality because of their enhanced sexual organs and historical interpretations of the symbolism behind their enhancements. The actual symbolism of these representations, and thus the Goddess herself, is more complicated than the aforementioned view suggests. In The Living Goddess, Marija Gimbutas argues that the roles which this Goddess fulfilled were quite broad:

The Old European cultures certainly cared about fertility. But[... ] the wide variety of figurines, and particularly their Neolithic archaeological contexts, suggests that the feminine force played a wider religious role. The many sophisticated Neolithic art forms accentuating the female body unveil a natural and sacred sexuality neglected by modem culture.3

This Paleolithic Goddess was thus not a simple analogue for the Roman Venus, but something much more multifaceted.

2 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 8.

3 Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddess (University of California Press, 2001 ), 5.

8 The roles which the Goddess fulfilled in the Paleolithic period were much more

diverse than those oflater 'love goddesses,' like Venus. The focus on specific elements of

the body in the Goddess' corporeal depictions seems to belie this fact, but, "In religious

art, the human body symbolizes myriad functions beyond the sexual, especially the procreative, nurturing, and life enhancing.[ ... ] Renditions ofthe body expressed other

functions, specifically the nourishing and procreative aspects of the female body."4 It then

follows that these depictions should not be read as evidence of the Goddess as solely a

fertility or a love goddess. She was in fact both of those, and more: "[She] personified

every phase of life, death, and regeneration. She was the Creator from whom all life -

human, plant, and animal - arose, and to whom everything returned. Her role extended far

beyond eroticism."5 The Goddess from whom Venus claims cultural descent has similarly

been described by Leeming and Page as a supreme and ultimate deity:

In spite of the murkiness of our sources, a portrait of Goddess in her early stages does emerge from the evidence- at least in silhouette. [... ]Goddess was thoroughly female; she preceded any differentiation into God and Goddess. She seems to have been absolute and parthenogenetic - born of herself- the foundation of all being. She was the All-Giving and the All-Taking, the source of life and death and regeneration. More than a mother goddess or fertility goddess, she appears to have been earth and nature itself, an immense organic, ecological, and conscious whole - one with which we humans would eventually lose touch. 6

However, the Goddess' reign as supreme deity did not last. Although she remained the

primary goddess for many societies, the tides of change were already beginning to rise:

"During the Late Upper Paleolithic (1 0,000-7000 B.C.E. ), climatic changes brought the

4 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 5.

5 Ibid, 5.

6 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 7.

9 ice age to an end, and people in what are now Europe and the Middle East gradually formed more stable settlements. It is clear from figurines and other artifacts from that period that Goddess rituals remained a significant practice along with those meant to ensure hunting success. "7 This societal reformation necessarily entailed a shift in the society's values. While the Goddess remained supreme, she did not remain a solitary figure; her roles were divided amongst several goddesses.

• Neolithic Yarieption

During the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic period, the Goddess' roles began to exhibit evidence of specialization. It was at this point that her identity fractured into several and lesser parts of the former whole. Earth mother, love goddess, birth goddess, fertility goddess, sacred consort; all of these and more sprang into existence. However, the Goddess' transformation was gradual and for a period she retained her previous identity as supreme deity, "enthroned in consciously constructed shrines as the Supreme Being, taking form as Sacred Maiden and Ancient Crone, but most often as Holy Birth-Giver.'>S The process by which the Goddess metamorphosed from supreme and ultimate to divided and variegated is somewhat ironic: Goddess worship continued throughout the Neolithic period while technology improved. Her places of worship soon became temples where once they were open air spaces or caves:

7 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 19.

8 Ibid, 19.

10 Modem archaeology has revealed that highly evolved religious beliefs and centers of worship- temples- existed in Europe and the Near East more than five thousand years before the classical eras of Greece and Rome. Religious life centered on the temple from the seventh millennium onward. During the Neolithic period, these Old European temples harbored a sophisticated spiritual system. Today, their remnants provide us with artifacts and contexts to help us unravel the Neolithic sacred system and envision the divine force in the daily lives of the people who lived in Old Europe.9

However, as these temples rose in popularity they became specific sites of worship with differentiated features. So, "it seems likely•that as Goddess was increasingly worshipped in specific shrine sites, she developed more specific anthropomorphic and personal characteristics than she had had before."10 This development was the first step in the.

Goddess' transformation, which Gimbutas similarly affirms: "The Neolithic Europeans dedicated their temples to a deity and performed rituals associated with the functions of this deity. Certain themes emerge: birth, the renewal of life after death or winter, and continuing fertility for humans, animals, and the earth."11 The Goddess' roles remained nearly unchanged; she was still responsible for birth, regeneration, and fertility. However, just who "she" was becomes problematic again, because her identity began to be associated with "specific shrine sites" and their associated rituals. Thus, "she" necessarily became "they," who were the forbears of Astarte, Aphrodite, Turan, and eventually

Venus.

9 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 72.

ro Leeming and Page, Goddess, 22.

II Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 97.

11 The dominance of the Goddess in Paleolithic and Neolithic civilizations was reflected in the societal organization of some early civilizations. Women were not subjugated or controlled in these societies, but revered:

Given Neolithic religious symbolism, it is extremely difficult to imagine that Old European society would not be matrilineal, with the mother or grandmother venerated as progenitor of the family. In fact, the spiritual and social worlds were intimately intertwined: part of Old European religion was ancestor worship, in which the oldest women in the family, progenitors of a particular branch of the family, were venerated. [ ... ]An. analysis of the skeletons found underneath Old European houses or near them reveals two important facts essential to understanding Old European social structure and religion: first, these burials were almost always women, and second, the women were usually of an older age. 12

This analysis of skeletons is strong evidence of the privileged position women occupied in some early civilizations. However, the argfiment is further buttressed when compared with the religious imagery of the time: "During the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras of prehistory[... ] the religious symbolism is permeated by symbols based on the life- creating female body. The mother and the mother-daughter images are present throughout

Old Europe, while the father image, so prevalent in later times, is missing."13 The position, or conspicuous absence, of the male in Neolithic art is striking because of the later dominance of patrilineal societies and the associated domination of the male in the arts, both as producer and subject.

The role of males in the myths and religions of Neolithic Eurasian societies was similarly beginning to change: "The next stage in the Goddess' interaction with the male force reveals her as still dominant, but on increasingly dangerous grounds.[... ] By the

12 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 113.

13 Ibid, 112.

12 Late Neolithic, she had accepted the necessity of a male companion."14 One demonstratiou of the "necessity of a male companion" is evident in the hieros gamos:

Another important, but different, role for the male god is that of consort of the great-goddess; he appears in festive rites of sacred marriage, the hieros gamos. This ritual mating ensured the smooth process of the vegetation cycle and secured fertility and happiness for the land. This rite is well known from historical times, but although images of copulation date back to the Neolithic, such images are · rare. In the early historical era, the hieros gamos was celebrated in erotic hymns in Suiner and other Near Eastern cultures and in India. 15

The foremost example of a Neolithic hieros gamos is the Sumerian myth of "The

Courtship oflnanna and Dumuzi." The myth explicitly describes Inanna as a figure of procreation, fertility, sexuality, and as a giver of life: "My vulva, the hom,/ The Boat of

Heaven,/ Is full of eagerness like the young moon./ My untilled land lies fallow./ As for me, Inanna,/ Who will plow my vulva?/ Who will plow my high field?/ [... ] Who will station the ox there?/ Who will plow my vulva?"16 However, Inanna's character in the myth demonstrates the still dominant Goddess forced to rely upon a male consort,

Dumuzi. Inanna was further important as the forbear of two Neolithic Near Eastern goddesses, Babylonian Ishtar and Ugaritic Astarte: "Probably the oldest of the planting myths is that of the goddess Inanna, the Great Goddess of the ancient Sumerians, whose civilization flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates valley of Mesopotamia (Iraq) beginning in the fifth millennium B.C.E. Under the Babylonians in the second millennium, Inanna

14 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 59.

15 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 118.

16 "Courtship oflnanna and Dumuzi."

13

£ . ..tz££ii%£A& became lshtar."17 This Isthar was furthermore, "clearly related to the Ugaritic Star

Goddess, Astarte. "18

• Astarte

Astarte was the goddess of U garit associated with the falling star which originally brought her to Byblos.19 She was widely known and worshipped in the Mediterranean region: "[Astarte] was known to the Phoenicians on Sicily and at Carthage, even as far as

Cadiz beyond Gibraltar, and on Thera, Cyprus, and Crete. On Malta, Canaanites built great stone temples in her name.''2° Evidence from Astarte's temples and inscriptions establishes her primarily as, ''the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of all deities, the Holy

Guardian of the earth, the Great Goddess. "21 In this way, she still exhibited and shared the

Goddess' identity, but she was also addressed by titles which denote specific tasks:

"Astarte, lady of heaven, mistress of all the gods;" and also, "Astarte mistress of the stable who punishes the enemy."22 Thus, in keeping with the specialization which resulted from the development of temples, Astarte had taken on an individual identity.

