
A supposed visual rendition of Venus, by Botticelli (c.1483), wherein the sea from which Venus emerged (Ѻ) can be seen in the distant background, and wasps around the head of Mars, supposedly, signifying pain or death.

A supposed visual rendition of Venus, by Botticelli (c.1483), wherein the sea from which Venus emerged (Ѻ) can be seen in the distant background, and wasps around the head of Mars, supposedly, signifying pain or death.

In religio-mythology, Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty, sex, and desire; a rescript of the Greek goddess Aphrodite; who herself is a rescript of the Egyptian god Hathor (see: god character rescripts).

Other
The love god Cupid is the son of Venus.

Vis | Force | Life
In c.50BC, Roman thinkers were of the opinion that the “vis” or force of Venus brought animals to life or what constituted life; the following are example views:

“Whence does Venus bring animals forth to life kind after kind, and earth, the magic-maker, nourish, increase, and feed them, kind by kind?”
— Lucretius (55BC), On the Nature of Things (translator: Frank Copley) (pg. 6) (1:226-29)

“The poets, through the conjunction of fire and moisture, are indicating that the vis, ‘force’, which they have is that of Venus [Aphrodite]. Those born of vis have what is called vita, ‘life’, and that is what is meant by Lucilius (c.120BC) when he says: ‘life is force you see: to do everything force doth compel us’.”
— Marcus Varro (c.50BC), On the Latin Language

While interpretations of this vary, the gist logic (Ѻ) seems to be that because Venus was born from a fiery seed that fell from the sky into the sea, which produced Venus from the “foam masses”, that life is the product of fire + water bound by the force of love or force of Venus; the following is one take on this:

“A Venere finis. It is understood that Lucretius felt the significance or significances of her name, the main province of ancient etymology being the names of the gods. Varro (De lingua latina 5.61) etymologizes Venus as the force of tying together fire and water, man and woman: horum vinctionis vis Venus (`Venus is the force binding these things'). He contents himself with the twofold v and the assonance vin—ven (cf. Plautus, Trin. 658: vi Veneris vinctus, 'bound by the force of Venus'), whereas the much more banal etymology in Cicero's De natura deorum (3.62) Venus quia venit (Venus because she comes [to all]') utilizes the whole root. Lucretius could not stop his etymological vein just short of Venus. When he writes (1.227) unde animate genus generatim in lumina vitae redducit Venus? (whence does Venus bring back the race of animals after their kind into the light of life?)”
— Monica Gale (2007), Oxford Readings in Lucretius (pg. 367)

The term “vis” is found in the semi-modern terms vis viva (aka kinetic energy) and vis mortua (aka potential energy).

See also
● Greek pantheon
● Mangnall’s abstract of Heathen Mythology

External links
● Venus (mythology) – Wikipedia.