Veneralia (kal. apr. = April 1): Celebrations for Venus, the Goddes of Love

Exactly one month after the holiday in honour of Her lover Mars, the God of war and agriculture, it’s now the turn of the Goddes Venus to be honoured.

On April 1, the ancient Romans celebrated the Veneralia like you can see on this mosaic. This part of the mosaic depicts April. In the back you can clearly see a shrine containing a cult statue of Venus.

Fig. 1: Bronze statuette of Venus found in Kortrijk (Belgium) on display in the Musée Royal de Mariemont.

It was especially women who took part in the Veneralia rites as it was said that this would help maintain one’s beauty. Although Venus was -among other things- the Goddess of lust, She was also believed to have the ability to turn inappropriate feelings of lust into chaste feelings thus helping women protect their reputation. [I]

Photographs by Wolfgang Sauber and Bibi Saint-Pol (right).

Her statues were commonly adorned with necklaces , bracelets and earrings [Fig. 1], but on this day, women -married and unmarried alike [II]- would take of the ornaments of a certain statue (or perhaps all statues?) and clean it. Once She was dry, Her jewellery was returned to Her and she was gives fresh flowers, most typically roses.

Then, the women would ritually bathe themselves. Myrtle, which was considered sacred to Venus as She had once used it to protect Her naked body from the gaze of satyri, seems to have played a role in this ritual.[I]

Another Goddess called Fortuna Virilis was also honoured on the Veneralia. At some kind of public pool or bath where women were naked, she was given the following offerings:

・ incense

・ ground poppies in milk

・ honey

She was believed to have the power to hide imperfections on the female body from the eyes of men.

Photographs by Peter Presslein (incense), Eric Hill (poppies), TIMOTHEVS (milk in scyphus) and Merdal (honeycomb)

References
[I] Ovidius. Fasti. Book IV: April 1.
[II] Wiseman, Anne and Peter (2011) Ovid: Fasti. Oxford University Press: p136.