Furthermore, her identity was not of a weak and dependent deity, but rather one of central importance:

17 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 60.

18 Ibid, 105.

19 Ibid, 32.

20 Ibid, 33.

21 Ibid, 33.

22 Izak Cornelius, The Many Faces ofthe Goddess, (Switzerland: Academic Press Fribourg, 2004), 81-82.

14 In the Ugaritic pantheon lists Astarte is placed after Anat and in the mythological texts she plays a lesser role and is indeed 'elusive.'[... ] In the Ugaritic texts the beauty of Huriya is compared to that ofAstarte, but she is also warlike and a huntress. [ ... ] Astarte also occurs as an important goddess at Emar where she is called 'Astarte ofbattle.' [ ... ]Astarte is depicted as a warrior, but especially as the 'goddess ofhorse-riders.' [ ... ]She is a 'mistress of the animals.'23

While Astarte was described as beautiful, and "mistress of all the gods," she was nevertheless a warrior. In other words, her beauty did not defme nor limit her like it did for later goddesses.

Astarte is a useful goddess to consider because she represents the roles that the

Goddess continued to play in the time immediately preceding the Indo-European invasions. Here, she is essentially an analog for Inanna, Ishtar, and any other of the goddesses undergoing identity fractalization from the Goddess. While the details of each of these goddesses (Inanna, Ishtar, and Astarte) are nuanced, they shared the same fate.

This was the twilight of the Goddess' supreme reign; winter was coming for the deity of nature's bounty.

• lndo-Europeap lpvasjon

Beginning in the Bronze Age (ca. 3500 B.C.E.}, matrilineal societies were dominated or destroyed by invaders. These invaders were the Indo-Europeans, or Aryans.

Their path to domination over the cultures of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian regions was by no means quick, but over the course of three thousand years (ca.

3200-1200) they established their supremacy across the Eurasian continent:

23 Cornelius, The Many Faces ofthe Goddess, 87.

15 There are archaeological indications of a small Indo-European presence in what is now Iran as early as 3200 B.C.E. By 3200 B.C.E., Mesopotamia had been invaded and by. 3000 B.C.E., Egypt. [ ... ]In the fourteenth, thirteenth, and twelfth centuries B.C.E., Greece was invaded by Indo-European Achaeans (Homer's destroyers of Troy) and Dorians, and the rest of Europe fell to Celtic Aryans in the centuries that followed. 24

The Indo-Europeans were able to conquer so efficiently because their society instilled different values than those of the matrilineal societies thus far considered:

It is thought that these people, inhabitants of a landscape less abundant in "Goddess bounty" than that of Europe and the Fertile Crescent, had long practiced the art of military raids on one anothers' [sic] settlements and herds to augment their wealth, and that in search of more productive territory, they undertook southern migrations into the Goddess world during the Bronze Age (3500-1 000 B.C.E.).25

The Indo-Europeans thus were familiar with the practice and philosophy of warfare; they were capable of engaging in battle and willing to eradicate a group of fellow humans. The

Indo-Europeans brought with them new methods of fighting, new weapons, and new ideas: "The Aryans were experienced warriors who brought superior weapons, including war chariots. Not surprisingly, they also brought religions that reflected their priorities and thus were dominated not by Goddess, but by a warrior Father God of thunder and light.''26 The religions and deities that the Indo-Europeans brought to the lands that they conquered had a far reaching effect on the value systems held by the indigenous peoples.

The roles of goddesses and women drastically changed during and after these invasions, but they did retain aspects of their former glory:

24 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 87.

25 Ibid, 87.

26 1bid, 88.

16 The emergence of the Indo-European sky gods to positions of supreme power and the concurrent abuse of Goddess as monster and source of all evil did not [... ] eliminate the need for the feminine, in the patriarchy's vision of the cosmos. As mothers, wives, and daughters, females continued to exist and to function, though in conditions that we would call oppressive. The male-oriented religious pantheons, which had to include goddesses as mothers, consorts, and daughters of gods, kept Goddess alive, with her ancient functions temporarily sublimated in the new patriarchal values.27

As the Indo-Europeans migrated throughout the Eurasian continent, their influence was felt to varying degrees by different civilizations. While Grecian goddesses were subordinated to a number of male deities, it seems that the Etruscan's goddesses retained their independence. Considering the roles of women in Etruscan and Greek societies as an analog for their perspectives regarding the "feminine force" supports this view.

• Turan

Turan was the Etruscan goddess of love. As an Etruscan deity, she is of interest because, "the Etruscans possessed the earliest civilization on the Italian peninsula, predating the Romans and contemporary to the Greeks. During the height of their power in the eighth through the sixth centuries B.C., the Etruscans ruled Rome, traded widely in the western Mediterraneans, and established colonies in southern Italy. ' 028 The Etruscans thus dominated a significant portion of the Italic peninsula in the first half of the first millennium B.C.E., and influenced the Romans. However, the Etruscans may not have been native Italians: "The origin of the Etruscans is. somewhat enigmatic. [.:.]Herodotus

27 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 133.

28 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 165.

17 .. states that the Etruscans emigrated from Lydia in Asia Minor in the thirteenth century

B.C.[... ] However, the Etruscans could have evolved from the local Iron Age culture

known as the Villanovan."29 Regardless, archaeological evidence suggests that these

people, be they native Italians or Asian immigrants, were similar to the Goddess

worshippers of the Neolithic.

The Etruscans are furthermore interesting because they retained aspects of

Goddess culture long after the Indo-Europeans dominated most of the Mediterranean. In

fact, rather than the forcible imposition of a foreign pantheon on an indigenous people,

"the Indo-European deities present in the Etruscan pantheon evolved through peaceful

influences, as a result of trading contacts with the Greeks. "30 It therefore follows that the

Etruscan culture exemplifies aspects of Goddess worship reminiscent ofthe 'Old

Europeans:'

One way in which the Old European influence was felt was in the status of women in certain European societies in the early historical era. The survival of . Old European customs is recorded in historical accounts that not only provide a confirmation of the matrifocal nature of Old European society suggested by archaeological research but also provide details of matrifocal customs which archaeology cannot preserve.31

The Etruscans exemplified just such a society. Women were popular subjects ofEtruscan

art, as made evident by their repeated appearance on extant mirrors and sarcophagi. These

depictions show women participating in everyday leisure activities of the same kind as

29 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 165.

30 Ibid, 167.

31 Ibid, 121.

18

• tl f.iQJK#L.- Etruscan men. On sarcophagi, the women lounge with their husbands; on mirrors, the

women and men sport and game together. According to Gimbutas:

The Etruscans of central Italy also preserved matrifocal customs.[... ] The Greek historian Theopompus, who wrote during the fourth century B.C., was shocked by the freedom and power of Etruscan women. Theopompus recorded that Etruscan women would often exercise unabashedly in the nude with men and with other women. They liked to drink, and they dressed in a manner similar to that of men. They even wore symbols of citizenship and rank: mantles and high shoes. [... ] In contrast to Roman women, Etruscan women played important roles as priestesses and seers, and they wore a force in'Politics.32

However, the most telling evidence comes again from the graves: "The Etruscans

constructed some of their most elaborate tombs for rich noblewomen or priestesses."~ 3

This custom is reminiscent of the Goddess worshipping Neolithic civilizations that

conspicuously buried their venerated women in similar fashion. Furthermore, religious

artifacts remain which link the Etruscans to the pre-Indo-European Goddess societies:

"The existence of altars, sculptures, temples, temple models, and hundreds of votive

offerings speaks clearly of continuity with the Old European-Anatolian tradition."34 The

religions of Greece and Italy did encroach upon and influence that of the Etruscans, but,

"from the inscriptions and portrayals of goddesses and gods, it appears that an

overwhelming number of Etruscan divinities stem from Old European deities.

Notwithstanding their Indo-Europeanization via Greek and local Italic influences, they

retained an almost complete Old European tradition."35 The influence of'Old European'

religion inherent in Etruria found its antithesis in Greece, where Indo-European religion

32 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 122.

33 1bid, 166.

34 1bid, 167.

35 lbid, 169.

19 - attained dominance in an era when Greece had no writing capabilities. In the Dark Age of

Greece, the aFt of writing was lost. The influence of Indo-Europeans in culture, religion and linguistics dominated Greece between the times of Linear A and B, 36 and the development of classical Greek.

•Aphrodite

Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love. In stark contrast to Turan of

Etruria, Aphrodite demonstrates the subordination of the specialized goddesses to a pantheon of Indo-European deities. This religious subordination mirrors the historical subjugation of Greece at the hands of two successive waves of Indo-European peoples:

The Myceneans, who were themselves descended from earlier Indo-Europeanized tribes from the north (central Europe), eventually succumbed to more militarized Indo-Europeans. Around 1200 B.C., a new wave of peoples from central Europe swept through Greece and the Aegean Islands. Subsequently, the Greek and Aegean Islands fell into a Dark Age, from which, centuries later, the civilization of classical Greece would rise. 37

The civilization which did eventually arise, classical Greek, is laudable for many remarkable achievements. Nevertheless, the treatment of women within that society has long been a derisive subject. The position of women in Athenian38 society can be stated rather succinctly: "Classical Athenian society excluded women from public life. Women

36 The syllabaries of Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, respectively

37 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 152.

38 Classical Athens serves in many ways as an analogue for classical Greek culture. Although there are glaring dissimilarities between cultures across the period and region, Athens was the most influential city-state, and thus the one about which we know the most. As such, for my purposes, "Greek" and "Athenian" may be used interchangeably. The anomaly of Sparta, a city-state in which women were afforded a great deal more autonomy than women of Athens, will thus not be discussed.

20 participated in almost no significant social, political, or intellectual activities. "39 The early literature of Greece demonstrates similar attitudes towards women. In the eighth century B.C.E., Hesiod described the role women played in Greece: "The deadly female race and tribe of wives/ Who live with mortal men and bring them harm, [ ... ]Women are bad for men, and they conspire/ In wrong, and Zeus the Thunderer made it so."40 It is thus unsurprising that the position of classical Greek goddesses within their pantheon was subordinate to masculine, warrior gods.

The Goddess' identity was divided among lesser deities as their associated specific shrine sites gained popularity. This division is reflected in the triads of Greek goddesses: "In myth, goddesses frequently appear in threes, representing aspects of a singly deity. Thus, although Hera, Athene and Aphrodite represent quite different forces, the competition [for the Apple of Strife] may reflect a time when they were less divided."41 These Greek goddesses represent another stage in the Goddess' transformation; individual identities of specific Goddess variants or fractals were firmly

established. These identities were familiar as those previously associated with the

Supreme Goddess, but they were also much more limited:

Earlier, during Neolithic millennia, goddesses controlled birth giving, life sustenance, death bringing, and regeneration. The Old European goddesses carried out these functions powerfully, as reflected by their physically strong portrayals in figurine and sculptural art. By classical times, the Old European goddesses were eroticized, militarized to various degrees, and made subservient to the gods. Aphrodite loses all functions but love and sexuality. 42

39 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 153.

40 Hesiod, Theogony, trans. Dorothea Wender, {New York: Penguin Books, 1973), 588-601.

41 "Greek Myths," Ed. Steve Eddy, 2001, , Oct. 2012.

42 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 164.

21 ------~------~- ~------~ ------

Hesiod's account of Aphrodite's birth is similarly indicative of the roles to which she was relegated:

The goddess came forth, lovely, much revered,/[... ] Her name is Aphrodite among men/ And gods,/[... ] Eros is her companion; fair Desire/ Followed her from the first, both among gods and men,/ She had this honour and received this power:/ Fond murmuring ofgirls, and smiles, and tricks,/ And sweet delight, and friendliness, and charm. 43

This "honour and power" may seem significant, but not when compared to the extensive roles of her Goddess ancestress. She had lost all her real power. Similarly, Athena was stripped of all femininity and sexuality in order to receive her own militaristic powers.

The fettering of Aphrodite to these restricted roles is significant, and demands explanation. Understanding the male role in procreation undermines the Goddess' supreme position: ''It can probably be assumed[... ] that the time any given culture recognized the importance of the male in the procreative process, the potential for a challenge to Goddess and to traditional matrilineal arrangements was present."44 The recognition of the male role and subsequent superiority of males in society is evident through attitudes which were reflected in myth and religion. These attitudes led to two associated phenomenon. First, the idea that, "Female power[... ] was feared and had to be controlled. The cult of virginity would emerge as a means of ensuring male ownership and would become an important factor in the overthrowing of the matrilineal economic system of the Neolithic cultures."45 Aphrodite was by no means a virgin, so her power

43 Hesiod, Theogony, 185-206.

44 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 87.

45 1bid, 88.

22 had to be relinquished or subordinated. Even in the paltry form which she took in classical Greece, Aphrodite was still feared for her sexuality:

In patriarchal Greece[... ] she is seen not only as a femme fatale and sometimes as a nymphomaniac, but as a threat to the institution of marriage, with its extensive financial ramifications. The story of the goddess of love and her lame husband, Hephaistos, and handsome lover Ares could have emerged only from a culture that had buried the old Goddess values in patriarchal ones. 46

Second of the phenomena, "The independent, parthenogenetic (creating life without male participation) goddesses gradually became the brides, wives, and daughters ofthe Indo-

European gods, albeit not always successfully or consensually."47 Aphrodite represents both of these themes: while she retained a power of sorts, it was severely truncated to include only love and sexuality; and she was firmly subordinated to the male pantheon, some of whom eventually would copulate with her, consensually or not.

• Venus

The traditional founding of Rome in 753 B.C.E. situates the city in the midst of the cultural transmission of the love goddess, offspring of the Supreme Goddess.

Although comparable to the goddesses of Etruria and Greece, the civilizations which most readily and successfully influenced Rome, Venus undoubtedly had unique and distinct characteristics. However, prior to the first century B.C.E., the Roman love goddess appeared infrequently. Venus first appeared prominently in Rome in the third century B.C.E.:

46 Leeming and Page, Goddess, 139.

47 Gimbutas, The Living Goddess, 164.

23 In 217 B.C.E., after the Roman defeat at the battle of Lake Trasimene, the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator consulted the Sibylline books, which ordered him to dedicate a temple on the Capitoline Hill to Venus Erycina. Eryx, at the western end of Sicily, was the site of a great temple to the Phoenician fertility goddess Astarte, who later became identified with Aphrodite and then with Venus. The dedication of the temple ofVenus Erycina in 215 was significant in the development of the worship ofVenus at Rome.48

Few specific details about Venus are known before this point, and she is described ambiguously by modem and contemporary mythologists. A typical example appears in

Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon's Classical Mythology: "Venus was an Italian fertility goddess whose original jUnctions are not known. She was worshipped in a number of places.[... ] During the fourth century, contact with the Greek world led to identification ofVenus with the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite."49 However, Venus was a daughter of the Goddess, and as such retained aspects of the former deity (e.g.

Demeter and Persephone, Christian god and Jesus). Furthermore, in keeping with the goddess traditions established by Neolithic civilizations, which were reflected in the nearby Etruscan civilization, Venus likely began in the same manner as her forbears

Astarte, Aphrodite, and Turan--that is, as a Supreme Goddess.

Cicero related the origins of Venus in Rome in his De Natura Deorum. His account demonstrates the degree of syncretism inherent in Roman culture and religion. It also provides some evidence about the manner by which the love goddess was transmitted:

48 Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon, Classical Mythology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 674.

49 Morford & Lenardon, Classical Mythology, 674; c.f. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967).

24 ---~~------~ The first Venus is the daughter of Caelus (Sky) and Dies (Day); I have seen her temple at Ellis. The second was engendered from the sea-foam, and as we are told became the mother by Mercurius of the second Cupidus. The third is the daughter of Jupiter and Dione, who wedded Vulcanus, but who is said to have been the mother of Anteros by Mars. The fourth we obtained from Syria and Cyprus, and is called Astarte. 50

Cicero relates the existence of several goddesses, with associated temples, myths, and

names. However, they were all claimed as "Venus." Thus, Cicero demonstrates how

foreign deities and cults came to Rome, and how the Romans then internalized the

resultant syncretic culture.

Venus assumed a prominent role in Rome in the first century B.C.E. Her identity

in the times of Rome's mythic kings (753-510 B.C.E.) was essentially lost, and she

remained elusive throughout the Republic period (510-27 B.C.E.) until about the turn of

the third century B.C.E. The first imperial Caesars, Julius and Augustus, manipulated

Venus' image to reenforce their visions of her as well as their visions for Rome. They also

sought to use her to lend divine credence in their struggles for power. The Caesar clan

had claimed descent from Venus for several centuries, but Julius made her a focal point of

his reign, a stratagem that his successor, Augustus, utilized to great effect. Furthermore,

the whole program is representative of the manner in which Augustus assumed power:

that is, through following the examples set by his uncle Julius.

5°Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 3.21-23.

25 III. Becomipe Aueustus; Octayius the Boy Learns to Marshall Power

Gaius Octavius was born in Rome in 63 B.C.E., but raised in Velletri, a small hill town about twenty five miles southeast of Rome. His family was respected and well . established in the town. When Octavius was four, his father died and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, the sister of Julius Caesar. He stayed with her until her death in 51 B.C.E. Notably, the twelve year old Octavius was given the honor of eulogizing his late grandmother. Civic instability marked Octavius' teenage years, as the confrontation between Julius Caesar and Pompey escalated. Octavius remained outside of the city until his uncle began including him in state affairs, around his seventeenth birthday. In his biography, Augustus, Anthony Everitt describes the significance such inclusion would have held for the young Octavius:

Toward the end of September [46 B.C.] there were eleven days of victory celebrations, during which Caesar held an unprecedented four triumphs on four days. [ ... ] The dictator planned to mark the conquest of Gaul, the brief Egyptian war, the even briefer Asian war, and the defeat of Juba, the king of the northern African kingdom ofNumibia. Juba was a stand-in for Cato and the republican army, Caesar's real opponents: a fact that could not be openly admitted because they had been Roman citizens, with whom it was forbidden to go to war. It so happened that Octavius' seventeenth birthday fell during this festival of triumphs, on September 23; to honor his great-nephew, Caesar invited Octavius to accompany him in the parade for the African war and awarded him service medals as if he had actually served on his staff during the campaign. The day of the triumph will have been one of the most exciting in Octavius' life so far. Here were fame and glory manifest, the ultimate prize to which a Roman could aspire. 51

It was an experience that irrevocably shaped Octavius' future. When he later marched into Rome to 'save' the city, Octavius expected to receive similar treatment as Julius

51 Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life ofRome s First Emperor, (New York: Random House, 2006), 39-40.

26 Caesar received from his loyal supporters. Nevertheless, Octavius was soon given further opportunity in the responsibility for managing the theatrical program of the triumphal celebrations. Soon thereafter, he was sent to Apollonia in anticipation of Caesar's

Parthian campaign in 45 B.C.E. Octavius was to spend the next four months completing his education in literature and public speaking, as well as training with the army. The intention was to provide Octavius with military experience, an important step towards a

political career for a Roman patrician. The easy assumption was that Octavius was being

groomed for command.

Octavius continued to await his great uncle inApollonia until the Ides ofMarch,

44 B.C.E. In Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated in Pompey's theater on his way to meet with the Senate. He was murdered mere months after being declared Dictator perpetuo ("continual dictator"). The culprits were a group of senators led by M. Junius

Brutus and G. Cassius Longinus. When news of the murder reached Octavius, he decided

to return to Italy along with the legions that were to accompany Caesar to Parthia, as well

as groups of grieving veterans. However, the rest of Rome did not regard Octavius with

the same degree of respect as Caesar did, and he encountered problems soon after his

arrival. As Karl Galinsky notes in Augustan Culture: "When the young Octavian

appeared on the scene in 44 B.C. after Caesar's assassination, he had all too little

auctoritas. That, at least, was Cicero's assessment in one of his letters52 to Atticus."53

52 16.14.2

53 Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press), 15.

27 Auctoritas was a "quintessentially Roman" concept of power or authority that incorporated a sense of morality and beneficence. 54

Upon his return, Octavius discovered that Caesar had written a new will during his briefltalian sojourn following his Spanish campaigns in 45 B.C.E. Caesar's will was read three days after his death by his father-in-law, C. Piso Caesoninus, at the consul

Marcus Antonius' house on the Palatine Hill. The bulk of Caesar's wealth was left to

Octavius, with the further stipulation that he be legally adopted by Caesar, postmortem.

However, M. Antonius refused to allow the young Caesar to receive his inheritance, claiming that the money was needed for affairs of state. Octavius announced to the

Roman people that he would ensure that they received their own Caesarian legacy of 300 sesterces, even if he had to pay it from his own personal wealth. This confrontation marked the first of several schisms between Octavius and Antonius; it was the birth of a power struggle that would define the Roman world for nearly fifteen years.

After the adoption, Gaius Octavius changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar

Octavianus. Soon thereafter he dropped 'Octavianus' completely. 55 Both changes were intended as public statements by the erstwhile Octavius: he was no longer a child and servant of Caesar, but a man capable of bearing the mantle left him by his new father. The inheritance was not merely nominal either, as a corollary to the adoption Octavian received Caesar's clientela. As Everitt explains, this act had a huge significance: "The adoption was a personal, not a political, act. However, Caesar was handing Octavius a

54 c.f. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 15.

55 For the sake of consistency and following the nomenclature of previous scholars (i.e. Everitt), he will be referred to as 'Octavian' until his assumption of the title 'Augustus.'

28 priceless weapon: his name and his clientela, all those hundreds of thousands of soldiers and citizens who were in his debt. As he must have known, he was giving the boy an opportunity to enter politics at the top if he wished to do so - and if he had sufficient talent."56 Furthermore, the boy who entered the city with all too little auctoritas soon saw his fortune reversed: "One [factor that contributed to augmenting the auctoritas of

Augustus] was the deification of Caesar. [ ... ] To be the son of a slain dictator was a mixed blessing; to be the son of a god, an unmitigated one. Henceforth, divus Julius and

Octavian, Caesar divifilius, appeared on coins along with an image of the temple of the

Divine Julius Caesar which was being built in the Roman Forum. "57 A military confrontation between Antonius and Octavian was inevitable as both men staked their claim to be first citizen of Rome.

The first decisive battle between Octavian and Antonius took place at Mutina on

April21, 43 B.C.E. However, the recently inaugurated consuls G. Vibius Pansa

Caetronianus andAulus Hirtius ('Pansa' and 'Hirtius') were responsible for leading their forces combined with Octavian's Caesarian legions. In the days immediately preceding the battle, forces on both sides were moving into the region of Mutina and staging for war. Ambushes were laid and engaged and skirmishes broke out intermittently. The prelude to the Battle ofMutina was Octavian's second opportunity to prove himself a capable military leader, the first being his nearly catastrophic occupation of Rome following Caesar's death. Hirtius and Pansa were both seasoned military commanders and Caesarian compatriots from the recently 'concluded' Roman Civil Wars. Both

56 Everitt, Augustus, 57.

57 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 17.

29 consuls acted deftly and urgently to outmaneuver Antonius and turn a supposed ambush into a blood-soaked rout. Octavian, on the other hand, failed to garner any accolades, and was later accused by Antonius of hiding while allowing the consular generals to marshall the troops. On April 21st, the main battle of the confrontation erupted. Both consuls died in the battle and Octavian fmally won a victory, along with some military acclaim and much desired respect. Octavian reportedly rode into battle with Hirtius as they invaded

Antonius camp. When Hirtius was killed in the fray, Octavian protected the body, "like a

Homeric hero dragging his friend out of the melee."58 Furthermore, according to

Seutonius: "Though bleeding and wounded, [Octavian] took an eagle from the hands of a dying aquilifer (standard bearer) and bore it back upon his shoulder to the camp."59 This encounter, along with his failed coup several moths earlier, taught Octavian a valuable lesson about power, prestige, and respect. When he recalled his new father's legions and invaded Rome, he did so under the presumption that not only the soldiers, but the city itself would rise up in thanks and support of his mission. The name 'Caesar' clearly meant a great deal more to Octavian than it did to contemporary Romans. Octavian quickly learned that in an atmosphere of military conquest and social upheaval he was to be judged on the basis of his own merits more than any pedigrees he may have offered.

With that lesson in mind, Octavian began to build and buttress his power through extra­ military means.

In November of 43 B.C.E., Octavian, Antonius, and M. Aemilius Lepidus met near Mutina. They agreed to ally their forces and rule jointly in the fashion of the First

58 Everitt, Augustus, 73.

59 Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, (London: Penguin Books, 1979), 2.10.

30 Triumvirate. 60 According to Everitt, when the generals met, ''there were three items on the agenda: how to legalize their power; how to raise the funds needed to finance the war

against Brutus and Cassius; and how to keep the opposition from regaining its

strength."61 For Octavian, concerns over consolidation and legalization of power were

omnipresent ever since his near disastrous 'rescue' of the Republic. The newly

established 'Second Triumvirate' was confirmed by the Senate as Triumviri Rei Publicae

Constituendae Consulari Potestate ("Triumvirs for Confirming the Republic with

Consular Power"). With legitimate power, the other two goals were easy to achieve with

the simple act of legally declaring much of the opposition enemies of state, thus requiring

either their death or exile and also confiscating their wealth. These declarations and

subsequent murders were known as 'proscriptions,' and they effectively raised necessary

funds and kept opposition in Rome from regaining strength.

On January 1, 42 B.C.E., the Triumvirs participated in a ceremony celebrating the

apotheosis of Julius Caesar. This event was a portent for the way Octavian would conduct

himself in his continual endeavor to secure power for himself and reenforce his position.

With the mythological exception of Romulus set aside, never before had a mortal Roman

been elevated to divine status. For Octavian, this meant that he could now refer to himself

as divifilius, "the son of the god." The ceremony was further useful for Octavian because

now Brutus and Cassius hadn't merely murdered Caesar the dictator, they had murdered

the divine Julius. This ceremony is incredibly significant because it demonstrated that

Octavian had begun to understand that there were ulterior means of establishing his

60 G. Julius Caesar, Gn. Pompeius Magnus, and M. Licinius Crassus; ca. 60-53 B.C.E.

61 Everitt, Augustus, 78.

31 auctoritas, the full scope of his power. He had begun to perform in what Richard

Beacham refers to as the Augustan 'pageantry of power:' "This theatricalization of

perception and experience [that] was a major defining element of the language, style,

ceremony, and metaphors through which the Augustan principate imagined and presented

itselfat every level and on every occasion."62 The apotheosis ceremony was one of the

first events in which Octavian displayed his guile for civic strategizing through a

combination of politics, religion, and tradition.

With matters seemingly settled in Rome under the Triumvirs, Octavian shifted his

attention to pursuing Brutus and Cassius. They had their showdown in Greece at the

Battle ofPhillipi in 42 B.C.E. Here again, Octavian failed to secure for himself the

trappings of power, what he seems to have wanted more than anything else, namely

prestige and respect on the battlefield. He fell ill before the battle commenced and was

forced to command from the rear, a shameful and dishonorable course of action to the

Romans. Everitt offers a pragmatic explanation for Octavian's absence:

The likeliest scenario is that when it became clear that there was to be a battle, Octavian was advised by his doctor that he was too ill to play an active part, and would be wise to withdraw to a place of safety. Not very admirable behavior, but understandable in a sick young man with little experience of battle. The damaging consequence, though, was that Octavian acquired a reputation for cowardice.63

The outcome of this unfortunate turn of events was a bittersweet victory for Octavian; he

had finally defeated the men he decried as his father's murderers, but in so doing he

reenforced his own unsavory military reputation. At this point, Octavian had technically

62 Richard Beacham, "The Emperor as Impresario: Producing the Pageantry of Power," The Cambridge Companion to the Age ofAugustus, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 152.

63 Everitt, Augustus, 91.

32 been the reigning general of two Roman victories, but he was still saddled with a

'reputation for cowardice.'

When the war against Brutus and Cassius ended, Octavian returned to Italy with three of the eleven legions remaining to the triumviral forces. However, Antonius rather than Octavian was largely seen as the senior Triumvir:

Although Octavian had much for which he could congratulate himself, his position was subordinate and insecure. The real victor of Philippi was Mark Antony, whose generalship contrasted shamingly with his own performance on the battlefield. For the time being, Octavian had no choice but to accept his colleague's predominance; he must seize each opportunity to advance his authority as and when it presented itself.64

Additionally, the veterans under Octavian's command insisted upon receiving the land grants that were promised them for their service, and Octavian acceded to their demands by confiscating the land in eighteen Italian cities and turning it over to soldiers. One of those evicted during this time was Publius Vergilius Maro, or more commonly - Vergil.

Meanwhile, Antonius had set off for the east with eight legions. He was supposed to undertake the long awaited Parthian campaign, something that took him a few years to get around to starting. However, almost immediately after he parted company with

Octavian, Antonius began presenting himself as the 'New Dionysus:' "Trumping the divi filius, Antony decided to claim divine status on his own account. He presented himself to the people ofAsia as the new Dionysus."65 The relationship between Antonius and

Octavian was always strained and tenuous. When Antonius cast himself as a god it was

an obvious challenge to Octavian's recently acquired status of semi divinity. While he

64 Everitt, Augustus, 95.

65 Ibid, 100.

33 was away, Antonius met Cleopatra VII Philopator. She travelled to Tarsus in 41 B.C.E. and presented herself as Aphrodite to Antony's Dionysus.

Word spread that Aphrodite (whom many worshippers identified with Isis) had come to revel with Dionysus 'for the happiness of Asia.' This notion doubtless originated with Cleopatra, but it shows that Antony's religious propaganda featuring himself as the New Dionysus was evidently working its way into the public mind. She herself well understood the role of religion in royal self­ promotion. If she was consciously presenting herself as Aphrodite, she was at one level making a direct sexual offer; but, more profoundly, she was also putting in a claim to be Antony's divine partner.66

Octavian too understood the important role that religion played in royal self promotion, but imitating the route of Antonius would not have been accepted in Rome. The Roman senators had never yet officially accepted a living god, and they had killed the last man to attain even a fraction of that power. Octavian didn't immediately respond to the inherent challenge proffered by Antonius and Cleopatra's claims to divine status, and Octavian's own pretensions to divinity had not even properly begun at this point. Nevertheless, it was enough to distance himself from Antonius' actions, which were increasingly perceived as oriental.

In 40 B.C.E., the triumvirate was rededicated and renewed at Brundisium. In the same year, Antonius married Octavian's sister, Octavia. The marriage was intended to seal the newly signed triumviral treaty with a public statement of unity. The marriage lasted eight years, more than half of which saw Antonius away from Italy and Octavia.

However, while Antonius was away, Octavian had more important matters to oversee; he was dealing with a lengthy challenge from Pompey Magnus' son, Sextus Pompeius, while simultaneously attempting to set the burgeoning empire back on a stable foundation. He

66 Everitt, Augustus, 102.

34 also was married, became a father, divorced, and remarried. The latter and final of his marriages, to Livia Drusilla in 38 B.C.E., was to last for the remainder ofhis life. In 36

B.C.E., Antonius began the long awaited Parthian campaign (planned by Julius Caesar), during which time he reunited with Cleopatra. Antonius and Cleopatra continued on to

Armenia in due course before returning to Egypt. Although Antonius' marriage to Octavia was intended to reestablish a portrait of cohesion, it instead was yet another source of ire between Antonius and Octavian.

In 32 B.C.E., the tenuous relationship between Antonius and Octavian irrevocably disintegrated. A battle of declarations, insults, and propaganda broke out between the two men. Antonius then formally divorced Octavia and Octavian had Antonius' will published in which he left pieces of the Roman empire to his children as inheritance, in other words, he was portrayed as having 'gone native;' he was more an easterner than a Roman. Both

Triumvirs took the affronts from the other as declarations of war. Octavian won a decisive sea battle off the coast of Actiurn in 31 B.C.E. Antonius and Cleopatra escaped capture by fleeing to Alexandria, where they were besieged by Octavian. Both Antonius and Cleopatra soon committed suicide, when they realized they had no chance of emerging victorious. The way was now clear for Octavian to assume sole rulership of

Rome and to continue his program of consolidating and legitimizing his own power.

Octavian grew from a slight and sheltered boy in the country to be the premier ruler of Rome in the first century B.C.E. He had been groomed for the position in various ways since he was a teenager under the tutelage of his great uncle Julius. He was forced to learn through experience as much as by exemplum; his military endeavors and his

35 failed political machinations both served to show him the wrong way of doing things. In his quest to attain the prestige and auctoritas of his adoptive father he nearly lost his

inheritance, his reputation, and his life, but he nevertheless victoriously assumed the role

of first citizen, the princeps.

During the decade preceding the Battle ofActium, Antonius and Cleopatra were

masquerading as Dionysus and Aphrodite (or Osiris and Isis, in Egypt), but as previously

discussed, no mortal Roman had ever been officially recognized as divine while alive.

Julius Caesar was only granted the privilege after his death. Therefore, Octavian could

not repay the eastern couple in kind; he had to utilize tactics that were at once more

subtle, and yet still conveyed a sense of awe and respect onto the person of Octavian. In

formulating his strategy, he followed the exemplum set by his great uncle Julius as well as

the help and advice of his friends. Chief amongst those friends was G. Cilinius

Maecenas' circle of poets and historians, especially Vergil. Octavian thus coupled his

ambition with the greatest contemporary literary talents in Italy.

36 IV. The virtue of vendi's venus

In 27 B.C.E., the Senate bestowed upon Octavian several special privileges.

Foremost among these privileges was a newly created title: Augustus. As a result of his many military difficulties, Augustus learned that legitimated power could come from a variety of sources. His uncle, G. Julius Caesar, had followed the dictatorial model of

Marius and Sulla; that is, military takeover and martial law. While Julius made an effort to appear more legitimate and less bloodthirsty than his predecessors, he still came to an untimely death at the hands of several senators after surviving numerous and lengthy campaigns abroad. Additionally, Augustus' military victories were rarely even recognized as distinctly his; Hirtius and Pansa shared credit for the victory over M. Antonius in the

Battle of the Forum Gallorum (43 B.C.E.), and M. Vipsanius Agrippa deservedly received credit for much of the military prowess that the imperial legions exhibited during his extensive reign as general (including the Battle of Actium). Therefore, Augustus began a series of efforts directed at shoring up his position, legitimating his power, and elevating his personal and familial status. In "Augustus and the Power of Tradition," Walter Eder describes Augustus' concerted efforts: "[Augustus] always sought recognition for his accomplishments and assiduously saw to raising his and his family's profile in both

Rome and the provinces through the media of architecture, literature, and art. At the same time, he had also renounced all insignia of personal power: no scepter, no diadem, nor the golden crown and purple toga of his adoptive father."67 To further these goals, Augustus

67 Walter Eder, "Augustus and the Power of Tradition," The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 13.

37 embraced an established Julian tradition: he relied upon his family's claim of divine ancestry.

•Aeneas

Aeneas was a Trojan prince in Homer's Riad. He was the son of Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite in Homer). He began appearing in Greek artistic representations beginning at least by the eighth century, from whom the Etruscans adopted the tradition. However, he didn't make an impact on Rome until the third century

B.C.E. Roman historians (Naevius, Fabius Pictor, Ennius, Cato) from the third century onwards described Aeneas as the Trojan progenitor of Rome. 68 About a century later, S.

Julius Caesar began the Julian tradition of portraying Venus on coins. The tradition continued through L. Julius Caesar (ca. 100 B.C.E.), to G. Julius Caesar, to Augustus. G.

Julius Caesar is the first of the Julii to claim descent from Aeneas, thus making the family's divine association more plausible and assertive than an obscure claim of descent from Venus and simultaneously associating the Julii clan with a Trojan hero. In The Art of

Persuasion, Jane DeRose Evans suggests several ways that Caesar vindicated his claim:

After the Battle ofPharsalus in 48, Caesar combined [the propaganda of coins, inscriptions and building programs] with a specific claim of descent from Aeneas, heretofore only implied in the Julian propaganda. We know several means by which he did this, but we still must answer how he managed to transform Aeneas from a generalized founder of the Roman people to the founder of a specific family. The most attractive answers are Caesar :V force ofpersonality, the

68 c.f. Jane DeRose Evans, The Art ofPersuasion: Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus, (Michigan: University ofMichigan Press, 1992), 36-40.

38 ------~------insistence ofhis claim, and the readiness ofthe Roman people to accept this personalized version oftheir national foundation story. 69

Furthermore, Evans argues that Caesar undertook this endeavor to "create an image of legitimacy for his rule over Rome, claiming that it was sanctioned by the very gods themselves."70 This is precisely what Augustus did with his own associations with Aeneas and Venus.

Augustus succeeded the accomplishments of his uncle in many ways. While Julius briefly and tenuously held ultimate power in Rome, Augustus consolidated power, established an individual auctoritas, reorganized the politics of the burgeoning empire, strove to give the Romans mores (morals) to accompany their leges (laws), and largely ruled Rome and the empire from his return from Egypt in 29 B.C.E. untiJ his death in 14 ....t;

C.E. Augustus also continued the tradition begun by his ancestors and perpetuated by

Julius: he sustained and enhanced the familial association with Aeneas and Venus. For instance, Julius began construction on the Temple of Venus Genetrix in his new forum.

He dedicated it in 46 B.C.E., but it was Augustus who completed construction on the temple in 29 B.C.E. Augustus also continued the tradition through coins, statues, and literature.

•TheAeneid

69 Evans, The Art ofPersuasion, 40-41.

70 Ibid, 41.

39 Vergil's epic, the Aeneid, is the foremost example of Augustan literature. P.

Vergilius Maro began writing his epic poem in 29 B.C.E. and still considered it incomplete when he died ten years later. Regardless, Augustus had the poem published and it has since captivated audiences of casual readers and scholars alike. Despite low rates ofliteracy in the lower classes of the ancient world, e.g. Roman plebes, Vergil's poem was widely known and enjoyed. Recitations of the poem were commonly performed and attended among all classes, and these remained more popular than written distribution throughout Augustus' life.71 As described by Karl Galinsky, the general expectation of the poem was that it would be, "an Augusteid, and incorporate the Aeneas story- the Julian family was named after Aeneas' son Julus- by flashback. Such praise epics, in honor of a statesman or general, had been the fashion in Rome for decades."72

The poem that Vergil wrote was much more diverse, and was certainly not an Augusteid.

The Aeneid primarily focuses on Aeneas, and occasionally foretells the greatness of times to come; but the epic achieved what an overblown and idealized apotheosis of Augustus couldn't: it established an heroic, mythical past for Augustus' ancestors which lent

Augustus a renewed air of divinity divorced from the claims of Julius Caesar.

Several examples from the Aeneid are illustrative ofVergil's masterful work in aligning Augustus' moral imperatives with his own poetic and narrative sensibilities. Two particular examples that demonstrate the alliance of Augustus' intentions with Vergil's artistic productions occur in Books Four and Eight of the Aeneid, concerning Queen

71 c.f. Evans, The Art ofPersuasion, 7; Peter White, "Poets in the new Milieu: Realigning," The Cambridge Companion to the Age ofAugustus, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 323.

72 Karl Galinsky, "Vergil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses as World Literature," The Cambridge Companion to the Age ofAugustus, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 344. '

40 Dido, and Venus and Vulcan, respectively. The concluding example, of the deities Venus

and Vulcan, further resembles efforts made by Augustus to alter gender ideology in

ancient Rome.

When Aeneas meets Queen Dido in Carthage in Book Four, his course of action is

extraordinarily overdetermined. The scene presents a sharp dichotomy of options for the

hero: he may either remain in Carthage, with his foreign Queen and all the trappings of an

eastern court (i.e. those very things from which he was divested earlier in the epic); or he

may persevere with his divinely ordained and assisted journey to Italy. In this instance,

Dido acts as a phantom of Cleopatra, and delivered a message to Vergil's and Augustus'

contemporary Roman audience: after Actium and Alexandria, Octavian could have

followed the example set by Julius Caesar and followed by M. Antonius; he could have

stayed in Egypt and potentially aligned himself with Cleopatra and styled himself as an

eastern ruler. Instead, and like Aeneas, he did his moral duty and returned to Italy.

Furthermore, as Galinsky notes, Dido is compared with Diana in Book Four, and this,

"complements Aeneas' comparison to Apollo, thus underlining the affinity between Dido

and Aeneas and, at the same time, the impossibility of a marriage: Apollo and Diana were

brother and sister."73 However, the significance of this statement goes even further when

considering the roles that M. Antonius and Cleopatra fulfilled in Egypt. They had long

since assumed divine associations; Antonius through his identification as the "New

Dionysus" in 37 B.C.E., and Cleopatra through the traditional female pharaonic role of

Isis. Through his relationship with Cleopatra, Antonius was further associated with Isis'

73 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 230.

41 mythic brother and husband, Osiris. Thus, the sting ofVergil's barb was exacerbated by disparaging the connotations of the identities assumed by Antonius and Cleopatra.

Vergil's exemplum of Aeneas and Dido is clearly extremely rich and full of meaning.

The depiction ofVenus in Vergil's epic has little similarity to any prior literary or mythic tradition. In Homer's epics, Aphrodite is depicted as conniving, manipulative, and unfaithfu1.74 Vergil presents her in a far different fashion. Augustus needed to recast

Venus in the way that she appears in Vergil's epic. When Antonius began identifying himself as the "New Dionysus," Cleopatra came to him in the guise of Aphrodite. The

Egyptians believed that Cleopatra, as pharaoh, was the living incarnation of Isis, whose identity was closely related historically to both Venus and Aphrodite. Furthermore, in the incorporative religious atmosphere of ancient Rome, deities could have multiple identities. This multiplicity is demonstrated clearly by the different cults of specific shrine sites: Iuppiter Feretrius or Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, Venus Genetrix or Venus

Felix; each deity had multiple associations. If Cleopatra was going to play the role of an oriental love goddess, then the mythical matron of Augustus and the Romans had to be chaste and modest.

The marital idyll depicting Venus and Vulcan in Book Eight is remarkable because of the portrait it presents of the love goddess. In the first place, the very meeting

between the two is significant. Although Vulcan was Venus' mythological husband, he

was certainly not her consort. Rather, he was cuckolded by Mars, the god of war.75

Nevertheless, Vergil arranges that the two meet, and their interaction is respectful, loving,

74 c.f. Iliad, Book Three; Odyssey, Book Eight.

75 c.f. Odyssey, Book Eight.

42 and tender. Venus approaches Vulcan in order to obtain arms for her son, Aeneas. In her approach, she beseeches the god of the forge on behalf of their shared love, "as a suppliant" (and thus aided by Zeus), and "as a mother:" "0 my dearest husband,[... ] I come to you as a suppliant. I approach that godhead which I so revere, and as a mother, I ask you to make arms for my son."76 Vergil thus presents the two gods in a deliberate and novel fashion that is quite literal in its moral suggestions. Venus especially is here portrayed more virtuously than in any other previous artistic representations. An allusion is made to her sexual powers, but she is primarily described as submissive and maternal.

Vulcan assents to her request and sets to work the following morning. However,

Vergil prefaces Vulcan's tasks with an idealized portrait of 'a woman's task.' More importantly, these lines immediately follow the scene with Venus and Vulcan. The divine interaction thus concludes with a depiction of responsibilities for both men and women which were delivered as moral imperatives:

When the night had passed the middle of its course, when Vulcan's first sleep was over and there was no more rest, just when the ashes are first stirred to rouse the slumbering fire by a woman whose task it is to support life by the humble work of spinning thread on a distaff; taking time from the night for her labours, she sets her slave women going by lamplight upon their long day's work, so that she can keep her husband's bed chaste and bring her young sons to manhood - with no less zeal than such a woman and not a moment later did the God of Fire rise from his soft bed and go to work at his forge. 77

76 Vergil, The Aeneid, Trans. David West, (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 8.381.

77 Ibid, 8.409-416.

43 'A man's task' is then represented both in the work ofVulcan at the forge (mirroring

Venus' work in approaching Vulcan), and the scene of King Evander and Aeneas discussing their plans and responsibilities in the coming war. 78

A similar and concomitant phenomenon to the moral portrait of Venus in the

Aeneid was a series of laws proposed by Augustus in 18 and 17 B.C.E., the leges Julii.

The Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus made marriage compulsory for men between the

ages of twenty five to sixty, and women between twenty and fifty. It also set a maximum mourning period before a widow must remarry, levied prohibitions against maritally restrictive fathers, and provided incentives for women with three or more children. The

Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis established firm rules and proceedings in cases of

adultery. While the leges Julii were important to Augustus, the received constant criticism

and revision almost immediately following their reception. As Galinsky argues in

Augustan Culture, "Leges were needed, but mores were even more important.[ ... ] A

proper moral attitude was more fundamental than laws and oaths to abide by them."79

Toward that end, Augustus arranged the ludi saeculare, or Secular Games, to celebrate

these new marriage laws. The notion was adopted from an Etruscan custom of

commemorating the end of a saecula, 100 or 110 years. A primary feature of Augustus'

festival was reverence for marriage and childbirth, which is exhibited throughout

Horace's Carmen Saeculare, commissioned by Augustus for the occasion and performed

by a chorus of twenty seven boys and twenty seven girls.

78 c.f. Vergil, The Aeneid, 8.455-540.

79 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 102.

44 Following his victory over Antonius and Cleopatra, Augustus set to reordering the

Roman Empire. One of his primary tasks was establishing his family's mythic, heroic past, and justifying his leges and actions on behalf of the Senate and People of Rome. He accomplished these goals through various avenues, but they tended to operate collectively and symbiotically. The publication of the Aeneid, the passage of the leges Julii, and the celebration of the Secular Games and recitation of Horace's Carmen Saeculare all occurred between 19 and 17 B.C.E. and represent concerted efforts made by Augustus to enforce his revitalized Roman mores. The depiction of Venus in the Aeneid thus coincided with a series of Augustus' leges and a concomitant celebration of a new era, or saecula.

• Publius Yergilius Maro: Poet or Propagandist?

Vergil was born in 70 B.C.E., seven years before Augustus. He was classically educated, e.g. in law and rhetoric, but chose to pursue poetry professionally. Vergil's first encounter with Augustus occurred when Augustus returned from his war with Brutus and

Cassius and seized lands in Italy to give to his troops. Vergil was among the displaced

Italians, but his land was soon returned to him thanks to powerful friends petitioning

Augustus on his behalf. Vergil and Augustus developed a professional and personal relationship after this. However, the friendship of the two men necessarily raises the question ofVergil's motivation for praising Augustus in his works. For instance, Vergil's

Aeneid has long been considered a literary mouthpiece for Augustus' political messages.

45 The poem was written in the common dactylic hexameter over the course often years.

Vergil dedicated that time to completing the epic (at a pace of about two lines per day), but was still dissatisfied with the work when he died in 19 B.C.E. Following Vergil's death, Augustus had the poem published despite Vergil's deathbed pleas to burn the work.

"Arma virumque cano" - "I sing of arms and the man." Thus Vergil began his epic poem, the Aeneid. But who was "the man" about whom Vergil sang? Was Vergil singing about Aeneas, as the title suggests, or Augustus, his emperor, personal friend and patron?

While at first glance the answer appears obvious, nevertheless scholars continue to debate over whose voice is speaking through the text. In the fourth century C.E., Maurus Servius

Honoratus ('Servius') dedicated one of his texts to comments on Vergil's Aeneid. The term "propaganda" had no significance for the Romans whether contemporaries ofVergil or Servius, but Servius makes no mention of any concern over a manipulative hand working behind the scenes to influence the poet. Servius' focused on interpretation and close reading in his commentary, largely ignoring the systemic question of the poem's origins. Only after the tum of the twentieth century did scholars begin looking at the

Aeneid in terms of"propaganda," rather than "masterpiece" or "literary genius."

Beginning in the twentieth century, attitudes towards Vergil were overwhelmingly suspicious. In The Classical Weekly, from April, 1926, Mabel Gant Murphy demonstrates a common Vergilian reception in her article: "Vergil as a Propagandist." The title itself asserts her argument before she can even begin to unpack her explications. In her article,

Murphy makes several bold claims about the nature of poetry and society in Augustan

Rome. The first of these is a sweeping pronunciation that, "Oratory and free speech had

46 died with the Republic."80 Even this argument has come under considerable speculation

recently, 81 but she furthers her claim by stating that, "Literature was the only means left

for influencing public opinion. Augustus availed himself of it freely and collected about him a group of eminent writers. Publius Vergilius Maro became the poetic pillar of the

reign."82 Furthermore, in one especially bold statement Murphy asserts that, "The Aeneid was undoubtedly the largest and most important work ofpropaganda undertaken by

Vergil."83 To her contemporaries, these claims were nothing unusual; just another scholar

espousing the canonized views regarding Vergil. However, Murphy's arguments would

all be called into question before the end of the century; for example, was literature "the

only means left for influencing public opinion?," Did Augustus "avail himself of it

[consciously]?" More recent commentators question every assumption upon which

Murphy rests her arguments, but scholarship did not progress fluidly to an antithesis.

In the next decade, conceptions ofVergil's work remained in tune with the chord

that Murphy had struck. In other words, Vergil was largely accepted as a "propagandist."

In 1939, L. Robert Lind largely echoed the sentiments that Murphy had asserted. In his

article, "The Crisis in Literature: Propaganda and Letters," Lind states that, "The quiet

Vergil, most characteristic poet of the age, has left clear traces in his poems of obedience

to the wishes of his imperial master, Augustus; the Aeneid is in essence as elevated and

splendid a piece of propaganda as one could desire, hymning the glories ofRome through

so Mabel Gant Murphy, "Vergil as Propagandist," The Classical Weekly, 19 (1926): 169.

8! c.f. Galinsky, Age ofAugustus.

82 Murphy, "Vergil as Propagandist," 169.

83 Ibid, 170.

47 the old story of Aeneas."84 Here, as in Murphy's article, Vergil is overtly accepted as an author of "as elevated and splendid a piece ofpropaganda as one could desire." The motivations of the artist are given little consideration when measured against the awesome force that was Augustus in the first century B.C.E. However, Lind foreshadows the approaching attitudes of late twentieth and early twenty first century scholars when he concedes that, "Art may possess many other characteristics besides those which pertain to propaganda. It may be beautiful, expressive, communicative, comforting, or completely silent; qualities like these remain and are often long enduring, regardless of the social message which the creator also tries to convey.[ ... ] Propaganda, then, is but one of the many possible functions of painting, architecture, music, prose or poetry."85 So for Lind,

Vergil was a propagandist, but the art that he created may have had further uses, explanations and connotations.

Lind's article signaled an approaching change of hearts and minds regarding

Vergil's motivations. The attitude that would come to replace that of acceptance of

Vergil's primary role as a propagandist was heralded in 1964 by Wendell Clausen. He offered a different account of events in his article, "An Interpretation of the Aeneid," published in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. For Clausen, "Virgil's [sic] vision of

Roman history is not propaganda, for he does not simply proclaim what Rome achieved; nor is it sentimental, for he does not simply dwell on what the achievement cost. Virgil values the achievement of Rome[... ] and yet he remains aware of the inevitable suffering

84 L. Robert Lind, "The Crisis in Literature: II: Propaganda and Letters," The Sewanee Review, 47 (1939): 185.

85 Ibid, 189.

48 and loss: it is this perception of Roman history as a long Pyrrhic victory of the human spirit that makes Virgil his country's truest historian. "86 Here, Clausen presents an antithesis to Murphy's argument that Vergil was a plain and simple propagandist.

The next significant shift in approaches to Vergil carne in the form of Karl

Galinsky's thorough investigation of Roman society in the first century B.C.E., Augustan

Culture. Although published in 1996, the book championed scholarship undertaken from the 1970s onward. Galinsky begins his analysis ofAugustan culture by considering the historiography of the twentieth century: "There is no question that we are looking at the

Augustan age with different eyes in the 1990s than our forebears did in the 1930s. We have witnessed that 'ideology' and 'propaganda' are inadequate foundations for lasting political systems."87 In this introduction, Galinsky clearly signals the slant that his work will take. Toward that end, one of Galinsky's primary assertions throughout the work is that Augustan art cannot be simply interpreted as propaganda. To begin his argument,

Galinsky relies upon The Power ofImages in the Age ofAugustus (1988), in which Paul

Zanker substitutes, "the cliche of Augustan 'propaganda' for a system (which is not necessarily systematic) of far more autonomous, complex, and organic interactions. "88

The crux of this argument, for both Zanker and Galinsky, is that, "many of [the] Augustan phenomena were in a state of nascence and evolution."89 When Augustus approached

Vergil about composing an epic, Augustus had recently defeated Mark Antony and

86 Wendell Clausen, "An Interpretation of the Aeneid," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 68 (1964): 146.

8? Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 5.

88 Ibid, 5.

89 1bid, 8.

49 Cleopatra in Egypt, thus securing for himself all of the Roman empire. However, in so doing he also brought peace and stability to a region and people that had been engaged in brutal civil wars for nearly a hundred years. The holistic view of Augustus' reign began to gain momentum as early as 1974, when Woodman and West addressed the question here considered:

Easy distinctions such as 'Is this poetry or propaganda?' and 'Are the poets sincere or are they puppets?' take us nowhere. The matter is complicated by the genuine friendships within the circle of writers and principes viri, by the delicacy with which Maecenas treats his poets, by the recognition that Augustus had restored peace, order and idealism to a society which had lost them, by the significance of the form a poem takes and of the time when it was written. There can have been few ages in which poets were so intimately and affectionately connected with the holders of political power, few regimes with a richer iconography, few poets so profoundly moved by a political ideal and so equipped to sing its praises with subtlety, humor, learning, and rapture. The reader of these poems needs a touch of all ofthese.90

Thus, the tradition that began with Lind and Clausen had developed even further. Not only was Vergil not a propagandist, but the very question itself leads one away from a plenary interpretation of both Vergil and Augustan culture. Galinsky provides a succinct summary for the entire "phenomenon:" "Especially in the arts and literature, the phenomenon is more complex than mere 'propaganda;' it is a reciprocal and dynamic process in which the emperor's role is hard to pin down.''91 However, the difficulty of such an endeavor did not prevent later scholars, as well as Galinsky, from continuing to argue for one interpretation or another.

90 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 13; quoting Woodman, T., and West, D., eds. Quality and Pleasure in Latin Poetry (Cambridge, 1974).

91 Ibid, 20.

50 In Augustan Culture, Galinsky concedes that "recently, the pendulum has swung back a bit: the poets are seen neither as ideological supporters nor cyptocritics, but as purveyors of ambivalences, ambiguities, and ironies on a rather massive scale.''92 This viewpoint regarding the poets is commonly held and argued by modem scholars, but it is not universally accepted. In 2005, Galinsky served as editor for a collection of essays,

The Cambridge Companion to the Age ofAugustus. In this work, for which Galinsky also contributed original material, the interpretation espoused in Augustan Culture in 1996 comes under renewed consideration. In the essay "Poets in the New Milieu: Realigning,"

Peter White claims that currently, "Scholars are probably less close to agreement about the proper framework in which to understand Augustus' relationship with poets than at any time since the debate began."93 For instance, in that same collection, Walter Eder characterizes the years of Augustus' reign as an "inseparable mix of propaganda and tactics,"94 while Richard Beacham posits that the same years were, "[a] thoroughgoing revival of religious practice [... ]to link worship and devout feeling to [Augustus'] own program of comprehensive renewal and reform.''95 These statements make it clear that all of the commentators here discussed still have their own proponents and detractors, and that the argument continues to rage over Vergil's and Augustus' role in the production of the epic poem.

92 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 245.

93 Peter White, "Poets in the New Milieu: Realingning," The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, 336.

94 Walter Eder, "Augustus and the Power of Tradition," The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, 22.

95 Richard Beacham, "The Emperor as Impressario: Producing the Pageantry of Power," The Cambridge Companion to the Age ofAugustus, 162.

51 Rome in the first century B.C.E. was a chaotic place that endured rapid societal and cultural transformation. The literary scene was no different from many other aspects of civilization. Poets found themselves in a changed and changing atmosphere in which they could create influence as much as they themselves were influenced. Vergil's epic poem, the Aeneid, is a primary example ofjust such a work. In the early decades of the twentieth century, scholars proposed that Vergil acted as something of a 'minister of propaganda' for Augustus. As the century wore on, this interpretation came under question. Through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the voice of the arguments began to take on a substantially different tone: Vergil was an artist, as well as a propagandist. In the 1990s, the argument was carried yet further to almost obliterate the possibility ofVergil being a propagandist. However, by the turn of the twenty first century, the argument once again encapsulated the possibility ofVergil acting as both artist and propagandist.

52 V: Copclusjon

Although Venus didn't appear in Rome until at least after the city's foundation in the eighth century B.C.E., her forbears were widely worshipped throughout the ancient

Mediterranean region from at least 30,000 B.C.E. However, those forbears did not determine the identity of successive goddesses, as made evident through analyses of

Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Turan, and Venus. The identities of these goddesses were influenced by shrine sites and their cults and operations, military takeovers by patrilineal societies, and trading associations with religiously syncretic cultures. The Roman Venus probably resembled one of her contemporary 'sister' goddesses before the intervention of the Julian family. The early Caesars claimed descent from Venus, but G. Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus took the phenomenon farther than their ancestors. Augustus represents the climax of the tradition. He successfully wed his familial claim to divinity to a new, moral presentation of his divine matron, and accompanied the conjugation with a series oflaws intended to instill morals in the people of Rome. Augustus' project of moral reform in Rome was successful thanks largely to the poets, and other artists, that he commissioned and patronized and who cooperated with his vision. His partnership with

Vergil produced a portrait of the goddess Venus that was supremely important to Romans in the first centuries, B.C.E. and C.E. because she was a renewed matron deity of and for the city. Augustus often credited the stability of his reign and his military and political victories to her divine assistance; this was made clear through literary works, temple dedications, and repeated use of her image on coins. Much like Hesiod's elaborate

53 delineations of Greek deities' family trees in his Theogony and Works and Days, Vergil's explication of Venus' character became a canonized and state endorsed religious doctrine.

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